Goldfinger (film)
Goldfinger is a 1964 spy film and the third instalment in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is based on the 1959 novel by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe and Shirley Eaton. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. The film was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The plot has Bond investigating the gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, who plans to irradiate the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox with a dirty bomb. Goldfinger was the first Bond film to take over $100 million, with a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. Principal photography took place from January to July 1964 in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States.
Goldfinger was heralded as the film in the franchise where James Bond "comes into focus". Many elements introduced in it appeared in many of the later Bond films, such as the extensive use of technology and gadgets by Bond, an extensive pre-credits sequence that stood largely alone from the main plot, multiple foreign locales and tongue-in-cheek humour. The film's release led to a number of promotional licensed tie-in items, including a toy Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys, which became the biggest-selling toy of 1964, and an image of the gold-painted Eaton on the cover of Life.
Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award and opened to largely favourable critical reception. The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in two weeks and grossing over $120 million worldwide. In 1999, it was ranked 70th on the BFI Top 100 British films list. Goldfinger was followed by Thunderball in 1965.
Plot
agent James Bond destroys a drug laboratory and electrocutes an antagonist in a bath in Latin America. In Miami Beach, Bond's superior, M, through CIA agent Felix Leiter, directs him to observe bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger at a hotel in Miami Beach. Bond discovers Goldfinger cheating at a high-stakes gin rummy game, aided by his employee Jill Masterson. Bond interrupts Jill and blackmails Goldfinger into losing. After an evening with Jill, Bond is knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant, Oddjob. Bond awakens to find Jill covered in gold paint, dead from skin suffocation.In London, M tasks Bond with determining how Goldfinger smuggles gold internationally. Q supplies Bond with a modified Aston Martin DB5 and two tracking devices. Bond plays a round of golf with Goldfinger at his country club in Kent, using a bar of recovered Nazi gold supplied to him by the Bank of England. Goldfinger attempts to cheat, but Bond tricks him into losing the match. Goldfinger warns Bond against interfering in his affairs, and Oddjob demonstrates his formidable strength, along with a steel-brimmed hat. Planting a tracker in Goldfinger's car, Bond follows him to Switzerland and meets Jill's sister Tilly, who tries to assassinate Goldfinger but is stopped by Bond.
Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's refinery in Switzerland and overhears him telling Chinese nuclear physicist Ling that he incorporates gold into the bodywork of his Rolls-Royce Phantom III to smuggle out of England. Bond also overhears Goldfinger mention "Operation Grand Slam" and encounters Tilly, who again tries to kill Goldfinger. An alarm is tripped, and Oddjob kills Tilly with his hat while Bond is captured, strapped to a table and menaced with an overhead industrial laser. Bond lies to Goldfinger that MI6 knows about Operation Grand Slam and Goldfinger spares his life. He has Kisch tranquilize Bond. Pussy Galore, a pilot, flies the captive Bond to Goldfinger's stud farm near Lexington, Kentucky, in a private jet.
Bond escapes his cell and witnesses Goldfinger's meeting with several American Mafia bosses, who have supplied materials to Goldfinger for Operation Grand Slam and have been promised $1 million each. The plan involves breaking into the US Bullion Depository at Fort Knox after incapacitating the troops stationed there. He promises to pay the criminals $10 million each if the scheme succeeds, but they ridicule his plan. One of them, Mr. Solo, demands to be paid immediately and leaves before the others are fatally gassed. Bond is captured by Pussy but attempts to alert the CIA by planting his other tracker in Solo's pocket as he leaves.
Oddjob kills Solo and destroys the tracker. Bond confronts Goldfinger over the implausibility of moving the gold and Goldfinger agrees. Bond deduces from Ling's presence that the Chinese government has provided a dirty bomb to irradiate the gold, making it unusable for decades. Goldfinger's bullion will increase in value and the Chinese will gain power from the resulting economic meltdown. Operation Grand Slam begins with Pussy's pilot troupe spraying gas over Fort Knox, seemingly knocking out the troops.
Goldfinger's private army breaks into Fort Knox and enters the vault as Goldfinger arrives in a helicopter with the bomb. In the vault, Goldfinger's henchman Kisch handcuffs Bond to the bomb. Unknown to Goldfinger, Bond persuaded Pussy to alert the authorities and replace the gas with a harmless substance. Goldfinger locks the vault with Bond, Oddjob and Kisch inside. When the US Army attacks, Goldfinger kills Ling and escapes. Oddjob throws Kisch off a gangway after he tries to escape the vault. Bond frees himself with Kisch's key, fights Oddjob, and eventually electrocutes him. Although Bond forces open the casing of the bomb, he is unsure of how to disarm it.
