GOLDFINGER | The Movie That Made James Bond

as a boy in 1964 when I left Ireland it was the first film I ever saw it was magic it was Goldfinger it was unbelievable a naked lady covered in gold paint it was just share magic and the man you know odd job with the hat and everything I sheer sophistication you know life changed for me which one is your favorite James Bond movie and why gold finger I think is my favorite James Bond movie um I love doctor know but it was sort of where Shan connory became the James Bond that we know and love what is there to say about Goldfinger that hasn't already been said it is quite simply the movie that made James Bond what it is today and redefined spy movies forever I mean this is the movie that gave us Desmond Lan's queue and the Aston Martin DB5 complete with an array of iconic gadgets it gave us the Sensational title song by Shirley Bessie and the accompanying score by John Barry it gave us the beautiful sequence of bond and Tilly Chas and Goldfinger through the Swiss elves it gave us kid Adams massively ambitious sets one of which housed probably the best interrogation scene not just in bond but in all of Cinema it also gave us one of the most interesting Bond girls of them all along with the most famous henchmen of the series and of course one of the all-time great Bond villains no Mr Bond I expect you to die it managed to be both a faithful adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel while also improving on that book's shortcomings and of course of course it's led by the one and only sir sha connory at the absolute peak of his tenure as 007 even though it is only the third film in the series all of this and more is why Goldfinger is widely regarded as one of if not the best of them all almost every scene has some sort of iconic moment and it is undoubtedly the James Bond movie that had the biggest impact on Cinema and popular culture it redefined action movies launched the wave of spy movies akin to the Deluge of superhero movies were got in the 2000 and went on to be parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to The Beatles that's as better as listening to The Beatles without hum so much of what people think of when they think of James Bond comes back to this movie and to this day it Remains the standard against which all other Bond films are judged but and I know this will land me in some sort of bond fan prison but it is not perfect in the same way Goldfinger represents the definitive example for all the good things about James Bond movies so too does it represent some of the bad things about James Bond movies mainly the fact that some aspects of them have not really aged very well and the way in which a lot of them start to come apart in the third act sir I'm aware of my shortcomings but despite its flaws goldfinger's Legacy cannot be overstated it is more than just the James Bond movie it is the James Bond movie and it stands alongside Classics like psycho and Star Wars as movies that revolutionize their genres and Cinema as a whole even if you're not a James Bond fan Goldfinger is still essential viewing if you want to understand the history of Western Cinema so in its 60th anniversary year let's take a look at Goldfinger and explore how it took the James Bond series from being a popular British spy series into a global cinematic sensation the likes of which the world had never seen anything else well I won't keep it for more than an hour or so if you give me your undivided attention work on the Goldfinger movie had begun while From Russia with Love was still being made Dr No had been a Smash Hit andon were confident that its followup would generate enough interest to Warrant another Sequel and so they gave it a budget the size of the first two Bond movies combined and once again hired screenwriter Richard mayal to adapt one of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the book he chose was of course on Her Majesty's Secret Service but producers cubby Brockley and Harry Saltzman wanted the next Bond movie to be released in 1964 only a year or so after From Russia with Love And since a large chunk of omss would have required filming in Switzerland during the winter the filmmakers realized that they wouldn't be able to make the production Arrangements work in time to film it there and still meet their target release date and so Goldfinger was chosen instead to become Bond movie number three like From Russia with Love before it Goldfinger is a relatively faithful adaptation of Fleming's novel of the same name which was first published in 1959 the broad flow of the story is the same in both versions Bon foils Goldfinger in Miami before getting briefed by m and the bank of England about his gold smuggling operations he plays the villain in golf follows him to Switzerland where he is apprehended taken to Kentucky and finally stops the Fort Knox plot but unlike from Russia with Love the Goldfinger movie also makes a number of creative departures from its source material almost all of which I consider to be improvements we'll come back to those but by way of example most of the second half of the book involves Bond performing mundane secretarial tasks for Goldfinger people who insist on going back to ultra faithful adaptations of Fleming never quite appreciate how much those books involve bonds sitting behind a desk somewhere moaning about paperwork but anyway Goldfinger does represent the starting point of the Bond films decoupling themselves from being just direct flaming adaptations and turning into something with their own identity give or take a giant squid Dr No is a pretty direct adaptation of the book while From Russia with Love changed that book's structure but otherwise it stands alongside omss and Thunderball as the most literal flaming to film adaptation Goldfinger showed an increasing level of confidence by Eon Productions to take what worked from the Fleming books and add their own spin on it they didn't want bond to be just classic Espionage movies they wanted them to be bigger more Fantastical action Adventures That Could appeal to children and adults alike and they weren't alone in this Shan connory himself admitted in various interviews at the time that while he respected the author he wasn't particularly worried about being faithful to Fleming I've only read two of the book one and a half of the books I've read two