Goldfinger

(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)

The Mission
Whilst lounging about in Miami, James Bond (Sean Connery) recieves a message from MI6 to keep an eye on card-playing entrepeneur Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe). Bond takes umbrage when Goldfinger kills a girl in retaliation for helping 007, and this leads to an investigation of the gold-loving tycoon's smuggling ring. Bond soon uncovers Operation Grandslam; a dastardly plan to detonate an atomic bomb inside Fort Knox with the help of communist China.

Jimmy Bond Yo!
Interestingly, Bond's predilection for women is depicted here as a weakness, and one that he is well aware of. Connery expands on this to give a more human performance than what we saw in the two previous films... he's visibly scared when a laser slowly creeps up the table towards his splayed groin (who wouldn't be?) and has to be pulled into line by M a few times when his emotions cause him to speak out of turn (it's worth noting that he's actually quite obedient when it comes to the chain of command). He also swaggers about in some very short shorts whilst in Miami, can play golf, and is particular about the finer things in life (such as what temperature Dom Perignon should be chilled at).

Villainy
There's a case to be made that Goldfinger is the first proper Bond film mastervillain. Dr No barely figured in Dr. No, and the villains in From Russia With Love were very much a collection of footsoldiers acting on behalf of SPECTRE. Goldfinger on the other hand is very much the centre of this film, Bond actively goes after him and a lot of screentime is given to him. He's introduced quite casually as a money-obsessed man with a taste for gambling (and a shameless cheater). He's later shown to be in league with a gallery of communists - Korean henchmen, Red Chinese business allies, and Cuban soldiers. Frobe portrays the character with a streak of slight petulance, suggesting a man who is used to getting what he wants.

Goldfinger also sets up the classic Bond-villain configuration of mastervillain and quirky head-henchman... here it's Oddjob, a faithful and surly Korean lackey armed with a deadly metal-rimmed bowler hat. He growls wordlessly throughout the film and proves quite the match in a showdown with Bond at Fort Knox.

Buddies and Babes
The improbably named Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) is the main Bond girl for this outing, and doesn't show up until the second half. She's Goldfinger's personal pilot, and she resists Bond's charms for most of the film (apparently the Goldfinger novel suggests that she's a lesbian... something that Blackman may or may not be channelling in her cocksure performance). She's certainly a more assertive woman in comparison to previous Bond girls, and is quite full of herself when it comes to her flying skills. She's also inappropriately dressed as far as her vocation goes, though it matches this film's lighter tone (in comparison to the seriousness of From Russia With Love).

The first half of the film also features (in succession) the sisters Masterson - Jill is one of Goldfinger's stooges (she famously dies due to an all-over gold paintjob), and Tilly is her avenging sister. CIA man Felix Leiter (previously seen in Dr. No) shows up but is played by a different actor, and Bond treats him as both a friend and valued colleague. Intriguingly, there are also a couple of mentions of an agent 008.

Locations
Quite the jetsetter, Bond starts the film out in Mexico before relaxing in Miami, returning to Britain, visiting Goldfinger's base in the Swiss Alps, and then heading back over to America. Most of the film's third act takes place in Kentucky - namely Goldfinger's horse farm and Fort Knox itself.

Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade
Bond finally gets his famous Aston Martin. It comes with bulletproof-windows, revolving numberplates, a global-tracking device, smokescreen, oil slick devices, machine guns, passenger eject seat and tire-shredding blades.

Bond also has a depository in his shoe where he can hide things. He infiltrates a Mexican drug cartel by use of scuba gear and a breathing apparatus disguised as a seagull that sits on his head. Amusingly, he strips off this scuba gear to reveal a pristine white suit underneath.

As quick and resourceful as ever, he gets the jump on a guard by pressing himself into the space above a doorway, and also spots an approaching killer in the reflection of a girl's eye.

Licence to Kill
Bond's first direct kill of the film comes before the titles sequence... after blowing up the Mexican base he electrocutes an assassin by throwing him into a bathtub. He later kills a car-load of Asian communists when their pursuing car slides on his oil slick and explodes, and finishes off his tally by electrocuting Oddjob inside Fort Knox.

Shag-Rate
Our man hooks up quite smoothly with Goldfinger's woman Jill Masterton (Shirley Eaton) quite early on in the film, and is more than dismayed when Goldfinger kills her for it. His main girl for Goldfinger though is Pussy Galore, who seems thoroughly uninterested in Bond at first. Eventually they shag in a barn after a bit of judo-tussling, and they later do the business again under a parachute in the forest.

Quotes
WOMAN (referring to Bond's gun): Why do you always wear that thing?
BOND: I have a slight inferiority complex.

BOND (after electrocuting his would-be assassin): Shocking. Positively shocking.

BOND: Sir, I'm aware of my shortcomings, but I'm prepared to continue this assignment in the spirit you suggest.

BOND: Do you expect me to talk?
GOLDFINGER: No, Mr. Bond - I expect you to die!

GOLDFINGER: Choose your next witticism very carefully Mr. Bond, it may be your last.

How Does It Rate?
After the relative realism of From Russia With Love, this film revisits the bigger and bolder leanings of Dr. No but with a much larger budget... this time we get lasers, atom bombs and gold-smotherings! The near-irrelevant pre-credits sequence in Mexico also sets the tone for the overall franchise, with Bond delivering delightfully ill-humoured puns and charming his way through danger.

Slickly directed and very confident, Goldfinger features more than a few rewarding touches... witness the helicopter zoom into a man diving off a high-board at a resort pool, the spectacular explosions, or even a bit where a horse neighs at just the right spot in a musical refrain (okay, I'm not really sure if this last one is intentional or not but it's definitely in the right key). The only weak point of the film would have to be the scene where Goldfinger explains his plan to some dopey American hoodlums and then proceeds to kill them all afterwards... it's an incredibly awkward and illogical piece of exposition that threatents to stall the whole film. Thankfully, everything else about Goldfinger is so fun and entertaining that it's fairly easily forgotten.

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DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
WRITER/SOURCE: Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn, based on the book by Ian Fleming.
KEY ACTORS: Sean Connery, Gert Frobe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee, Cec Linder

RELATED TEXTS:
- The book Goldfinger by Ian Fleming, the seventh James Bond novel.
- Oddjob was the inspiration for the spoof-character Random Task, featured in the first Austin Powers film.
- The scene where Goldfinger pins Bond onto a table for death-by-laser also inspired a similar sequence in You Only Move Twice, a Bond-parody episode of The Simpsons.
- The 1966 Italian film Two Mafiosi Against Goldfinger is a direct parody of this film.
- A scene in the more recent Bond film Quantum of Solace pays homage to the gold-smothering death in Goldfinger.

AWARDS:
Academy Awards - won Best Special Effects.
BAFTAs - nominated Best Art Direction.