From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Goldfinger released in 1964.
Starring:
Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman
Directed by:
Guy Hamilton
Genre:
Action, Adventure, Thriller
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
PG
Budget:
$3,000,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
7.7
The Synopsis is:
James Bond has been sent on a mission to find out what international jeweler, Auric Goldfinger is up to after some gold has been unaccounted for. Unfortunately, Goldfinger’s plans are quite deadly.
Story:
James Bond was created by writer Ian Fleming who wrote twelve novels and two short-stories published between 1953 and 1966 (two years after his death).
Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli of Eon Productions got the rights to adapt the Ian Fleming novels. The studio released adaptations of Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963) both directed by Terence Young, starring Sir Sean Connery as the iconic playboy spy, James Bond, Bernard Lee as M, and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny.
Originally Thunderball (eventually released in 1965) was to be the first, second, and then third 007 Eon film, however the film was held up due to legal disputes eventually settled out of court to retain certain screen rights to the novel's story.
Terence Young worked on this movie during the early stages of pre-production, but he left the production after contract negotiations fell through. Guy Hamilton who had been offered the first James Bond film was brought in to direct and bring his unique talent to the franchise in its early stages.
Richard Maibaum co-wrote the previous films and returned to adapt this one and even addressed some of the criticisms about the plot that readers complained about in the novel. Paul Dehn and Wolf Mankowitz also contributed to the screenplay.
Together they wrote a story that kept the formula of the Bond narrative providing many moments of subtle surprise that I personally enjoyed.
Pacing:
At an hour and 50 minutes. It feels a bit long and uneven because there’s a lot of twists and turns that occur. The action in the story keeps you hooked in. It really worked for me, however if you are of the impatient sort, there are a few moments where it gets a little talkative for a while and there is a bit more exposition than you’d expect.
Challenge:
The titular character of Goldfinger was rumored to be originally based on Hungarian born architect Erno Goldfinger who was a part of the modernist architectural movement in the late 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.
When the architect found out about the book's use of Goldfinger as a Bond villain, he threatened to file a lawsuit against the publisher. Ian Fleming refused unless he could rename the character "Goldprick".
There have been other speculations that Goldfinger was based on a German spy who tried to rob the Bank of England during World War I at about the time Ian Fleming was a high-ranking officer in Naval Intelligence.
In the film, the international Jeweler, Auric Goldfinger, is our main villain. Auric is means “of gold”. Au is the atomic symbol for gold. It’s such a simple but cleaver detail.
At first it seems Goldfinger is probably the most tropey villain of all time, giving us a sense that he is simply a spoiled man child that wants what he wants, without a deep purpose. The opening title song sung by the incomparable Dame Shirley Bassey, gives us the most insight into his mind. He’s a dangerous man who loves gold… “only gold”.
You can easily assume that he is lighthearted and jovial. That makes it hard to take him seriously at first. He enjoys playing games, but the twist is that he must win at all costs.
In the opening scene we see him take his revenge on his informant, Jill Masterson because she helps Bond make him lose a card game. It seems quite petty.
Bond was the one responsible for making him lose the card game. Why does he let him live? Jill Masterson was made an example of what happens when a person betrays him to set him up as a danger. Goldfinger is not stupid enough to kill an Mi6 agent. He only wants to scare him. It’s only until he is pushed to it, that he finally decides to give the order to kill 007.
Goldfinger is one of the Godfathers of evil villain tropes as he was written to be theatrically enjoyable for the audience, but not very realistic.
He announces Operation Grand Slam, a masterplan to steal all of the gold from Fort Knox, to a group of the criminals he gathers. He even goes through an elaborate turn of events to kill one of these goons who opt out of the plan. However, it made no difference because he ends up killing all of the men a few minutes later.
Perhaps it was all a part of a sadistic plan to toy with them before killing them to test the efficiency of a toxic gas, however, it seems as if the entire scene was meant to just inform the audience and 007 what Goldfinger was up to. And there is yet another scene, where Goldfinger tells James Bond directly what he is planning. And what is he planning?