of the books is it very faithful script to to Fleming's original novel I have never read the novel I only read about three of them I read uh Thunderball cuz that was the first one we're supposed to do uh Live and Let Die and uh from Russia would love why have you not read the rest I don't really know can you imagine a Bond actor saying this today hell can you imagine any actor playing any literary role admitting that he had barely even read the books the character was based on but for me this just highlights the fact that so much of what we tend to associate with the character of bond came from connory not Fleming in the books Bond tends to be fairly Direct in his speech his inner monologue is often grumpy judgmental and patronized he knows what he likes food gambling cars women and to hell with anyone who thinks otherwise now we do see a lot of that in the movies as well of course but in my eyes the literary Bond lacks a lot of the wit charm and sense of humor that his cinematic counterpart has and so he just comes across as well someone who probably wouldn't be very fun to be around that's not the case with Connor's James Bond and it never was like Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones or Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark connory and bond were the perfect harmony of character and actor right from their first appearance by the time Goldfinger came around he was so firmly established in the role that it was impossible to imagine anyone else playing Bond no wonder it took two attempts to replace him the early Bond movies were successful because Shan connory carried them and a huge part of how he did that came down to the fact that he understood that these stories had an element of the Absurd to them my name is [ __ ] Galore that must be gaming so he saw it as his job to bring the audience along with him to encourage them to embrace that absurdity spend their disbelief for a moment and above all to have fun in the first instance I felt that there was a lack of humor about them and um when I raised this point with Ian he was uh quite surprised because he felt he was quite humorous he was as a as a man humorous Ian himself but in writing the cat Bond he wasn't and that was one of the first things that one had to do was to um UE a a humorous aspect therefore one would get a a sort of upbeat ending to scenes and situations therefore they could acknowledge and accept the violence if it had a Humoresque quality I mean Ian Fleming himself even once said that he thought the films had too much humor in them to which Richard mayal retorted that was in fact his intention now before I get lasered in half by flaming fans here I do like most of his Bond books I'm not criticizing them I'm just pointing out the ways in which Shan connory and The Wider creative team behind the movies took what Fleming had written and changed it to both work for the screen and to appeal to a wider audience but mayal did not adapt Fleming's novel alone he worked on several drafts alongside another writer called Paul Den who had been hired by Harry Salzman after the producer rejected May bomb's first draft at First the movie was written as a very direct adaptation of the novel with only some small changes here and there in a recent book which he has made freely available Bond geek clemont futry meticulously archives the scripting process for every Bond film for Goldfinger clemont details the way in which the drafts of the treatment and script slowly change details and scenes from the novel to the movie we'll come to these changes as they relevant but the slowly evolving nature of how Goldfinger was adapted from the novel to the final movie shows us how in these early days of the series there was still a sense of trying to find the right formula and tone for the Cinematic Bond now onto the third movie in their series Eon were increasingly leaning into both the Cinematic potential of bond as well as Conor's portrayal of the character but something else that marked the evolution of the Bond film series was the choice to bring on guy Hamilton as the Director young had directed the first two Bond movies and is also largely credited with helping connory to find the character but with two successful bonds behind him he wanted to move on to other things and so the producers bought in Hamilton he shared many of Connor's views around what the tone and style of the film should be and that attitude is on display right from the start of the movie if we could do the precedit sequence uh which is a wonderful piece of nonsense if that makes you laugh let's all now after the credit titles go for a great big ride and have fun consistent with the two films before it and the 17 that would follow up to Casino Royale we open with the gun barrel although like in the first two movies stuntman Bob Simmons is in the crosshairs not connory himself but we open on a Sinister looking industrial plant of some sort and then out of the Shadows a duck yep the definitive James Bond movie starts with Bond sneaking into a base with a snorkel disguised as a duck and if that doesn't make you laugh then I don't want to be your friend but this scene was a very significant Innovation for the series because it is the first true incarnation of the bond pre-title sequence From Russia with Love had experimented with this but it didn't feature the real James Bond and was very much treated as a means to establish the villain here both guy Hamilton and the screenwriters wanted to jump right into the movie with a short Adventure completely unrelated to the rest of the series now technically the adventure is adapted from Fleming but only Loosely the novel opens with a Broody Bond reflecting on a job in Mexico that had resulted in him having to kill someone but the bond in this chapter is in a dark mood as he often is pondering his culpability and guilt over killing someone in the line of duty it actually has a lot more in common with the opening scene of Casino Royale made you feel it didd he but to open the Goldfinger movie dan and mayal wanted a different tone from the novel and so decided to show Bond on that mission and unlike the book they chose to show Connor's Bond as the unflappable Smooth Operator that we know and love neither approaches wrong but the Divergence between the book and the movie is a clear example of how the filmmakers saw the character