Opposed to Craig Brosnan really had fun in all four of his outings, and with the exception of the kite surfing scene I like them all…I think after Connery it´s the best 4 movie run, because Moore´s is 3 to 6 and Craig has Bond Home Alone in the middle…
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I get what you mean there. Craig felt like the real second coming of Connery and Casino Royale was a very exciting debut. But I’m sure nothing will eclipse my experience of growing up with the Brosnan era and exploring all the previous eras. I’m just hoping when Amazon’s train starts up it does something similar with a new fanbase.
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I am not sure that I felt like rewatching GOLDFINGER, but I ended up doing so (more or less).
I was searching for a place to stream MOONRAKER, and discovered that my husband had signed us up for MGM+ (he does these sorts of things), and there was GF, with a “Resume Watching” button.
Not finding MR available, it being late, and there being slightly less than half of GF to watch, I resumed. I will admit to enjoying this kind of movie encounter, though in the past it involved running into a favorite film mid-telecast. I find being placed in medias res re-orients my critical faculties, as I am obliged to devote more brain space to mise-en-scene, since I have not been caught up in plot (no matter how familiar I am with it) from the beginning.
I entered when Goldfinger is explaining Operation Grand Slam to his confederates, and Bond is in a cell. I noticed a swiftness to the pace, with Hamilton moving things along at a good clip, and also that Bond does not have a great deal to do at that point in the film. I have always thought that Oddjob getting the car crushed, and then bringing it back to the farm was a bit indulgent, but now I saw just how often Bond is offstage in the film, and even when he is on stage, sometimes there is not much for him to do.
I reached the end, and, sure enough, began the film from the beginning, and realized besides being a Bond film, GF is a well-made action movie of a little more than modest size, and that Hamilton has made a brisk/concise movie, with touches of humor and absurdity. He transitions from scene to scene wonderfully, using some element from the end of a scene to link to the beginning of the next one.
The film would have worked perfectly well if the main character was not James Bond–that is how strong it is as a cinematic artwork. The fact that it is also a James Bond movie just pushes all elements to a higher level. It is very 1964, and enjoyable with its mix of Bond successes and Bond failures, with Connery always being a secure, self-possessed Bond no matter the circumstance or situation. Hamilton’s jaundiced approach meshes with the humor, absurdity, Ken Adams’ designs, and John Barry’s music to create a unique balance that will be inflated in the subsequent movies as Bond and his universe expand.
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Oh, starting where you did on this watch it is SO that!
Bond is there for build-up then once he gets to the farm he’s only there to witness. His only contribution to the plot is seducing Pussy Galore (even there its dubious) and killing Odd-Job. So you started after Bond had done pretty much anything he’s going to contribute apart from those 2 moments.
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Exactly. But what I realized is that the build-up is so strong, and Connery so assured in his performance, that he is fascinating to watch even when he is just a witness. Also, this sidelining allows the the supporting players and the overall atmosphere/environment to impress more than usual. Bond is most Bondian in the PTS; from there it is downhill to him sitting in the back of a truck, and not knowing how to stop the bomb (with eliminating Oddjob a blip of success).
It happens because it has to happen, similar to Bond defeating Bambi and Thumper in DAF. If neither happens, the movie is stopped dead in its tracks. So Bambi and Thumper need to be defeated in the pool they chose to throw Bond into for Whyte to be saved; and Pussy has to undergo a single, miraculous corrective heterosexual experience for Goldfinger to be thwarted. Bond’s plan–the note wrapped around the homer device–was a flop.
GF is a weirder, more pleasing movie every time I watch it.
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Orion, you forget he also does his David Copperfield act!
To confuse the guard outside his cell, he pretends to be lowering himself down to escape, but when the guard enters, he is nowhere to be seen—having actually clung unseen to the ceiling—before pouncing on his opponent. Simsalabim, hocus pocus!
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Even that is to give us a POV on Goldfinger’s speech, because he likes his own voice, but Connery does it so well, and the pacing is so good, you dont notice when watching. You only think about it afterwards.
Then talk about the 1964 film in 2026.
That is powerful.
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I see this as Goldfinger’s dismissal of wealth. It’s a beautiful car but to our villain it may as well be a Matchbox. It also shows the lengths he is willing to go to, shown in more detail with the Fort Knox operation.
It adds a sense of tension as well in thinking how will he turn the situation around. He has attempts to improve things but without success. It keeps escalating until we’re locked inside Fort Knox, Oddjob bearing down on Bond while a nuclear device ticks down. It’s hard to get any more epic than that. Barry’s ‘The Arrival of the Bomb and Countdown’ really meets that moment too.
