(Why is he called “Goldfinger“? Did he stick his finger into a gold pu-- never mind…)
CAST: Sean Connery, Gert Frobe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Harold Sakata, Tania Mallett.
DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
WARNING: SPOILERS and inappropriately-named women right up ahead…
My first exposure to the Bond franchise happened as a kid - when my Dad, an avid fan, would rent some of the older films and watch it with the whole family. Those movies were mainly the Sean Connery and Roger Moore ones, as I discovered the Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan ones later on my own. Hence, Sean Connery and Roger Moore are forever linked to the James Bond moniker for me - more Connery, though, as it is for most people. And the film that indelibly imprinted the Bond formula in my developing brain was GOLDFINGER. As a kid, I never questioned the propriety of a woman named Pussy Galore. It was only later than I realized the meaning behind the smirk on my Dad’s face. Ah, the stupidity of youth.
At any rate, our adventure opens with the requisite pre-title sequence that finds James Bond (Sean “The Man” Connery) infiltrating enemy territory using the super-sophisticated technology of…. wearing a fake duck on his head. For realz, people. I guess in 1964, this was the equivalent of a disappearing Aston Martin or an Omega watch that could shoot out high-tensile wire with a piton.
At any rate, Bond himself apparently senses how stupid he looks and quickly doffs the fucking thing. This mini-adventure involves Bond setting a building to explode right at midnight, then passing the time until his escape plane is ready to leave - by shagging a Latin senorita.
Except things don’t exactly go as planned, because said Latin senorita sells Bond out - and a Latin thug crashes her room to do him in. Fortunately , Bond expected this and manages to use the Latin senorita as a human shield - and subsequently electrocutes the incompetent assassin in her tub. “Shocking, positively shocking” he chortles as he leaves his Latin would-be lay with a major head-ache - and still horny.
Cut to a posh Miami hotel, where Bond is on another assignment. The massage given to him by some bimbo masseuse is interrupted when Felix Leiter shows up to debrief him (and by debrief him, I don’t mean the Hanes type of debriefing - that’s the bimbo masseuse’s job).
Turns out that Bond’s boss M wants him to monitor the activities of one Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), who is also staying at the hotel and obviously was not cut from the “sleek-attractive-urbane-villain” cloth that future Bond Villains would be from, but instead from the “fat-tub-of-lard-with-lots-of-money-villain” cloth.
Later, while watching Goldfinger play cards by the pool, Bond quickly deduces that the fat bastard is cheating by having someone on a high floor of the hotel spy on his opponent’s cards below. Bond forces his way into Goldfinger’s suite, where he finds Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) sprawled on the balcony with a high-powered telescope aimed right at Goldfinger’s card table.
Evidently, she’s been communicating his opponent’s hand via earpiece, and this what’s been leading to Goldfinger’s “success.” Bond quickly (1) puts a kibosh on this “fool-proof plan,” (2) advises Goldfinger via Jill’s microphone that he’s fucked, and (3) asks Jill about the nature of her relationship with Goldfinger. She responds by saying that she’s only paid to be seen with him - just to be seen.
Recognizing a world-class whore playing hard-to-get when he sees one, Bond promptly takes her back to his room to demonstrate there are many other fingers in the world besides the gold ones.
Unfortunately, the Bond-Jill tryst ends abruptly when a shadowy assassin sneaks into Bond’s suite and knocks him out. When Bond comes to, he discovers that Jill has been turned into an Oscar statue - that is, she’s covered from head-to-toe in gold paint and has somehow died because of this.
After he gets over the initial “Wow! That’s fucking cool!” reaction, Bond quickly deduces that Goldfinger is behind Jill’s death. Wonder that gave him that idea? The bitch only cost the Fat Bastard about $15,000 - which back then was the equivalent of $15,000,000,000. And as far as Goldfinger, if he was intending to deflect suspicion away from himself, suffice it to say… he failed miserably.
M (Bernard Lee) is furious over the fact that, once again, Bond let the mission take a distant second to his dick’s agenda. Bond, chastened, promises not to let this happen again. M, clearly having heard this shit one too many times before but realizing that his agent is played by Sean Connery, disgustedly tells Bond to get out of his sight. Bond is now intent on evening the score with Goldfinger, and tracks the fat bastard to Switzerland.
It’s there that Bond’s resolve to keep his pecker in his pants gets tested once again, this time in the form of Tully Masterson (Tania Mallett). If that surname sounds familiar, you’d be right in surmising that Tully is sister to the Oscar-statue-formerly-known-as-Jill. To complicate matters further, Tully wants revenge on Goldfinger, too. But before Bond can tell her to take a number - let alone nail her - Goldfinger’s henchman Odd-Job (Harold Sakata) breaks her neck with his bowler hat, leaving Bond with a serious case of Blue Balls.
Bond awakens to find himself on Goldfinger’s private jet. The first thing he sees - here it comes - is… Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), Goldfinger’s personal pilot - and with that name, presumably his own brand of entertainment at parties.
A little background on Pussy Galore: if you’re a bit put off by her name, please note that according to the Bond mythos, she’s supposed to be a lesbian, which makes her name completely appropriate. After all, what is a lesbian’s idea of heaven? Hmmmm?
Look at it this way - if one day the Bond franchise finally grows some balls and has a Bond villain that’s actually a gay dude - mark my words - he’s going to be called Dick Buffet. Or if they want a more exotic character, they can call him Schlong Extravaganza.
