Released: September 1964
Producers: Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzmann
Director: Guy Hamilton
Writers: Richard Maibaum & Paul Dehn
Plot:
James Bond is tasked with investigating Auric Goldfinger, a millionaire businessman who’s suspected of gold smuggling. Things take a turn when Bond is captured and discovers Goldfinger’s more complex plot to contaminate the US gold supply at Fort Knox. Can Bond charm Goldfinger’s personal pilot Pussy Galore in time to save the day? Yes. Yes he can.
Famous for:
Shirley Bassey’s balls-out theme song
The gold-painted Bond girl
The Aston Martin DB5 with ejector seat!
“My name is Pussy Galore.” “I must be dreaming”.
Oddjob and THAT HAT
Goldfinger is the film which crystallises what now automatically appears in our mind’s eye when we think of “Bond” movies: the girls, the gadgets, the henchman, the danger, the outrageously over-the-top plot, all encompassed by some iconic imagery and a knock-your-socks-off theme song.
But in its central villain, the pompous, greedy, devious millionaire with eyes only for gold and a devastating attention to detail, memorably captured by German actor Gert Frobe (with a vocal dub by British actor Michael Collins) is what elevates this cocktail to true flavour country.
“Is this an Orgasm?” “I wouldn’t know.”
In a series featuring a highly-sexed male hero, it makes sense that his male enemies would by and large be depicted as sexless.
There are exceptions: a few, like Emile Largo in Thunderball, Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun and Sanchez in Licence to Kill have unhappy mistresses; and then there’s Hugo Drax in Moonraker, a perv creepily keen on beautiful young people having sex with each other. In space.
But generally speaking, Bond villains are far more obsessed with power and projects than they are with sex. And none is more sexless than Auric Goldfinger, the eponymous villain of the third Bond instalment. The ridiculousness of his Fort Knox plan is in inverse proportion to his level of interest in base physical desires.
It is not so in Ian Fleming’s book - Goldfinger pays sex workers to be painted gold so he can “make love” to the metal - but like a lot of elements of that story, the screen version changes it for the better.
Film version Goldfinger doesn’t need the “human” part of the equation. He has two turn-ons: explaining meticulously-planned and over-elaborate criminal schemes to people he will immediately kill; and gold. He’s not so much A-sexual as AU-sexual.
Goldfinger is particularly eunuch-like: paying one woman to be “seen” with him in public so he looks like he’s a regular hornbag; and paying a lesbian to run the key technical part of his grand plan because clearly he knows who is capable and efficient (my apologies to any disorganised lesbians reading; however all of pop culture has led me to believe you are the exception to the rule). He also employs a mute henchman who’s probably unlikely to spill the beans on all those times he’s gone panhandling in the back of his Rolls Royce, if you know what I mean.
It makes me wonder what real-life Hungarian-British architect Erno Goldfinger would have thought of his alter-ego being portrayed as one big Oro-genous zone.
The story goes Fleming was inspired to name his villain after the architect upon hearing about his humourless nature and frequent rages. There’s also a rumour Fleming hated Goldfinger’s Brutalist style, which seems to have been as sunny as his temperament.
In his defence, Goldfinger’s work has been re-evaluated and many of his buildings protected, but also, you know, look, there’s definitely a vibe.
Certainly he threatened to sue Fleming once he got wind of the book, but Fleming’s retort was to offer to change the character’s name to Goldprick. Eventually Fleming’s publishers settled out of court, threw Goldfinger some free copies and the novel was published in 1959.
I, for one, hope Erno Goldfinger was somehow able to live with his onscreen interpretation - because it is one of the most enduring characters of the franchise and a big part of why this film works - despite weaknesses in its third act and some fairly problematic content:
Whereas Dr No displayed the repressed, clinical control of the scientist, Goldfinger has a blood lust for gold - and for any money that will allow him to buy more gold. He is reckless and cheats at cards and golf, and furious when Bond catches him out at both.
But he is crafty when it comes to his smuggling operation, and clever in quickly recognising Bond as a threat. He also executes a flawless villain interrogation scene, notable by the fact that it isn’t even an interrogation. After three suspicious meetings (the immortal Fleming quote “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action”) Goldfinger has simply decided to kill Bond in a creative and personally satisfying way - sacrificed on a golden altar with a piece of high tech new kit.
There’s an annual Viagra subscription’s worth of metaphor in the fact that Bond’s magical penis is the target of the laser.