compared to Flaming the decision to start the movie like this would firmly establish the pre-title sequence as a fundamental part of the Bond movie formula from this moment onwards they would go on to be among the most recognizable and beloved aspects in all of bond and have also been the single most consistent aspect of the series it even survived the formula shakeup of the Daniel Craig films unlike the gun barrel and watching the Goldfinger scene you can see why he sneaks into the base plants explosives and then escapes and unzips his wet suit to reveal a perfect tuxedo into which he plants that oo iconic Carnation then he goes off to watch a dancer and calmly lights a cigarette to the exact moment of the explosion the calm almost boarded War he gives he while surrounded by the Panic is just pure connory as is of course the fact that he's shacked up with the dancer but of course there's a fight and it's a surprisingly brutal one that ends with Bond electrocuting the man to death and leaving with the most classic of bond quips shocking positively shocking that line the suit the duck the whole sequence is just a perfect representation of everything we love about the Cinematic James Bond and Goldfinger delivers us that in 5 minutes before bringing us into the bond song to end all Bond songs gold finger in case you haven't already worked out I'm going to be using words like iconic a lot in this video because well it's just true in the same way Goldfinger set the standard against which all future Bond films are measured so to did Shirley Bassie set the standard for what a bond song should be I heard that and I just got Goose pimples here longtime Bond composer John Barry wrote the piece complete with its Anthem likee brass notes and the sleazy tones that are just such a perfect match for goldfinger's personality but it's the soaring voice of Shirley Bassie that gives it a life of its own the man with t like the pre-credit sequence using the song over the opening titles as another Bond Hallmark that can be traced back to this movie Dr No used the title sequence after the gun barrel set to the bond score while from Rush of the love used a melody of the title song but not the full version Goldfinger gave us the bond song as we know it today where for a few minutes the singer becomes the star of the movie and then as pretty much every subsequent Bond composer would John Barry wo the song into the score of the entire film giving a consistent musical flavor to the story that could be traced back to those openings titles now Goldfinger is hardly my favorite Bond song but somehow it still manages to capture everything we love about the music of bond and every time you hear those opening notes you can't help but be swept up in it after the song we find bond in good hands in Miami where he Rendevous with Felix lighter played in this movie not by Jack Lord from Dr no but by Ces Linda and here we find another recurring feature of the bond series recasting Felix in pretty much every movie now this pretty much always happened for behind the scenes reasons in this case Jack Lord wanted more money and co- billing with connory but it's always been a funny qu of the Bond movies that pretty much everyone else remains consistent except for Felix anyway Felix delivers Bond message from him instructing him to keep an eye on gold finger we'll come back to good forer's portrayal of the villain soon but this is another case of the movie improving on the novel In the book bond is approached by an old acquaintance and asked to figure out how Goldfinger is cheating him only for bond to return to London and by complete coincidence be tasked to investigate him it's much neater for the Spooks to just be interested in Goldfinger from the start now I'll say two things about this scene the first is that Ian Fleming visited the set while the scene was being filmed there are some great photos of him Shan connory and Shirley Eaton on the excellent thunderballs photo archive website which is where I sourced most of the still images in this video from because these scenes were pretty much all filmed on a set in Pinewood they only shot a tiny handful of wide shots and this one on location in Miami the rest is just an indoor set and some rear projection and you totally can't tell at all but sadly Ian Fleming never got to see the finished production just a few weeks after his visit to the set he died on the 12th of August 1964 at the age of just 56 Fleming had enjoyed the early success of the first two Bond films but would never witness the sheer Bond Mania that swept the Western world after Goldfinger came out [Applause] the second thing I'll say about this scene is that Shan connory must be the only man in history who can pull off a short one piece Romper made out of baby blue towel linen anyway the Miami sequence is the perfect Showcase of how connory managed to subtly inject humor and charm into each scene like when he breaks into goldfinger's room with nothing but a charismatic smile and ridiculous doses of confidence that's Mr Goldfinger sweet yes I know there he finds Jill masteron helping Goldfinger f a win by spying on his opponent's cards besides inexplicably renaming her character from Master tin to master sin this is straight from the book but of course the movie has this who are you Bond James Bond this has to be one of the best examples of the catchphrase in the entire series I know that first one from Dr No gets all the credit but to me this is Connor's finest version of the line and he says it while wearing a short one piece Romper made out of towel linen amazing anyway in classic Bond fashion he foils the villain's scheme by brazenly revealing himself now hear this Goldfinger your luck has just changed and also in classic Bond fashion he been seduces the girl I'm beginning to like you Mr Bond what an else are we going to do about it but as he goes to retrieve another bottle of champagne he's knocked out guy Hamilton wasn't afraid to show Bond getting hurt beaten and captured he wasn't afraid to make our hero vulnerable and out of all the connory Bond movies I think Goldfinger is the best example of the way in which he is constantly placed at a disadvantage every time bond gets a win over Goldfinger Goldfinger gets a win over Bond because when he awakes he goes into the next room and sees of course it is such a defining image of the