GOLDFINGER (FILM)

'''Goldfinger''' is a 1964 British spy film. It is the third film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Sean Connery as the MI6 agent. The main cast was rounded out by Honor Blackman and Gert Fröbe. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The film is generally regarded as the first official Bond blockbuster as well as being the template for all future Bond films; it is usually credited with triggering what is known as the "James Bond craze". The film made cinematic history when it recaptured its production costs in record-setting time, despite a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. ''Goldfinger'' was also the first Bond film to use a pop star to sing the theme song during the titles, which would follow for every Bond film since except ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service''.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Vehicles and gadgets

Production

Casting

Soundtrack

Release and reception

References

External links

Plot

In the pre-title sequence, James Bond destroys a Mexican drug lord's base with plastic explosives, and defeats an assassin sent to kill him by throwing him into a bath of water and knocking in a domestic heater to electrocute him; as he walks away Bond murmurs "shocking...positively shocking". The main story begins in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.A., with CIA agent Felix Leiter delivering a message to Bond from M to watch Auric Goldfinger. Bond foils Goldfinger's cheating at gin rummy, by distracting his employee, Jill Masterson. After blackmailing Goldfinger into losing, Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship in Bond's hotel suite. Bond is knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant Oddjob, while Jill is covered from head to toe in gold paint and succumbs to epidermal suffocation (a fictitious cause of death).
In London, Bond learns that his true mission is determining how Goldfinger transports gold internationally. He plays a high-stakes golf game with his adversary; both men cheat (Goldfinger cheats first), but Bond is better at it and wins. Goldfinger warns Bond to stay out of his business by having Oddjob decapitate a statue with his steel-rimmed top hat. Undeterred, Bond follows him to Switzerland, where he unintentionally foils an attempt by Jill's sister Tilly Masterson to shoot Goldfinger.
Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's plant and overhears him talking to a Red Chinese agent about "Operation Grand Slam". Leaving, he encounters Tilly as she is about to make a second attempt on Goldfinger's life, but accidentally trips an alarm. During their unsuccessful attempt to escape, Tilly is killed when Oddjob breaks her neck with his hat. Goldfinger has Bond tied to a gold table underneath an industrial laser, which slowly begins to slice the table in half. But Bond lies to Goldfinger that British Intelligence knows about Grand Slam, causing Goldfinger to spare Bond's life until he can determine how much the spy actually knows.
Bond is transported via a private aircraft flown by Goldfinger's personal pilot, Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), to Goldfinger's Kentucky stud farm, near Fort Knox. He escapes and witnesses Goldfinger meeting U.S. mafiosi, who have brought the materials he needs for Operation Grand Slam. Bond is recaptured, but has learned enough to deduce that Goldfinger intends to irradiate the U.S. gold supply stored at Fort Knox with an "atomic device" so as to render it useless for almost 60 years, thereby greatly increasing the value of his own gold holdings.

Goldfinger intends to kill Bond by having him cut in half by an industrial laser.

Operation Grand Slam begins with the women pilots of Galore's Flying Circus spraying lethal nerve gas over Fort Knox to dispatch the garrison, though Goldfinger had told Galore that the soldiers would just be rendered unconscious. However, Bond had earlier seduced her and persuaded her to contact the CIA who had replaced the poison with a harmless gas. Informed about this, the military personnel of Fort Knox ingeniusly act dead. Goldfinger's Chinese agents gain entry to the vault. Bond is then handcuffed to the atomic device and lowered into it. The forces are surrounded by the personnel and wiped out, but disguised as a US colonel, Goldfinger escapes. In the vault, Bond unlocks his handcuffs, kills Oddjob, and vainly tries to deactivate the atomic device till a specialist who had been accompanying Leiter runs in and stops the countdown at seven seconds; the timer indicates "007".
With Fort Knox safe, the American President invites Bond so as to thank him. Bond boards a Lockheed JetStar for Washington D.C., but it is hijacked by Goldfinger. In a struggle for the latter's revolver, it fires, shattering a window; Goldfinger is sucked out. Bond rescues the pilot Galore, and parachutes safely onto a beach.