It’s what “defiled” Goldfinger’s lady friend Jill Masterson in Miami, wrecking Goldfinger’s cheating cards streak and getting Jill covered in gold murder paint for her betrayal. It’s revenge for Bond’s Big Dick Energy on the Sandwich golf course, where he messed with a cheating Goldfinger and made him lose the contest for the bar of Nazi gold. You could even argue that it’s to show that while Bond might have a long, hard Aston Martin with an ejector seat, Goldfinger too has symbolic penis toys more than capable of slicing through flesh.
But also it has those killer “Do you expect me to talk?” “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” lines so maybe we shouldn’t get too Freudian.
Bond manages to wiggle his way out of extreme circumcision by creating doubt in Goldfinger’s mind about his effectiveness as a spy in reporting back to base (spoilers; he didn’t).
But I’d argue the laser did cut something - the film itself. For the rest of its running time, Bond’s agency is almost totally removed. He is knocked out, and when he wakes he is onboard Goldfinger’s private jet, staring into THIS FACE:
Again, another classic line, delivered perfectly by Connery. His Bond is never better than in Goldfinger, all swaggering machismo even in his neutered state in the second half of the film.
Taken to Goldfinger’s horse ranch in Kentucky as a prisoner, he’s effectively impotent. He is able to escape his cell and listen in on Goldfinger’s masterplan briefing to the mobsters, but after Pussy recaptures him, he effectively becomes someone Goldfinger can not only brag to, but make the cherry on top of his delicious plan flan.
Let’s talk about Goldfinger’s big erotic moment - his dastardly denouement in a room full of competing Mafia dons. Goldfinger has used them all to assemble the pieces of his masterplan, a scheme to contaminate the gold bullion supply at Fort Knox so his own gold stocks will rocket up in value.
He’s been working on this meticulously for 15 years. He’s gone so far to turn his entire rumpus room into a festival of moving parts designed to impress and intimidate those he chooses to share the plan with, brought to life of course by the brilliant mind of production designer Ken Adam:
One gangster, the appropriately-named Mr Solo, declines the offer to join Goldfinger and insists on leaving with his $1 million then and there. Bond manages to slip his homing device and a note into Mr Solo’s pocket on exit - to no avail as Oddjob kills Solo and has the car crushed. Which, by the way, is a Solo in a trash compactor 13 years before Star Wars.
But while Goldfinger is away from his pimped-out rumpus room, and despite the other gangsters getting keen on the scheme, Goldfinger has his offsider Kisch (the non-Oddjob henchman that you always forget about) SEAL OFF THE ROOM AND NERVE GAS THE MOBSTERS TO DEATH.
Like… why?
Fair enough, he wants them out of the way to avoid a) having to pay them what he owes, b) having to pay them a bigger share from the scheme, and c) having them squeal on his plan.
Then why the big rigmarole with announcing the plan?
Why not just gather the dons and gas them?
(Obviously yes, “it’s a movie”, but stay with me here).
Goldfinger is bursting at his portly buttonholes with excitement to show off in front of these established criminals. He’s spent 15 years forgoing any kind of base lust that would distract a lesser man to execute this perfect demonstration of his intellectual and technical superiority. He needs to see their faces, he needs to commit to memory every impressed gangster’s face, that the last moments of their lives were spent looking at him with both terror and respect.
He’s even fairly chuffed that Bond overheard his plan, as 007 has to acknowledge its genius. By the gods, Goldfinger must have Goldpalmed himself near death in his golden bed that night.
Oh wow, I think I just ruined my childhood.
So Bond’s role in the third act of the film is simply to be Goldfinger’s audience - including being tied to the Chinese-sourced dirty nuclear bomb inside Fort Knox, becoming the first and final witness to the execution of the plan.
Bond only has one other way of potentially changing the course of events. Luckily his magical penis is up for the job.
Yep, definitely ruined my childhood.
Please all bend the knee to our Queen Honor Blackman, aka Pussy Galore. That name makes her possibly the best known of the Bond women, but she’s rightfully remembered as simply kick ass. Pussy is a pilot, runs a flying circus, knows judo, can wield a gun, doesn’t take any shit from any man. Also: lesbian. And yet:
Look, it’s the Swinging Sixties. Maybe she just wanted to experiment with doing it with a man for once? Certainly Bond is a sharper and smarter option than anyone else hanging around Goldfinger’s dishonestly-named “stud” in Kentucky, where her literal roll in the hay with 007 takes place. Yes, she’s got her own stable of impossibly beautiful lady pilots, but as a boss, Galore would never compromise her integrity by getting chummy with staff. Or maybe, by our more enlightened understanding of sexuality, could Pussy be pansexual galore?
And issues with enthusiastic consent aside, the musical stings in the judo fight give us the subconscious reassurance that this is a playful bout between two equals. Except of course Bond uses his bodyweight and gravity to lower himself onto Pussy. Oh wait. I can’t work out if I’m repulsed or entranced. Man, sexual politics of the 1960s are complicated.