Being a jeweler he is able to smuggle gold out of England and America by melting it down and hiding it through customs. This could really change the world economy, but Goldfinger has a bigger, more dangerous plan.
He plans to use planes to kill thousands of people with gas, then detonate a radioactive device so that all of the gold at Fort Knox will be worthless for 58 years. This will increase the value of his own gold.
In the original novel, Goldfinger was going to steal the gold, but it was changed for the movie because criticisms of the book noted that it would be impossible to empty Fort Knox without getting caught.
Whether his character makes sense or not, I must say that the personality of Goldfinger was a pleasure to watch.
Of the villains in this movie is Goldfingers number one man, Odd Job is the guy for odd jobs! He is Goldfinger’s henchman, but also acts as his chauffeur, butler, and assistant in all of his devious matters.
He doesn’t speak much but he makes up for that by being incredibly intimidating and no nonsense as he crushes golf balls in his hands and uses his hat as a flying guillotine. Scary indeed. And these are exactly the kind of villains that a hero like Bond needs to give the audience a thrilling adventure.
One thing in particular that I enjoyed immensely was the music ques every time Odd Job appears on screen enhancing the intimidation of his character.
Empathy:
A little history on Bond is that he is an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. Every once in a while, he is referred to as Commander Bond in the series of films.
Gosh, in this film Bond is smooth. A bomb goes off and he's as cool as a cucumber. He’s the one who set off the bomb, but still he's the kind of smooth operator we all hope to be, regardless of gender.
At the start of the film Bond stops a heroin plant from secretly stuffing drugs into bananas and going global. Then his beautiful love interest, a belly dancer at a club sets him up to be murdered. Bond stops his attackers because he can see a reflection in the dancer’s pupils!
This was so creative that, with a slim likelihood to occur so ridiculous it was heavily parodied in Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me. However, this was Bond and he would have the skills to pull this off. Being a stickler for details is his specialty.
Bond is an alcohol expert and shows it off at any opportunity. It’s part of his job to know these details astutely.
Bond is a ladies man as usual, but you do feel as if he does have genuine chemistry with the women he encounters. He’s just that much of a charmer, but for Bond, many of the women he charms are for the purpose of getting closer to his target. He cares about them, and when they meet their end, you sense he’s just the more driven to stop the bad guy from victimizing others. You also get the sense that the deaths of the Masterson sisters in this film has put Bond in a personal vendetta against Goldfinger.
Personally, I have never had a problem with Bond being a “womanizer”. His line of work can’t afford him the luxury of falling in love.
Pussy Galore is his next love interest who is a smart tough business woman, not easily charmed by Bond.
In the novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian to make her impervious to Bond’s charms. In the movie, they don’t mention her sexual orientation, but she is all business, in hopes of retiring to an island when she has made enough money. She doesn't relax until her boss, Goldfinger, gives her the order to entertain Bond.
Ian Fleming based the character of Pussy Galore on neighbor, friend, and lover Blanche Blackwell. The "Pussy" name was derived from an actual agent, Pussy Deakin and also said to have been named after Fleming's pet octopus, the same octopus that inspired the title of the James Bond short story and movie Octopussy (1983).
Although she doesn’t dominate a lot of screen time, Pussy Galore goes down as one of the most impressive and complex female characters on screen in the Sean Connery era of Bond Films.
Technical:
The film took nineteen weeks to shoot at Pinewood Studios outside London, which accounts for some of the chroma key backgrounds of Miami beach in the beginning of the film. The technique was not mastered at this point, so it’s a little jarring when it is on screen, especially when there were scenes of moving objects in the windows of cars.
Technically, the film is a product of 1964. It isn’t filled with groundbreaking special effects, but what it does is use the tools that it has to tell the story.