But I digress…. Back to Bond and Pussy. Pussy quickly makes it clear to Bond that he has zero chance of ever getting in her pants, so he might as well forget about it. Of course, being a lesbian, she doesn’t know something that all straight women automatically know: telling an incorrigible and unrepentant poon-hound that he has zero chance with you is like telling a starving pit bull that you have some doggie twists behind your back - but he can’t have any. In other words, watch out.
At any rate, Goldfinger’s private jet lands in the U.S., and Bond quickly finds himself transported against his will to… Kentucky. No, people, you didn’t read that wrong. This is a Bond film that takes place in Kentucky. I guess the world was a lot different back then. Somehow, I just don’t see that happening now.
Of course, there’s a reason that Goldfinger’s activities bring him - and, in turn, Bond - to Kentucky. You see, the Fat Bastard plans to detonate a tactical fission device (nuclear bomb to those of you don’t have your associate’s degrees yet) inside the Fort Knox gold repository, thereby contaminating the U.S.A.’s gold reserve for 58 years, thereby giving Goldfinger the corner on the market - making him the Cock of the Block, even if he looks like a plumper - if that’s possible - version of Santa Claus.
And, yes… in case you’re wondering, that’s why Bond had to come to the glamorous international destination of Kentucky. As I said, if they tried to remake GOLDFINGER today, I’m sure the studio executives would move heaven and Earth to transplant Fort Knox to someplace with a lot less twangy accents or bales of hay like, hmmmm, Monte Carlo.
Realizing that he must do anything to stop Goldfinger, Bond decides to solicit Pussy’s help - by seducing her, if necessary. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Pussy appears much more inclined towards her nubile fleet of female bimbo-pilots and would likely swallow Drano crystals before any man’s dick. So… to say that 007’s got his work cut out for him would be stating the obvious just a wee bit.
In one of Goldfinger’s stables, Bond puts his plan into action - which basically consists of throwing Pussy onto a pile of hay, kissing her forcefully, and basically behaving like that starving pit bull denied doggie twists. Let’s just say that if he tried to pull that shit today, he’d be spending a long time in a place where there are lots of bars, no windows, the well-behaved folks work in the laundry, and on Valentine’s Day he’d get a card that reads: “Roses are red/Bill Gates is Rich/If I give you some smokes/will you be my bitch?”
At any rate, Bond’s “pit bull” routine must have really rocked Pussy’s world - not to mention her, um, pussy - because after that she basically turns into Bond’s lapdog and alerts Washington D.C. in time to foil Goldfinger’s plan. Unfortunately, although 007 manages to kill Odd-Job (Thank you, Lord), the Fat Bastard himself manages to get away. Though he does make an encore appearance on a private jet carrying Bond and Pussy - just to prove that Fat Bastards don’t have to finish last.
Bond, on the other hand, feels differently and proves him wrong by busting one of the cabin windows - which leads to Goldfinger getting sucked right out of the narrow opening.
Folks, when I first saw this movie even as a kid, I knew there was no logical or scientific way someone as rotund as Auric “Blubber” Goldfinger could be yanked through that tiny of a portal, no matter how strong the pull. The whole damn plane would have been ripped apart.
I explained this to my Dad, and he said something sage and profound and sweet that I will never forget: “If it’s realism you want, watch the goddamn news. This is a fucking James Bond movie. Don’t you have homework to do?”
At any rate, the film ends in the way that all Bond films would soon end: Bond shagging the last surviving Bond girl and the end credits promising JAMES BOND WILL RETURN. Presumably, Pussy Galore didn’t come back in the next one because Bond discovered that lesbians stink at giving blowjobs. Sounds like a job for Schlong Extravaganza!
BUT, SERIOUSLY: While DR. NO officially started the series in 1961, and although FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE solidified the franchise’s clout, it’s GOLDFINGER that really set the standard and tone by which future Bond films would be judged.
Fun, breezy, and twisty, GOLDFINGER basically created the identity of the franchise. Some modern viewers may watch it now and scoff that it’s nothing special - the same way they mock Hitchcock - but here’s what I tell them: GOLDFINGER - like the Master of Suspense - did it first. It’s not too farfetched to say that this film also influenced mainstream action films as well.
Sean Connery, while terrific in the first two films, really hit his stride in GOLDFINGER. Light, yet serious… Confident, yet insecure where he needs to be… he truly brings the character to life in such a way that makes it difficult to see anyone else playing the role. To this day, ask anyone about who pops in their head the first time you say “James Bond” and they’ll likely say “Sean Connery, doofus.” Even younger folks who saw the Brosnan and Craig films before seeing Connery’s. That’s saying something.
The supporting cast is first-rate: Gert Frobe makes for a hissable and classic Bond villain. Honor Blackman rises above the ridiculousness of her name to successfully sell a character who is tough, smart and confident. The only weak note is her succumbing to Bond after sex. Kind of a cop-out. Would’ve been great to see her be a villainess who fights Bond to the end, a la Xenia Onatoppo or Elektra King. Harold Sakata makes for an amusing - and amusingly creepy - henchman.
Shirley Eaton and Tania Mallett make their marks in their relatively small, but memorable, roles. Eaton, in particular, will live on in audience’s minds as the gold-painted-to-death sacrificial Bond girl.
Setting a pretty high bar that only a few latter Bond films have been able to hurdle, GOLDFINGER is not only a classic Bond film, but a classic film - period.