Cast

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore

★ 'Sean Connery' as 'James Bond (007)': A British agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger.

★ 'Honor Blackman' as 'Pussy Galore': Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as the Flying Circus.

★ 'Gert Fröbe' as 'Auric Goldfinger': A wealthy man obsessed with gold.

★ 'Shirley Eaton' as 'Jill Masterson': A girl who, using binoculars and a radio, helps Goldfinger cheat at cards.

★ 'Tania Mallet' as 'Tilly Masterson': The sister of Jill Masterson, she is on a vendetta to avenge her sister.

★ 'Harold Sakata' as 'Oddjob': Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant.

★ 'Bernard Lee' as 'M': 007's boss.

★ 'Cec Linder' as 'Felix Leiter': Bond's CIA liaison in the United States.

★ 'Lois Maxwell' as 'Miss Moneypenny': M's secretary.

★ 'Desmond Llewelyn' as 'Q': the head of Q-Branch, he supplies 007 with a modified Aston Martin DB5.

Vehicles and gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles, List of James Bond gadgets

Aston Martin DB5

Production designer Ken Adam worked with special effects supervisor John Stears to overhaul the prototype of the Aston Martin DB5 coupe, Bond's first company car. Pneumatic mechanics were used to simulate machine guns hidden behind the front turn signals; smokescreen and oil dispensers were fitted behind the rear signal lights (though they had to be removed to emplace a large bulletproof shield in the rear of the vehicle); revolving licence plates were fitted in the front and rear bumpers (a feature developed by the film's director); a tire-slashing apparatus that was meant to extend from a wheel depicted to have been a feature of the actual vehicle, was actually a separate rig filmed in a studio; the front passenger seat was turned into an ejector seat, operated by a compressed air mechanism that could be fired by a hidden button in the gearshift. All of these features were created and installed in the course of six weeks.
Other features – including front and rear projecting overriders for ramming other vehicles, a weapons tray hidden beneath the driver's seat, a nail chamber fitted behind the rear signal lights to dispense clustered spikes, and a radio telephone concealed behind the driver's door paneling – were added to the DB5, but were not used in the film. However, in the woods behind Goldfinger's factory, Bond uses a Walther P-38 instead of his PPK which probably came from the weapons tray. The P-38 he has for a short period later in the film was taken from a guard that he overpowered.
Bond is issued two homing devices by Q Branch. The first, the larger, is used by Bond to track the villain's Rolls-Royce to his base. The second is smaller and allows MI6 to track Bond's whereabouts; it is hidden in the secret compartment in the heel of one shoe.
The car-ferry airplane is an Aviation Traders Carvair, an aircraft that was built for transporting automobiles and well-off passengers. Only 21 Carvairs were ever built and therefore it is relatively unknown. Modern viewers may not be surprised at this airplane, which may superficially appear from the nose-bulge to be the well-known Boeing 747. However the 747 was not conceived until 1965, and did not fly commercially until 1970. The aircraft flown by Pussy Galore's Flying Circus are Piper Cherokee 180s, a common training and touring aircraft.

A Lockheed JetStar similar in size and appearance to that used in the film

The first Lear Jet had not yet been sold when this film was released, and the Lockheed JetStar used in the movie as both Goldfinger's jet and the government's jet, was still very new, so the idea of Goldfinger owning a private jet was quite novel in 1964. Interestingly, when Goldfinger confronts Bond in the jet near the end of the film, someone can clearly be seen behind him as he emerges from the back of the plane. This person does not enter in to the action that ensues and was probably a stage hand.
Lasers did not exist in 1959 when the book was written, and they were a novelty in 1964 in the movie; this may be the first film appearance of the device (it is even referred to as an "industrial laser", which surely did not exist yet in 1964). The Bond set uses a scaled-up prop which visually suggests the original 1960 Theodore H. Maiman ruby-crystal laser, complete with coiled external flashlamp (see laser for history), and the beam is red. However, in the movie the laser beam is continuous, which is never the case with the 1960 flashlamp design. Reportedly the film prop actually used a low-powered helium-neon continuous beam gas laser, but the beam didn't show on the film, so it had to be added as an optical special effect. The effect on the table is simulated by a welder cutting through it from below with an oxyacetylene torch.