series that even the bond Cannon itself would go on to directly reference it but as iconic as the golden girl is Connor's face and silence conveys so much here especially when we contrast that with the cheekiness and humor from his earlier scenes part of Conor's strength in the role was the way in which he could suddenly Harden like this pivoting instantly to show the darker side of the character when it was called for she's covered in paint gold paint Bond returns to London and is told to meet him later that day after which we have the treat of seeing Shan connory and Lois Maxwell on screen together you come around for dinner and I'll cook you a beautiful angel cake here like in all of their movies their flirting in chemistry is just electric and I wish the scenes that they shared were longer money Penny won't you ever believe me moving on and we get the obligatory Exposition dump about Goldfinger and M instructing bonds to investigate how he's smuggling gold out of the UK but first he's told to report to Q Branch thank you morning Desmond lellan is an absolute staple of the series who with just one exception appeared in every single Bond movie from 1963 to his death in 1999 more than any other actor director writer hell even producer Desmond was the most constant and enduring presence of the entire ire series and I think his portrayal of Q was a no small part of what made these films so successful even now his final scene is one of the more emotional moments of the series always have an Escape Plan like so much of bond that all started here he had appeared in From Russia with Love Of course giving Bond his a tach a case but it's a fairly generic role the character doesn't have anything to work with he's just there to deliver some Exposition in Goldfinger guy Hamilton wanted to shake that up and actually give q a personality and a dynamic with bonds similar to the Rapport he had with the likes of am and money Penny and this is where Hamilton made arguably his biggest contribution to the entire bond series because at first lellan planned to play Q as kind of being an a of bond like the audience after rehearsal I was working at a desk and bond comes in and I got up to greet him and I thought well but this is bond this is James Bond and I'm just as ordinary civil servant I must admire him like everybody else does but Hamilton refuted that completely and guy said no no no no you don't take any notice of this man you don't like him he doesn't treat your gadgets with any respect at all what a fantastic choice that was it was a decision that would form the basis of the character for the next six Decades of Bond films and it's another example of guy Hamilton understanding the need for bond to get called out for his [ __ ] every so often he swaggers around as king of the world but when he's in Q's lab Q wants nothing more than to get rid of him Bon's relationship chef and dynamic with M money Penny and Felix would change and evolve depending on the actors and the story but the exasperation and impatience Q has for Bond would never change and I absolutely love it I never joke about my work7 this scene set the template for all the other Q Branch scenes showing off some ludicrous background gadgets just for the sake of pure spectacle and then having Q walk Bond through his various vehicles and gadgets and of all the gadgets and all the cars and all of bond have we ever really topped to this and engaged and fire the passenger ejector seat the DB5 is introduced like a movie star in its own right which to be fair it is the car was largely Modified by special effects Legend John steers the same John steers who designed the lightsaber besides the ejector seat all of the gadgets were built into the real car and function as they're shown in the movie the decision to use the Aston was partly based on the fact that in the book Bon swaps his Bentley for a DB Mark iiii something acknowledged in the movie where's my Bentley oh it's head it's day I'm afraid it sounds crazy now but as and Martin were reluctant to let the production use their car at all not being convinced it would lead to an increase in sales of course it went on to become one of the most successful examples of product placement in movie history anyway Bond leaves Q branch and arranges to bump into Goldfinger at the golf club and it's in this scene that we get our first real sense of one of the most enduring and formidable villains bond has ever faced gold finger G fober was a German actor who was more or less unknown to English speaking audiences until this movie came out at first cubby and Salzman wanted a more famous actor like auson Wells to play the villain but he was too expensive and so they screen tested cheaper faces like Theodore ble and Tito vendis among others but it was after the producers saw fr's performance in a German movie that he was invited to play the part but there was a problem when he arrived on set yes he's the perfect Goldfinger does he speak English yeah I spoken to his agent he speaks English GT fober arrived day one on the set how do you do I'm very happy to meet you that was all right then I talked to him and I realized he didn't speak a word of English so fr's entire performance as Goldfinger is dubbed by the English actor Michael Collins oh no let's be quite too loud it wasn't my performance it was G fr's Performance let's say it's like a crossword puzzle Mr frobe had all the answers he knew all the answers produced them pretty well but his vocal pencil was blunt and I just went in and outlined what he'd said now after the movie came out Collins was recognized to some extent for his role in making Goldfinger such an iconic villain but it's a Nuance that I think has been lost over time partly because he has never even credited in the movie itself now you might think it sounds a bit strange that such a major role could be done in this way with the dubbed actor not getting any credit I mean both David prous and James L Jones were credited for portraying and voicing Darth Vader respectively but a decade and a half earlier when Goldfinger was being made it was much more common even for leading roles to have separate voice and phys IAL actors in the early Bond films almost all of the bong girls voices are dubbed and usually by actress Nikki van deril who like Collins also went uncredited for her work voicing iconic roles like honey Rider