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Yes, this. Every move James Bond tries, Auric Goldfinger successfully countermoves and nullifies him. Bond wins the little skirmishes (i.e. cheating at cards, the golf game), but on the real battlefield regarding Operation Grand Slam, Goldfinger gets the upper hand and continues to maintain it throughout much of the film.
He captures Bond in Switzerland, and it takes all of 007’s ingenuity and bluffing ability in the most stressful of situations to convince Goldfinger that he is more valuable to him alive. And then, despite Bond’s continued efforts to escape–trying to get away in the Aston Martin DB5 not just once, but twice, breaking out of his jail cell, as well as planting the homer with the dawn raid message on Mr. Solo–Goldfinger and his crew keep him in check and totally ineffective. Bond can’t reach out to nor warn Felix Leiter or MI6. He is caught in Goldfinger’s clutches and is utterly powerless. All that just further underscores how smart and powerful Goldfinger really is.
And yet despite all his failed attempts, Bond never loses his cool nor his confidence in himself. He just tries a different plan of attack. And so, he decides to use his wits (and charisma) to foil Goldfinger’s plan, which he was able to do by seducing Pussy Galore. No one else could have done it–ONLY 007. And the tension only escalates from there when Bond gets trapped in the Fort Knox vault with the atomic bomb quickly ticking down followed by his mano a mano confrontation with the indestructible Oddjob. And despite ALL those odds, 007 comes out on top. Again, only Bond could have succeeded under those conditions. And even then, Goldfinger comes THISCLOSE to pulling off his caper.
The film Goldfinger is a great example of Bond having to overcome the (many and sizable) obstacles in front of him when most things do not go according to plan, and yet he still finds a way to succeed in his mission. THAT is the definition of a great agent and Goldfinger is a great Bond film.
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Interesting. I see it as jazzing up a B movie staple. Eliminate guy in a car, then dump it in a junkyard (or leave it where it is a la GOODFELLAS).
Bond does not seduce Pussy Galore. He knocks her over, mounts her, and forcibly kisses her in an act of uninvited corrective heterosexuality. Pussy goes along with it since the movie needs her to do so in order to continue (Barry’s music helps as well). Phallus uber alles so to speak.
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It seems that the Connery era has more villains who really make it difficult for Bond to win - and that’s what makes it so exciting to watch.
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On a serious note: does the fact that after a time, the audience knows Bond will win–in fact, expects him to win–make the degree of villain difficulty irrelevant? Once a person has seen James Bond defeat 5 or 6 villains, and a dozen or more henchpersons, doesn’t one form of excitement diminish, and need to be replaced/supplemented by others?
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The GOLDFINGER template gives a handy model to the audience/Bond relationship. By that film people had a fairly good idea this guy Bond would always win. And the film, for much of the time, plays exactly to that expectation, even building the first part of the car chase as a joyride with the girl at Bond’s side laughing - until they are cornered, Bond tells her to run and the next moment she’s dead.
A critic wrote at that moment the audience couldn’t be sure how this would turn out, this being a Bond film notwithstanding. Bond was shocked - he didn’t see that coming - and the audience was shocked because of Bond’s shock. We still know Bond will win in the end - but we’re no longer sure he will, are we?
Much of the appeal of a series character - Bond as well as many others - lies in the guarantee we’ll see them persevere and ultimately succeed. They will not chicken out, they will not turn coat and join the villain’s camp because it’s more lucrative. Whatever the tale throws at them, they will crawl out from under the biggest stone and carry on.
Bond gets any number of gadgets to follow Goldfinger and most are used within a couple of minutes - yet none are any decisive help in dealing with the villain. The car is trashed and Bond must talk his way out of the laser beam. The shoe homer ends up with Mr Solo in the trashed Lincoln Continental and with it Bond’s last means to contact his service. The film does a poor job of depicting Bond’s next step, but his only hope in this situation is indeed to find somebody in the enemy camp willing to help him. That it’s a beautiful woman falling for his charms is simply due to the mythology of Bond. Arthur must pull the sword from the stone; all women must swoon in Bond’s presence. Just as all henchmen must have an Achilles’ heel Bond will spot and hit hard. And the villain will ultimately point his gun away for the second it takes Bond to tackle him.