Production

''Goldfinger'' was the first Bond film with the budget to showcase unique technology that became a staple of the film series. ''Goldfinger'' had what was then considered a large budget of $3 million, and was the first James Bond film classified as a box-office blockbuster.^[1] Richard Maibaum, who had adapted two of Ian Fleming's novels for the first two Bond films – ''Dr. No'' and ''From Russia With Love'' – returned to adapt the seventh James Bond novel for the screen, accompanied by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Paul Dehn.
Principal photography on ''Goldfinger'' commenced on January 20 1964 in Miami, Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel. Sean Connery never traveled to the United States during filming; his entire performance was filmed in Europe – primarily at Pinewood Studios where portions of the Fontainebleau were recreated in April 1964. Fleming visited the set of ''Goldfinger'', but he died a few months later in August 1964 shortly before it was released.
Several scenes were filmed on location; for instance, the golf club scene was shot at Stoke Poges Golf Club in Buckinghamshire in May 1964. The scene in which Tilly Masterson attempts to snipe Goldfinger was filmed near the Pilatus Aircraft Factory, Stans and Furka pass.^[2] The evening car chase in which Bond uses some of the gadgetry of his Aston Martin was filmed at Black Park, Buckinghamshire.
For security reasons, the filmmakers were not allowed to film inside Fort Knox, though exterior photography was permitted. All sets for the interior of Fort Knox were designed and built from scratch at Pinewood Studios. A letter from the real-life controller of Fort Knox complimented Ken Adam and the production team on their imaginations. Principal photography was completed in late August 1964.
The opening credit sequence, as well as the posters for the advertising campaign, were designed by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn. Actress Margaret Nolan, who was featured in the film as Bond's masseuse at the Fontainebleau Hotel, modeled for many of the posters and was also used as the golden woman in the credit sequence.

Casting

Gert Fröbe was chosen to portray the villain Auric Goldfinger because producers Saltzman and Broccoli had seen his performance as a psychopathic child molester in a German film. Since Fröbe spoke English with a thick accent, his performance was dubbed over with the voice of actor Michael Collins. Honor Blackman was selected for the female leading role of Pussy Galore partially due to her fame from her role on ''The Avengers''. Concerned about censors, the film's producers thought about changing the name of the character Pussy Galore to "Kitty Galore".^[3] They kept the original name when British newspapers began to refer to Honor Blackman as "Pussy" in the lead up to production. Pussy's name is actually connected to her leadership of a circus group of cat-burglar, cat-women, Amazon lesbian acrobats (called "abrocats") in the novel, but that, among other things, did not survive to the screen adaptation.
Director Guy Hamilton had seen Olympic silver medalist wrestler Harold Sakata on a wrestling program and immediately had Sakata in mind for the role of Oddjob. Jack Lord initially was slated to reprise the Felix Leiter role, but replaced by Cec Linder.

Soundtrack

Main articles: Goldfinger (soundtrack)

Shirley Bassey sang the theme song "Goldfinger", and she would go on to sing the theme songs for two other Bond films as well. The song was composed by John Barry, with lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. Newley originally sang the song, but Bassey's recording was used in the film and was featured on the soundtrack. Newley's version was released in the 30th anniversary compilation album ''The Best of Bond...James Bond''. The theme was an international hit single, achieving a spot in the Billboard Hot 100 top five. The album went gold, literally, selling over a million copies in the United States alone; it reached #21 in the UK charts. The film score was composed by John Barry, and he included the "James Bond Theme", also known as "007".