Your feelings on this sequence aside, it has one key effect that cannot be denied - it prompts Pussy Galore to change her mind about the nerve gas and switch out the canisters on her planes.
She obviously makes contact with Felix and a whole bunch of effort goes into preparing to foil Goldfinger’s plan the next day. But to avoid suspicion she remains with the madman, piloting him in on a chopper once his men secure Fort Knox (or at least think they have). She also pilots him out again once he realises the jig’s up and whips off his overcoat to reveal an American army uniform. You see, another detail you just know Goldfinger would have stroked a gold bar in satisfaction after dreaming up.
Bond manages to retrieve the handcuffs keys from Kisch’s dead body and get free in time to fight Oddjob. It’s one of the best sequences in the film, and shows off Harold Sakata’s presence as the Korean strongman. A Hawaiian-born wrestler with Japanese heritage, Sakata embraced the Oddjob role, even using the name as an unofficial middle name. He’d never acted before this film; but rather than his character’s mute-ness being a way to disguise that fact, it actually allows Sakata to embrace the malevolent glee of the character.
Again, Bond is unable to personally save the day here: moments from the dirty bomb exploding he goes to pull out a bunch of wires and see what happens, but an American expert flicks the off switch before he can do it. The countdown stops with “007” seconds to go - a cute little late insertion give Bond refers to having “three clicks” left.
Despite Felix Leiter telling Bond that it was Pussy Galore who helped them undermined Goldfinger’s scheme, we don’t see a follow-up conversation about where she might be now, or how they might get her away from Goldfinger’s clutches. Or even how they’re looking for Goldfinger, for crying out loud.
Instead Bond is hustled onto a private jet for lunch at the White House with the President, who at this point would have been LBJ. Now given some of the more seedy revelations about President, ahem, “Johnson”, the mind boggles at the kind of conversations these two would have.
But those reasons then become clear when it turns out Goldfinger has hijacked the plane carrying Bond, with Pussy Galore in the cockpit. Ahem.
Bond fights Goldfinger, and fires off the magnate’s golden pistol (because we have established that Goldfinger is nothing if not extra), blowing open a window and causing an air vacuum to suck the rotund ragamuffin to his doom.
“Playing his golden harp” is perhaps not the greatest of Bond puns when it comes to sassily summarising a villain’s death, but it’ll do.
The rest is simple - the pair parachute out of the plummeting plane and Bond chastises Pussy for attempting to draw the attention of aerial surveyors.
“This is no time to be rescued,” he says, planting another wet one on by the time a seemingly willing Pussy. Ahem, Galore. Oh god the innuendo.
So yes, while it does appear in this film that James Bond’s magical penis can overcome lesbianism, I would argue it’s a very specific skill and not universal. After all, he could work no charm on Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love, so that’s… something, right?
All I know is that Pussy Galore remains the Bond girl to beat when it comes to style, swagger and smarts. She’s the one with the Midas touch, not Goldfinger. He was just a messed-up gold fetishist with a pent-up need to monologue before murder. Not kink-shaming of course, just being honest.
To conclude, what about those other Bond babes, Jill and Tilly Masterson?
Their roles were rewritten and shortened from the books, with the interesting effect that those changes made Bond basically responsible for both sisters’ deaths in the film.
Still, having Bond in particular discover Jill Masterson’s gold-painted corpse created the ultimate visual for this film, and arguably of the series as whole: the beauty, the danger, the flair for the dramatic, and the original. Nobody had ever painted a golden girl before. But that image has been copied countless times since.
Thank you for reading this instalment of the James Bond Retrospective! If you enjoyed it, you can sign up to support the series and my other writing/podcasting efforts via my Patreon page. Thanks to all of you who are already members; your support is truly invaluable.
You can listen to the companion Raven Bond Goldfinger podcast here:
And Stu and I have begun ranking our films in order of preference. Here’s where we stand this week:
As a final aside: what were the logistics of painting Jill Masterson gold? That’s not a quick death. 007 must have had to have knocked unconscious for at least an hour while Oddjob subdued Jill, possibly by tying her up, stripped her, applied a primer coat, then the gold paint.
And he must have had to flip her from her belly to her back to get the whole body covered. And then, to make sure the skin “suffocated” - and to get that very shiny effect - you’d think he’d have to let it dry and go in with a second coat. I mean, was she conscious through this, or did he administer chloroform or clock her one to the head as well?
No wonder his name is Oddjob, he’s a dab hand with a brush and a tin of Dulux.
See you next time for Thunderball!