Domino and Solitaire she even did the voice for Shirley Eaton's character in Goldfinger with some notable exceptions like Lois Maxwell honor Blackman and Diana rig it was very common at the time for bomb's leading ladies to be cast primarily based on their looks rather than their overall acting ability but it was more Uncommon for male actors to get the same treatment but in goldfinger's case it really worked what makes Goldfinger so memorable is the way in which the physical performance by froba and the dub from Collins match up so perfectly frer is a formidable physical presence who flips between goldfinger's amiable public face and his Sinister darker angry side with complete ease Collins meanwhile absolutely Nails the accent and the timing as well as capturing the inherent air of superiority that Goldfinger brings to every situation choose your next wi theism carefully Mr bondit may be your last we'll come back to the laser scene of course but we see a lot of this during the game of golf now golf is hardly a cinematic or exciting Sport and yet this scene is just so intriguing because of the stakes involved this is something that's lost on you when you read the book The Golf Scene in the book goes on for such a long time with Fleming describing in detail every single stroke and shot over the course of about three chapters the filmmakers knew the scene wasn't about the game itself but about Bond confronting Goldfinger and I just love it when ever Bond teases the villain and makes it obvious how much he's enjoying himself doing so oh bad luck you're in the rough but when the game is over we get one of the all-time great Bond villain lines many people have tried to involve themselves in my Affairs unsuccessfully the threat is backed up by odd job's head slicing hat a feature of the bond series just as famous as any of the gadgets Bond himself used and one that gets parody just as much who throws a shoe honestly now the character of OD job ism a mute Korean but he was played by Japanese American actor Harold sakata he was an Olympic weightlifter who won a silver medal for the USA in 1948 before taking out wrestling Goldfinger was his first acting job and it's a testament to his physicality that a silent character with only a few minutes of screen time would leave such a lasting Legacy on the bond series every subsequent tough guy Bond henchman would try to live up to odd job but besides perhaps Jaws none of them are as memorable as sakata crushing the golf ball like that was another absurd flourish by director guy Hamilton that shows how his approach to bond helps to find the tone of the series Shan hated this because he thought odd job squashing a golf ball was ridiculous because nobody can squash a golf ball and I'm trying to say but that's the whole point case in point it is yet another thing Goldfinger did that went on to be directly referenced by a future Bond movie anyway Bond places the tracker on Goldfinger Rolls-Royce and follows him to Switzerland and is this sequence the single best non-action scene in all of bond I think so it's absolutely beautiful watching the Aston and the rolls cruise through the fura pass connory shows us the boredom he is feeling at the tedious nature of the journey when [Music] suddenly I love Connor's reaction here we know with just a look at his face that he had loved nothing more than to race after the pretty girl in the Ford but he thinks twice disciplin it's such a great little moment showing us Bon's character his boyish enthusiasm but also his professionalism and commitment to the mission not to worry though in Golden Eye he had finally get to have his race against the next girl who's that the next girl after being shot at Bond chases the girl in the Ford who we later learn is Tilly masteron played by English actress Tanya Mallet who fun fact was considered for the role of Tatiana in From Russia with Love Tilly is the sister of Jill and is hunting Goldfinger in order to get revenge for her sister's death Tilly is another small but memorable role in Goldfinger in the book she's a major character who accompanies bond for much of the adventure but the character only appears in two scenes of the movie but nonetheless she makes an impression she is focused independent and determined and also refreshingly uninterested in bond in the novel she is written as a queer character who falls in love with [ __ ] Galore now whether or not she is coded as queer in the film is open to interpretation but the fact is she is one of the very few Bond girls to appear alongside Shan connory and not shack up with them so after dropping her at a gar the two are shortly reunited in the woods near goldfinger's Factory bond does some classic spy work and sees the roles being melted down revealing how Goldfinger was smuggling his gold out of the country he also overhears Goldfinger mentioning operation Grand Slam before encountering Tilly who is attempting once again to kill Goldfinger but she triggers an alarm and at last we get the car chase where we get to see the gadgets in action but as fun as they are they're not enough Bond's captured and oddjob kills Tilly as she tries to run away Bond's brought back into the factory but we know that that there is one final gget that hasn't been used ejector SE you're [Music] joking I never joke about my work7 after a Chase around Pinewood Studios Bond crashes and is again taken captive and he wakes up in one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history do you expect me to talk no Mr BN I expect you to die bond has absolutely nothing to rely on no gadgets no allies nothing connory makes us feel Bond's worry and his panic in this moment and like his moments of sadness it works so well because we're used to seeing him being so cool and unflappable when bond is genuinely scared like this we cannot help but feel the same way and no one does that contrast better than connory I think you've made your point Goldfinger thank you for the demonstration but in the end of course bond is ultimately successful as in the book Goldfinger realizes that Bond will be more useful to him alive than dead and so decides to bring him along as his prisoner so after being knocked out again Bond wakes up in a private jet to the sight of Honor Blackman and the most ridiculous Bond girl name of all time my name is [ __ ] Gore that must be dreaming besides connory himself