Release and reception

''Goldfinger'' was originally released on September 17, 1964, in the United Kingdom, and on December 21, 1964, in the United States. Its $3 million budget was recouped in two weeks, and it broke box office records in multiple countries around the world. ''Goldfinger'' went on to be included in the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' as the fastest grossing film of all time. The film grossed a total of $51,081,062 in the United States.^[4] ''Goldfinger'' was temporarily banned in Israel due to Gert Fröbe's connections with the Nazi Party. The ban, however, was lifted many years later when a Jewish family publicly thanked Fröbe for protecting them from persecution during World War II.^[5]
At the 1965 Academy Awards, Norman Wanstall won the Academy Award for Sound Editing for his work on ''Goldfinger''.^[6] Composer John Barry was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture. Ken Adam was nominated for the BAFTA for Best British Art Direction.^[7] The American Film Institute has also honoured the film four times: ranking it No. 90 for best movie quote ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred."), No. 53 for best song ("Goldfinger"), No. 49 for best villain (Auric Goldfinger), and No. 71 for most thrilling film.
''Goldfinger'' is the first James Bond film to be broadcast on U.S. television – on September 17 1972, by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The film, however, was heavily edited by ABC: the gunbarrel sequence was cut out, scenes of violence and sexuality were trimmed down, and the scene in which Oddjob is electrocuted was almost entirely deleted.^[8] Nonetheless, it garnered the highest Nielsen Ratings of any film broadcast on television at that time: 49 percent of all viewers. It was recently announced that ''Goldfinger'' would be theatrically re-released in the UK on 27 July 2007, distributed by Park Circus Films on new digital prints distributed to approximately 150 multiplex cinemas.^[9][10] The re-release put ''Goldfinger'' twelfth at the box office.^[11]
''Goldfinger's popularity led to the inception of a massive tie-in marketing campaign that spawned a diverse product line including clothing, dress shoes, action figures, board games, jigsaw puzzles, lunch boxes, trading cards, slot cars, and collectible die-cast toy reproductions of Bond's gadget-laden car, an Aston Martin DB5. Parodies of James Bond appeared in the form of "secret agent" comics, television programs, and a spoof of Ian Fleming's first bond novel ''Casino Royale'' in 1967. The laser scene was also popular and parodied; in ''The Simpsons'', an ''Itchy and Scratchy'' episode has Itchy trick Scratchy and toss him onto a board which a laser cut through. The ''Photo Finish'' episode of ''Dexter's Laboratory'', the villain has Dexter(the agent) on the Photo Finisher, which mirrors the scene from the film. The rest of Fleming's Bond novels also gained popularity as a result of the success of ''Goldfinger''.
An episode of the U.S. television program ''MythBusters'' considered the scenario of an explosive depressurisation in a plane at high altitudes. Their investigation concluded that a sudden depressurisation as depicted in the film would not occur.^[12] ''Mythbusters'' also twice investigated if death could be caused by full body painting, as was depicted in the film. While this was proved to be possible – likely due to heat stroke and not epidermal suffocation as depicted in the film – it was found that such a death would be very slow, unlike in the film.^[12][12]

References

1.
2.
3.
4. James Bond Movies
5. Gert Frobe - James Bond Actors
6. Academy Awards Database - AMPAS
7. BAFTA Winners: 1960-1969
8. The ABCs of the James Bond Films
9. 00-HEAVEN: DIGITAL GOLDFINGER REISSUE IN UK THEATERS
10. Goldfinger
11. Goldfinger has the midas touch at UK cinemas, impressive returns on big screen rerelease
12.
13.
14.

External links

★

★

★

★

★ MGM's site on ''Goldfinger''

★ Snopes.com on dying by gilding