You can see at certain moments that the film was sped up to keep the pacing, and you know what? I don’t mind that at all. There was something realistically gritty and basic about the fight scenes. It’s not over the top with flips or wild floating kicks, but it conveys the physical conflict of being in a fight.
In the novel, Bond rides the Aston Martin DB3, but the studio purchased and featured an updated version of the car, the Aston Martin DB5. Based on the response of sales after the film, future Bond films had a tradition of giving us a glimpse of the coolest luxury cars emerging on the market that was gifted by various car corporations.
Other product placements in this film, include Dom Perignon champagne, Rolex watches, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Corgi Toys.
We all love the revolving license plate effect and the idea came from Director Guy Hamilton, who received a parking ticket and wished he could change his plates.
A hilarious detail, to fill out some of the scenes, some of Pussy Galore's all-woman Flying Circus were played by men wearing blonde wigs.
Also, this was the first appearance of a laser beam in a movie. So I guess, yes, there was a groundbreaking special effect in the film.
The map scene is quite memorable and helped to set the routine for villain exposition monologues in future films. It’s an impressive scene with a wonderful miniature replica of the Fort Knox repository. It was so accurate, that Goldfinger's 3-D model map is now housed as a permanent exhibition at the real Fort Knox.
Now let's talk about that wonderful title song, Goldfinger, sung by Dame Shirley Bassey. It was a truly magnificent song, I often bellow in my shower. It has so much drama in the orchestral horns and drawn out lyrics telling us about our villain.
It was the First Bond film to feature a title song that plays over the opening credits and really set the tone of the film. Sir Michael Caine was the first person to hear John Barry’s completed score for this movie, being a house guest at the time.
John Barry said it was "the first time I had complete control, writing the score and the song." Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley were asked to create the lyrics for the iconic theme song. When Dame Shirley Bassey recorded the theme song, she was singing as the opening credits were running on a screen in front of her. In order to match the vocals she was forced to hold the note until she almost passed out. The technique worked to create an epic moment in the finish of the song and helped the album to become a number one hit on the U.S. charts for three weeks.
Performances:
I loved the performances in this film, by everyone.
This was the first Bond film where sir Sean Connery wore a toupee, and to be fair he said that he first started going bald at twenty-one. His salary rose in this film as well after he suffered a back injury. He was able to negotiate a percentage of the gross on his Bond films.
The producers wanted Orson Welles to play Auric Goldfinger, but Welles was too expensive, however when they hired Gert Fröbe began arguing over his salary (he wanted ten percent from the movie's earnings), prompting the producers to wonder whether Welles would have been cheaper after all. Gert Fröbe was chosen after seeing him in the German thriller, It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958). Gert spoke very little English, so British actor Michael Collins dubbed most of his voice. However Gert’s voice can be heard in a few scenes adding to the authenticity of the performance.
Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were so determined to get Honor Blackman for the part of Pussy Galore that they added her judo abilities written into the script. Honor Blackman quit her role as Cathy Gale on The Avengers TV show (that aired 1961-1969) to appear in this movie. In 1965, the show made a reference to this by featuring a Christmas card sent from Cathy Gale from Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Honor Blackman was the oldest actress at the time to play Bond's love interest, being thirty-nine-years-old at the time of filming and five years older than Sir Sean Connery. I felt that was empowering when I was a little girl watching the film and even now as an adult she’s even more inspiring. She was one of two Bond girls older than the actor playing James Bond (Sir Sean Connery). The other is Dame Diana Rigg, who is one year older than George Lazenby (from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)). Maud Adams, who was thirty-eight when Octopussy (1983) was released. In 2015, reports surfaced that the record would be broken by fifty-one-year-old Monica Bellucci in Spectre (2015). However, Bellucci's role was just a cameo, and the character didn't get romantically involved with Bond.