honor Blackman was the most famous member of the cast having been a lead in the popular British TV show The Avengers which has nothing to do with Marvel and right from the moment she introduces herself she absolutely owns this role she's almost daring the audience to make fun of her and the name which even though it comes from the novel was a different difficult thing to get past the American sensor uh every now and then travelan who was our big enemy said you can't say that I said come on John uh I mean if an 11-year-old understands he's a dirty little bugger and and um what are you going to do about it believe me 90% of the 11 year olds it will go sending over their heads if the dirty little bugger understands then um he's in advance of his years and you can't protect him in the book [ __ ] is one of the gangsters Goldfinger recruits to help with operation Grand Slam but from very early on in the script she was changed to be goldfinger's pilot instead like Tilly [ __ ] is an openly queer character in Ian Fleming's novel but unlike Tilly the film definitely suggests this more explicitly for [ __ ] you can turn off the charm I'm immune anyway we'll come back to her because Bond needs to order his famous drink for the first time Martini shaken not sred and so we arrive in Kentucky and it's here for me that the film starts to go downhill a bit I know I have been gushing about this movie for the last half hour or so but that's because in my view the first half of Goldfinger is about as good as Bond ever gets almost every single scene has an iconic moment and it just flows so beautifully from scene to scene as we get carried Along on this glamorous International Adventure that all stops dead in Kentucky which besides not being a particularly cinematic location especially compared to say Switzerland it's also where the story slows right down Bond arrives here about an hour into the movie and in that time we have had the opening the song Miami and the golden drill scenes with the m money Penny and Q the golf game the furka pass and meeting with Tilly the car chase the laser interrogation and the meeting with the Bond girl the second half of the movie another 50 minutes is all spent in this one place and the time is not used anywhere nearly as effectively I think when most people talk about how great Goldfinger is they're thinking of the first half more than the second so let's get into it Bond's locked but naturally he escapes with nothing but his wits now this is a funny scene but it is intentionally funny unlike the scene where Goldfinger is briefing all of the mob bosses on operation Grand Slam which is accidentally funny now I know these characters are supposed to be stereotypical 60s gangsters but I just love it how anytime anything happens in the scene they all react like they're in a family gu skit what's going on here what is the Flor what is this hey but can set is enough to distract us from all of that Adam had of course made his mark on Dr no but his work was notably missing in From Russia with Love because Stanley kubri wanted him to do dror Strange Love instead but now he is back in fine form giving us a set for goldfingers ranch that is totally different from anything in Dr No while also being immediately recognizable as his work also fun fact that that little model of Fort Knox in the center is now permanently on display in the real Fort Knox anyway Bond over here's goldfingers plan to gas the area around the bank and break into into the Vault with his laser but he's caught by [ __ ] while Goldfinger having explained his plan proceeds to kill all of the gangsters except one solo Survivor who takes his money and leaves and then we have probably the single most pointless scene in all of bond where we spend the next 5 minutes watching odd job kill the gangster and dispose of his body by having the car crushed and plunked on the back of another car pretty much in real time this whole sequence drags on and on and on and at the end of it absolutely nothing has changed all of the gangsters is still dead Felix still doesn't know anything about goldfinger's plan and bond is still captured it's an example of how the flow of the movie just completely changes in the second half the scene was totally unnecessary but even if the filmmakers felt like it was needed there's no justification for it being this drawn out but I think this is kind of the fault of the movie's stretch production timeline it came right down to the wire withon insisting on their tag release date and not budging hell these were the Final Shots filmed and they were taken just 3 weeks before release future omss director Peter hunt was working furiously on the edit with guy Hamilton who said that even if they had had another week or so it might have been a tighter film in the book some kind of hero Hamilton reflects on how he and Hunt showed what they thought of as a rough cut to cubby and Saltzman every 5 minutes we would look at each other and Nod because we'd see a trim it's awful when you know what would improve it and there were sections where more than a trim was needed the lights came on and cubby and Harry say yeah we like it we got a picture and we burst into tears if only I had had another week so having this context does help explain why the second half isn't as tight as it could be but the fact is that it does impact the overall quality of the finished product anyway we have another excellent scene between connory and Goldfinger where Bond figures out goldfinger's plan and in doing so also fixes the biggest plot hole in the Flaming novel the original story has Goldfinger planning to break into Fort knock with a bomb and actually steal all the gold the screenwriters wanted to change that and connory is given lines that explicitly State why 15 billion in gold bullion waste 10,500 tons 60 men would take 12 days to load it onto 200 trucks I think this is a great bit of adaptation it's acknowledging The Source material but also explaining why they have changed it and the new plan is so much more Fish Bond works out that Goldfinger doesn't want to steal the gold but instead wants to detonate a nuclear bomb inside the fort KNX Vault making the US Gold worthless while his own stocks will Skyrocket and value it's such a devious Bond villain plan and I love how the scene shows Bond slowly working it out and Goldfinger barking in his own