{"id":2973,"date":"2024-08-26T21:04:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T21:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:09:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:09:01","slug":"goldfinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/26\/goldfinger\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldfinger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Goldfinger <\/strong>(1964)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (mild language, violence, sexual innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ted Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 18, 1964 (UK)\/December 22, 1964 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: \u00a0Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee, Martin Benson, Cec Linder, Austin Willis, Lois Maxwell, Bill Nagy, Desmond Llewelyn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Opening Song: \u201cGoldfinger\u201d by Shirley Bassey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $51M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now the series has hit its stride! Goldfinger<\/strong> is the first James Bond movie I\u2019d call awesome. The money men at United Artists upped the ante by another $1M when they gave the green light for producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli to proceed with the third Bond movie. They originally wanted to do On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service, but there wasn\u2019t enough prep time to meet the September 1964 release date so they went with Goldfinger<\/strong> instead. How fortuitous for all involved. It turned out to be the first Bond film to achieve blockbuster status (in 1964 $$$).<\/p>\n

\u00a0After taking down a Latin American drug lord in the pre-credits sequence, Bond (Connery) is taking a much-needed vacation in Miami Beach when he\u2019s contacted by M, through CIA friend Felix Leiter (Linder, Lolita), with a new assignment. He\u2019s to observe and report on Auric Goldfinger (Frobe, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), a multimillionaire obsessed with gold. The suave spy recruits Goldfinger\u2019s lovely female assistant Jill (Eaton, Ten Little Indians) to aide him in this endeavor. He ends up getting her killed. After a night of you-know-what, he finds her dead in his bed, covered head to toe with gold paint.<\/p>\n

\u00a0M (Lee), not happy about what went down in Miami, orders Bond to investigate Goldfinger, a suspected gold smuggler. He wants to know how he does it. Bond finds that out and a lot more. It turns out the rich guy has something big planned, something he calls \u201cOperation Grand Slam\u201d. It involves breaking into Fort Knox, the most secure gold bullion storage facility in the country. What Goldfinger has in mind is far more sinister than a simple robbery.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Goldfinger is one of the most memorable villains in the Bond canon and for good reasons. One, he\u2019s a classic spy movie villain with his nefarious scheme to corner the world gold market. Two, he\u2019s a cold-blooded killer as proven by how he deals with a disloyal employee. Three, he\u2019s freaking Goldfinger! Get a load of the dialogue exchange while he has Bond strapped to a table about to be killed by a laser.<\/p>\n

Bond: \u201cDo you expect me to talk?\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldfinger: \u201cNo, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still one of the greatest dialogue exchanges in film history.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now we can\u2019t talk about Goldfinger without talking about his manservant and main henchman Oddjob (Sakata, Mako: The Jaws of Death). He\u2019s a walking lethal weapon, that indestructible behemoth of a man. His preferred tool of the trade is a steel-rimmed bowler hat that he throws at his targets. YES! This is classic Bond stuff!<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019s not the only memorable character in Goldfinger<\/strong>. Let\u2019s not forget about Pussy Galore (Blackman, Jason and the Argonauts), the leader of an all-female squadron of pilots working for Goldfinger. She\u2019s integral to his evil plan. Her loyalty to the cause, of course, will be tested by Bond and his charming ways with women.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Have you noticed something different about Goldfinger<\/strong>? This time, SPECTRE isn\u2019t involved. I guess even criminal organizations and the masterminds running them need a break. With or without them, Bond is up to his neck in trouble as he gets into one deadly situation after another. At one point, he has only seconds to disarm the explosive device he\u2019s been handcuffed to. I know, it\u2019s a total clich\u00e9, but it still works sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now let\u2019s get to one of the biggest firsts in the series. Goldfinger<\/strong> is the one where Q (Llewelyn) presents Bond with his trademark, tricked out ride, an Aston-Martin equipped with all sorts of neat features like machine guns, tire slashers, revolving license plates, smoke\/oil slick delivery systems and an ejector passenger seat. Where can I get one of those?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Connery keeps getting better and better in the main role. Blackman is one of the best Bond girl and it\u2019s not just the name Pussy Galore although it admittedly helps a little. Frobe is awesome as Goldfinger, the quintessential Bond villain. Sakata, a former wrestler, does a lot in a role without a single word of dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Goldfinger<\/strong> is so action-packed, the 110 minutes just fly by. It\u2019s quite possibly one of the most perfect spy movies ever made. The plot is silly, but is it really any sillier than the other Bond movies? I would say not. It\u2019s just a fun, exciting action movie that you can actually watch with your kids if they express an interest in seeing a \u201creal action movie\u201d. It\u2019s just great!\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Goldfinger (1964)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (mild language, violence, sexual innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ted Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 18, 1964 (UK)\/December 22, 1964 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: \u00a0Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee, Martin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-bond-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Goldfinger-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4892,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions\/4892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}