After killing Goldfinger's men, US troops open the vault, and a specialist shuts off the bomb just before it can detonate. Bond boards a jet to have lunch with the President at the White House, but Goldfinger hijacks the plane, tying up the crew in the hangar and putting Pussy in the cockpit. Bond and Goldfinger fight for Goldfinger's gun, which fires, shattering a window and creating an explosive decompression that blows Goldfinger out of the plane. Bond and Pussy parachute to safety. Leiter's search helicopter passes over the pair. Pussy tries to alert him, but Bond playfully declares, "This is no time to be rescued," and draws the parachute over them.
Cast
- Sean Connery as James Bond, an MI6 agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger. Connery reprised the role of Bond for the third time in a row. His salary rose, but a pay dispute emerged during filming. After Connery suffered a back injury filming the scene in which Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, the dispute was settled: Eon agreed to pay Connery 5% of the gross of each Bond film he starred in.
- Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as Pussy Galore's Flying Circus. Blackman was selected for the role because of her role as the skilled judoka Cathy Gale in The Avengers, for which she had received martial arts training. The script was rewritten to make Pussy Galore a judoka as well. The character's name follows in the tradition of other Bond girls' names that are double entendres. Concerned about American censors, the producers thought about changing the character's name to "Kitty Galore", but they and Hamilton decided "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and we were big supporters of the Republican Party." During promotion, Blackman took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning the character's name. While the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials and for the American market she was subsequently called "Miss Galore" or "Goldfinger's personal pilot".
- Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger, a wealthy, psychopathic man obsessed with gold. Orson Welles was considered as Goldfinger, but his financial demands were too high; Theodore Bikel and Titos Vandis auditioned for the role, but failed. Fröbe was cast because the producers saw his performance as a child molester in the German film It Happened in Broad Daylight. Fröbe, who spoke little English, said his lines phonetically, but was too slow. To redub him, he had to double the speed of his performance to get the right tempo. The only time his real voice is heard is during his meeting with members of the Mafia at Auric Stud. Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox whilst Fröbe's natural voice can be heard above. However, he was redubbed for the rest of the film by TV actor Michael Collins. The match is widely praised as one of the most successful dubs in cinema history.
- Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson, a Bond girl and Goldfinger's aide-de-camp, whom Bond catches helping the villain cheat at a game of cards. Eaton was sent by her agent to meet Harry Saltzman and agreed to take the part if the nudity was done tastefully. It took an hour and a half to apply the paint to her body. Although only a small part in the film, the image of her painted gold was renowned and Eaton appeared as such on the 6 November 1964 cover of Life magazine.
- Tania Mallet as Tilly Masterson, Jill's sister
- Harold Sakata as Oddjob, Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant. Director Guy Hamilton cast Sakata, an Olympic silver medalist weightlifter, as Oddjob after seeing him on a wrestling programme. Hamilton called him an "absolutely charming man", and found that "he had a very unique way of moving, in creating Oddjob I used all of Harold's own characteristics". Sakata was badly burned when filming his death scene, in which Oddjob was electrocuted by Bond. He, however, kept holding onto the hat with determination, despite his pain, until the director called "Cut!". Oddjob has been described as "a wordless role, but one of cinema's great villains."
- Bernard Lee as M, 007's boss and head of the British Secret Service.
- Martin Benson as Mr. Solo, the lone gangster who refused to take part in Operation Grand Slam. The surname Solo was re-used by Ian Fleming when he was briefly involved in creating the character Napoleon Solo for the American TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which led to a threatened lawsuit by Bond producers Broccoli and Saltzman, forcing Fleming to back out of the series.
- Cec Linder as Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA liaison in the United States. Linder was the only actor actually on location in Miami. Linder's interpretation of Leiter was that of a somewhat older man than the way the character was played by Jack Lord in Dr. No; in reality, Linder was a year younger than Lord. According to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money to reprise the role in Goldfinger, which led the producers to recast the part. At the last minute, Cec Linder switched roles with Austin Willis, who played cards with Goldfinger.
- Austin Willis as Mr. Simmons, a Miami tourist who falls victim to Goldfinger's gin rummy cheating scheme.
- Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny
- Bill Nagy as Mr Jed Midnight, the gangster whose contributions Goldfinger says helped smuggle the nerve gas across the Canadian border
Michael Mellinger portrayed Kisch, Goldfinger's secondary and quiet henchman and loyal lieutenant who leads his boss's fake Army convoy to Fort Knox. Nadja Regin played Bonita, a dancer who sets a trap for Bond in the pre-credit sequence. Burt Kwouk portrayed Ling, the Communist Chinese nuclear fission specialist. Richard Vernon played Colonel Smithers, a Bank of England official. Margaret Nolan played Dink, Bond's masseuse from the Miami hotel sequence. Nolan also appeared as the gold-covered body in advertisements for the film and in the opening title sequence as the golden silhouette, described as "Gorgeous, iconic, seminal". Gerry Duggan portrays Hawker, Bond's golf caddy.