Brilliance the reason the dynamic between Bond and Goldfinger is so good in this movie is because screenwriter Richard mayal knew that this was the core of the movie he described it like this whereas Dr No was a mystery and From Russia with Love was a straight suspense story Goldfinger is what I would call a dual Bond versus Goldfinger it is not I repeat not a story about a robbery it's such a good way of approaching this story and resisting the Temptation for the heist to overshadow the deeper theme flaming story focuses much more on the heist itself like this portion of the book sees Bond and Tilly working as secretaries for Goldfinger as he puts the finishing touches on the plan with Bond trying to figure out a way to warn Felix about it before it's too late there are lots of really exciting scenes where James Bond does things like copy out meeting agendas anyway after being dismissed Bond and [ __ ] are reunited once again Goldfinger have instructed her to keep him busy to throw off any suspicions Felix and the CIA might have that bond is in danger the chemistry between connory and honor Blackman is evident throughout all of their encounters despite the fact that they mostly consist of [ __ ] Being Fit up with Bond and bossing him about who taught you Judo the gun you took but this brings us into some pretty uncomfortable territory because we've arrived at one of the most contentious and hotly debated scenes in all of bond so if you'd rather not listen to a discussion about sexual assault then skip ahead to this time because it's pretty hard to read the scene in any other way and look I'll be the first to acknowledge that a lot of things in the James Bond movies haven't aged that well but they're reflective of attitudes at the time the movies were made and for that reason I tend not to dwell on them too much in these videos because For Better or Worse they are part of the history of the series and of society as a whole but this scene is a rare example of something that was not acceptable even at the time the movie was made this scene can't just be thrown into the basket of casual sexism of the 1960s like say this uh man talk he they come back because this is the only time where Bond uses his physical strength to literally force himself onto a woman who is actively resisting him there are other instances in bond where the consent is murky or where there was an element of coercion involved with the power Dynamic but it's always had a relatively playful undercurrent that made the consent fairly clear even if this isn't necessarily how modern audiences would interpret some of those scenes now the tossing about in the hay is kind of presented in a playful fashion but it is clear that [ __ ] does not see it this way especially when you consider the fact that she is a queer character and it's especially clear that [ __ ] is not just playing around when she actively tries to push him off her and not let him kiss her by any definition this scene shows our hero using his physical strength to force someone into sleeping with him and there is a word for that and even by the standards of the 1960s it is absolutely not the sort of thing a character like James Bond should be doing and because of that this scene ends up being the focus for much of the discussion about the character of [ __ ] Galore which is is a shame because she is one of the all-time great Bond girls and is so much more than just this moment now it's a complete cliche at this point for every single Bond girl on the press dret to say that her character is not like the other Bond girls very different different from the other Bond girls it's sort of a relationship that's sort of more up toate and more developed it's a little bit different with my character so I don't think they would ever they ever thought about me oh Bond girl she's a very complex being right she's totally unlike a lot of the other Bond lead leading ladies in that way she's not like what you can expect from a born girl she's a she's more of a real character but that Trend actually started all the way back in 1964 because at that time [ __ ] really wasn't like the other Bond girls iconic as they are honey Rider and Tatiana were relatively passive characters whose involvement in the story centered entirely around bond [ __ ] meanwhile is effectively number two to Goldfinger she's a core part of his operation and a leader of her own team who has a complete Arc and purpose complete independently of bond and instead of becoming immediately Smitten by him or finding herself dragged Along on his Adventure against her will [ __ ] consistantly confronts challenges and rejects Bond she's even a match for him physically at first the power Dynamic is totally different from her two predecessors and it is really what makes her stand out as such a memorable character oh and it's a small point but she's also one of the very few Bond girls to be older than the Bond actor she is appearing alongside which was pretty Progressive for 1964 and let's not forget that in the movie she is the one who saves the day not Bond and [ __ ] she HED to switch the gas and the canisters by the way what made her call Washington and this is kind of true in the book as well but it's probably the one change the filmmakers wrote that made this story worse in the book Goldfinger convinced [ __ ] that they were only stunning The People guarding Fort Knox when she discovers the truth that he planned to Kill Them All She switches sides in the movie however the reason she decides not to gas thousands of people to death isn't because she had a moral Awakening but instead got swayed by the sheer power of Shan Connor's heterosexuality I must have appealed to a maternal Instinct and to be fair to the bond series the very next movie would explicitly call out this particular plot Point James Bond who only has to make love to a woman she repents it and immediately returns to the side of right and virtue anyway let's move on to the finale of the movie where operation Grand Slam falls into place we see the Flying Circus release the gas and take out the soldiers defending Fort Knox and this is another example of scene that could have done with a bit more of an edit the gessing takes a fairly long time during which time we see dozens of extras do a really convincing job of falling unconscious now we could have conveyed this in maybe two or three