In Bond Girls Are Forever (2002), Honor Blackman stated that she believed that Pussy only believed she was a lesbian because Goldfinger abused her pretty badly, and Bond's charm got her in touch with her actual heterosexuality. During promotion, Honor Blackman said that she took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning her character's name. While the American censors did not interfere with the name in this movie, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials, and for the U.S. market, she was subsequently called "Miss Galore" or "Goldfinger's personal pilot." Honor Blackman authored a book titled "Honor Blackman's Book of Self Defense", published in 1965.
The role of Oddjob was the first screen role for Japanese-American weightlifter and professional wrestler Harold Sakata.
Shirley Eaton played Jill Masterson and was essentially the face of the film, being that the visual of her character painted gold was iconically marketed. She was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl, who also worked as dialogue coach to Gert Fröbe. For that iconic visual, Shirley Eaton underwent two hours of make-up application. The author Ian Fleming had borrowed the notion of someone being suffocated to death by being covered in gold paint from the horror movie Bedlam (1946).
It's in this movie that Q's character really clicked. Director Guy Hamilton advised Desmond Llewelyn to play the character with a little humor and it created a delightful fun bickering tension between Q and Bond. This was also the first appearance of the Q-Branch workshop and its gadget testing gags creating more depth for Q as a character in the franchise.
Best:
I love the various flipping map miniatures, flipping license plates, gadgets and the adventure of Bond’s mission. It really helps to sell the fantasy.
There are so many iconic moments in the film that are so unique to the tale yet are copied and parodied over and over.
I also adored the portrayal of Pussy Galore. Although we could have a little chuckle about her name, she was a business woman with a very organized troop of pilots that had the double of being a male fantasy and a female empowering fantasy as well at the time.
And speaking of the time, the film acts as an excellent time capsule for the 1960’s giving us a grand visual of the height of style and luxury of the age.
The Ending:
The ending is a bit of a quick flash ending loaded with a lot of action, which is a little shocking because it isn’t through out. It comes as a bit of a shock and a bit of confusing to keep up with what is happening. However, it all leads up to a happy ending.
Wish List:
The death of Jill Masterson is played for shock value and it’s visually dramatic. According to the film, her death was caused by skin asphyxiation. Many people point out that this is improbable in real life, with good cause. I mean, what the heck are our noses and mouths for. However, one can say that in this Bond universe it’s true, since Bond has had many iterations over the years. It can still work, but a simple poisoning would have been more believable.
I also wish the film had a better way of Pussy Galore loosening up her guard to get romantic with Bond than the way that they portrayed it in the film. It borders on cringey. He definitely physically forces his way on her until she succumbs. It was a product of its time. It’s tricky, but I wish it could have been done with more clever charm.
I would have loved to have known as to why Odd Job was willing to die for Goldfinger, because his actions to pose a threat to Bond until the end is irrational. I wish we had an explanation for that.
Enjoyment:
Goldfinger was received well at the time of release.
This movie was so popular, that some theaters were holding showings twenty-four hours a day to meet demand and was the fastest grossing movie when it was released which entered it into the Guiness Book of World Records.
This won the first Academy Award for a James Bond movie for Best Sound Effects by Norman Wanstall.
This movie is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list. In 1999, it was ranked number seventy on the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Films of the 20th Century. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
It was actually the first Bond movie to be shown on U.S. television, on Sunday, September 17, 1972, earning the highest Nielsen ratings for a single movie on television up to that time. Forty-nine percent of the nation's viewers tuned in that night, and ABC, which showed the movie, retained the exclusive commercial U.S. television rights to the Bond film franchise series for the next twenty-eight years.
My first time seeing the film was on TV some time during the 1970’s as well as many of the other Bonds movies of the time. It was great. I also had the benefit of my Mom being a fan of the franchise and bonding with me while watching the film because when she saw this Bond film, she was a teenager seeing this larger than life handsome secret agent. It was a really sweet love of the franchise she passed on to me.
My Rating:
8.7
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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