The enjoyment of Bond’s exploits is mostly a thing of ‘how will he get out of this?’ And it has to be said the books and early films used to be much more inventive in this department than the more recent ones. In several of Fleming’s books Bond doesn’t shoot a single shot and roughly half of Bond’s literary marksmanship happens in just two (indecisive) shootouts early in Bond’s life on page.
Since about 1995 Bond on screen wins largely as a consequence of firepower; Bond shoots absurd numbers of minor goons and even the hand-to-hand combat has become ludicrously choreographed. Visually impressive but ultimately forgettable. Events like the stairwell or train fight have become rare. Because adversaries who are equal to Bond or even superior in strength, stamina and ability have become rare. A fight with Odd Job inside the gold vaults of Fort Knox is now a distant memory.
And yet, we still enjoy the ride with Bond because every so often there’s a moment like in Matera where he’s trapped on the bridge and has literally no way of escaping…
The villain, however, needs to be in a league worthy of Bond. Le Chiffre was, Silva was, the original Blofeld was. Mr White might have been - but Oberfeld-Bloferhauser hardly registers on the Richter scale and Safin only does because he ends up killing Bond.
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I do not see that.
I am. The wrinkle added to keep interest is that any person (even an ally) is expendable. The excitement now is not whether Bond will win or not, but who will be lost along the way to victory, since victory is assured.
It is due to more than that. Also contributing is the belief that women are naturally/properly subservient to the needs/commands of men, and that a lesbian is only a woman who has yet to meet the right man.
Because it is women’s nature to swoon before a manly man, who cannot be resisted.
But the villain can never be in the same league, since they are pre-determined to lose. They are never Bond’s equal. Worthy opponents win once in a while. Bond villains never do.
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Another thought I had on the subway ride home:
It is not a poor job. The film acts as if it is ashamed of what it has to do. In the final minutes, it has to reverse course, and an independent, strong female character who has been coded lesbian six ways to Sunday, suddenly undergoes sexual conversion. She is knocked from her feet, mounted, and forcibly kissed. 30 seconds max?
Then Pussy Galore is exiled from the film–two medium-distance shots sitting in the helicopter, then helpless at the plane’s controls, finally pulled to ground and mounted by Bond once more. I do not think she has one more line of dialogue.
The perfunctory haste of this transformation is the film’s acknowledgement that it had no choice but to do this so Bond could be the hero. The movie is apologetic for its capitulation to reigning male ideology, and cannot bring itself to depict Pussy in her new diminished state any more than absolutely necessary.
So no, it is not a case of poor execution, but one of shame at having had to act the way it did.
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I feel that GOLDFINGER frustrates some audiences because they expect to see Bond always being (um) on top of things. The criticism that Bond remains passive during the second half is not true, he tries everything but gets thwarted. For me that raises the tension immensely, and yes, while I know that Bond will win at the end - like every hero in a mainstream audience pleaser - GOLDFINGER makes me think that Bond might not win, at least not that easily or completely. As you pointed out, the question is raised how many allies will have to be sacrificed?
In that regard, there is a parallel to NO TIME TO DIE. Before I read that Variety review which basically spelled out the ending, I thought that Bond once again would win, despite terrible losses (and the title did assure me). Watching the film and even knowing now that Bond would die I still held on to my feeling that Bond would survive somehow. Crazy, but that was the way these films had conditioned me. That this film dared to end this (opening up a second, shocked reading of the title) makes it the perfect bookend to an era. Which it really turned out to be.
As for the expectations of a hero not dying but always winning - yes, that basically applies to Bond and robs it of some tension. But as in any mainstream audience pleaser in any genre, it is not about the surprise at the end, it is about the obstacles in between. And the villain should always be the biggest obstacle because that makes Bond more interesting.
In my mind, the Bond films rarely dropped the ball on that issue:
- Largo is hateable but not that treatening as Blofeld’s teacher‘s pet.
- YOLT Blofeld has the concept of a terrifying plan but remains a small man who flees when confronted
(imagine both without eyepatch/scar and the lack of danger becomes even more apparent)
- Kristatos is a rather unimpressive guy but the reveal raises him a bit
- Koskov is a Russian lying slimeball and Whittaker a dumb American (hey, another prescient Bond idea people disregarded as „could never happen in real life“), but both are rather a nuisance for Bond, not a threat
- Trevelyan (again, imagine him without the scars) always is outsmarted by Bond and comes across as the wanna be, kind of like Stephen Miller if he were attractive. But Xenia equals out anything. She should have been the main villain.
Yes, all the others seem threatening enough, even if not all of them (Renard, I know) are fully realized.