shots but no let's make it four 5 6 7 8 n 10 shots again I think if Peter hunt had had more time in the edit Suite he' have tightened this up because the earlier scenes like the car chase and the Switzerland sequence haven't got a wasted frame in them something similar happens when Goldfinger breaks into for knot it should be a cool explosive and exciting scene but said that the whole thing plays out pretty much in real time with everyone putting on gas masks then driving off and down the road and down another road and around the corner then up the driveway until finally they get to the gates but then we slowly unload the explosives lay them down at the gates delicately put the firing Cable in reel it out connect it to the plunger then we blow them up finally we're in but no let's drive calmly up to the door slowly reveal the laser then back up the truck then slowly cut open the vault door with it then rig up some chains then attach them to the door and after 5 minutes of screen time we're inside oh and the whole time there's basically no dialogue but instead we have [Music] this it's not John Barry's strongest work but thankfully once we get inside Fort KNX the movie returns to form this Cathedral of gold is the set Ken Adam has said he is the most proud of and you can see why this towering Vault forms the backdrop of the movie's finale where Bond and oddjob are locked inside while outside a huge gun battle begins because the American soldiers had only faked their death to lure Goldfinger in this would become another Hallmark of the bond series with the ending being a confrontation between Bond and the villain or henchmen set against the backdrop of a big cinematic shootout Bond's fight with oddjob is such a fantastic piece of film making and once again shows the way in which guy Hamilton always tried to put Bond at a disadvantage this is not someone he can beat in a straight fight he is totally vulnerable and there's the add attenion from the literal tick and clock that Peter hunt makes sure we constantly cut back to but when Bond picks up OD job's hat it is the one moment where we see the henchmen show fear but Bond misses and the hat is lodged in the railings and in a moment of pure Ingenuity he electrocutes the bars just as odjob grabs it shocking positively shocking meanwhile Goldfinger and his army have been fighting off the Americans outside Goldfinger escapes disguised convincingly as an American officer who speaks with a thick German accent he's one of them so the girl I get her you get it all open Felix and the Gang get into the Vault all the while as the bomb ticks down to zero in the final seconds bond is about to risk it all when they reach him and diffuse it leaving the counter of course on7 because cubby Brockley made the now obvious call that a three-digit timer in a Bond movie that starts with two Zer should end in seven not three as originally planned but it does make Bon's quip a bit of a continuity eror three more ticks Mr Goldfinger would have hit the jackpot bond gets onto a private jet to be congratulated by the president and we get one of my favorite Bond Felix interactions I told the St is Lor for three who are the other two oh there are no other two and it wouldn't be a Bond movie without a bit of contrivance because unnown to all of these people Goldfinger has taken out the real crew of the plane and is waiting for Bond on board Bond of course takes it in his stride oh congratulations on your uh promotion Goldfinger the Close Quarters fight between the two ends with the window being shot out and Goldfinger being sucked into outer space just as Bon had foreshadowed earlier in the movie if you fight at this close range the bud will pass through me and the fusel eyes the cabin will depressurize will both be sucked into outer space together you might call it chck off's Golden Gun Bond and [ __ ] managed to escape from the crashing plane and bond being Bond he would rather get on with her than be rescued besides om MSS every Bond movie until Casino Royale would end like this and I just love how neat it is the plot is foiled the villain is dead and bond gets the girl there's no need for an epilogue or a debrief the story and movie is done and so we just pan away roll credits and as ever we are left with the promise that James Bond will be back brilliant Goldfinger is not a perfect movie and it's not even my favorite connory bond that title goes to From Russia with Love but it is undeniably the single most influential movie in the entire B series its midest touch colored every single Bond movie that followed and its DNA is woven into the very fabric of the series in a way that no other Bond movie ever matched 60 years later and parts of Goldfinger are still among the best James Bond ever was but the key to the longevity of the series is the way in which it managed to grow adapt and improve upon the formula that this movie laid down a formula that along with the perfect combination of cast crew director and writers made golinger one of the most important movies not just in the bond series but of all time well now what do we have here if you've been following me on later box then you'll know that a cinemar in London is reshowing all of the Bond movies in chronological order throughout the year I am planning to see every single one of them because for most of them it'll be my first time getting to experience them on the big screen and after I've seen them all as they were meant to be seen at the end of the year I'll be publishing a video ranking all 25 on Bond movies over on on my patreon so feel free to sign up there where there are some other bonus videos and more or just follow me on later box if you want some sneak previews of my thoughts on each Bond movie as I rewatch them thank you for watching and thanks to my patrons for keeping the videos sponsor free for everyone as always pentex is James Bond video essays will return

Channel: Pentex Productions

Views: 205,083

Keywords: James Bond, Sean Connery, Goldfinger, James Bond video essay, Goldfinger analysis, Goldfinger DB5, Goldfinger trailer, Goldfinger laser scene, Goldfinger Honor Blackman, Goldfinger Sean Connery, Sean Connery James Bond, James Bond analysis, Goldfinger opening, Goldfinger Shirley Bassey, Pentex, Pentex Productions

Id: 8O-etPkNrk8

Length: 46min 48sec (2808 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024