And then, of course, there is
- Oberhauser who starts off imposing, in my mind, as the unimposing little guy who nevertheless wields immense power over all those Spectre people, but in the absence of a plan that is made felt truly scary his impact wanes quickly. When his torture method does not even hurt Bond in any way he predicts Oberhauser loses any credibility. Even the scar does not help afterwards. And after commanding his chopper to fly so low that Bond can shoot him down he becomes almost pitiful, just a narrative tool for creating a situation in which Bond can decide between two roads ahead. In the next film Oberhauser at least is a nagging nuisance, enjoying himself until he cannot anymore. One may argue that the Blofeld character deserved more. Or one can see his early demise as a welcome surprise signalling nothing will go down as expected.
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Interesting that you would point to NTTD, as in a point you made earlier about Connery’s Bond having villains that were ahead got me thinking about Craig’s villains and how the the pair that get pulled up high most also do that. NTTD bucks it as the villain who normally is a lesser bad guy (the kid of someone a henchman killed) ends up doing what no other villain does and…won.
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That’s exactly why I like Safin and consider him a great villain: he also comes across as a wannabe, indulging himself with high fallutin speeches and creepy behaviour while never appearing to really be in control, but that is exactly why his ability to kill Bond and take away what Bond really wants and needs turns him into a truly frightening opponent.
It’s always the unexpected which is the biggest danger.
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I agree it’s a stretch from our perspective to imagine Bond not winning. Or it used to be until NO TIME TO DIE. But the critic in question wrote from a 1964 perspective: large part of the public had yet to meet Bond and get used to his ways. Sadly, I don’t recall the precise words and who formed that thought. Somebody from the country of ‘far far away in the 20th century’.
But this second sacrificial lamb in my view is not about expendability so much as showing Bond’s fallibility. Tilly dies as a direct consequence of doing as Bond told her (and Bond isn’t Flashman; it’s safe to assume he imagined her being able to flee while he’s holding down the enemy force). So, like her sister Tilly died because of Bond. It becomes his mission to avenge these two ‘civilians’* caught in the crossfire. Incidentally, Fleming’s Tilly was captured with Bond and kept around for obscure reasons - but she served a purpose as Galore’s love interest (after the two met for all of three minutes) and her subsequent death at the Fort Knox train platform would at least help making Galore’s suspiciously out-of-the-blue switch to Bond a little more plausible (not that it’s mentioned in the book, mind you).
Then again, the case for Jaws handing in his notice is likewise flimsy at best. The first thing any decent henchperson would do is taking care of one’s own sustained wellbeing, no? Hardly credible the whole point of Drax’ operation has escaped him and his girlfriend until it’s almost too late. And why would Drax take these two up for the ride anyway?
For the Bond/villain relationship Kingsley Amis’ 007 Dossier gives invaluable insights. The Bond villain/Anti-Bond is superior in age, experience, financial means and manpower. Wealth is usually suspicious; wealth coming with foreign ancestry and/or ‘mixed racial background’ is a dead giveaway. As is a red spark in one’s gaze.
From today’s perspective the villain is invariably** a best-ager entrepreneur and disruption agent against Bond’s function as agent of the status quo. Think one of these beautiful, spectacularly successful self-maxed casino capitalists moving fast, destroying things and making a killing from the debris.
Bond is regularly depicted as the underdog finding himself fighting against private armies of Mafia goons or former Gestapo and Smersh operatives in the service of either Russia or the odd self styled crime boss. The inherent racism is the 19th century variety practically everybody was subscribed to back in the days of Empire.
But why and how does Bond win against these forces when he’s frequently outclassed, outgunned and largely on his own? I suspect it’s a misreading to simply take Bond’s superiority for granted. To the contrary, he’s often depicted by Fleming as not particularly gifted, an exemplar of the ‘average’ Briton’s carry-on spirit. Bond frequently wins simply by not giving up (Casino Royale, Live and Let Die), by being alert and thinking on his feet while the enemy boasts (From Russia) or by the odd piece of derring-do (Goldfinger, You Only). The odds - in the original œuvre at least - are always against Bond and he’s never given an easy win. He has to sweat and bleed for it. Bond’s adventures are miniature WW2s and Fleming’s readership was happy to - safely! - relive these crucial times with Bond at their side.
*Debatable: Jill aids a crook in cheating at cards. And Tilly is entirely prepared to kill the crook with her rifle. Not exactly typical civilian behaviour, I admit.
**Almost. Only once it’s hinted Scaramanga is probably younger than Bond.
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