Goldfinger [April A2Z]

Welcome to my April A-Z! This month I will be posting about James Bond 007 every day except Sunday, mostly focusing on the movies, not the books. Enjoy!

SPOILERS!

Sean Connery stars as Bond in Goldfinger (1964), where he investigates Auric Goldfinger (played by Gert Fröbe) and discovers his plot to contaminate the USA’s gold supply at Fort Knox. This will naturally result in a huge increase of value for Auric’s gold and give him gobs of power. Sounds like a reasonable idea, eh? Along the way Bond meets the beautiful blonde Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, who supposedly is a lesbian and fails to fall for his charms, for a while anyway. But even she can’t resist him ultimately. Who could? Bond does have a lovely admirer in Jill Masterson, played by Shirley Eaton, until she gets painted out of the film (Goldfinger kills by covering people with gold paint so they suffocate). This film was the first of four to be directed by Guy Hamilton ~ and it was the first Bond “blockbuster.”

One of the most memorable scenes is when Goldfinger has Bond captured and strapped to a table. There is a scary laser about to slice through 007’s body, starting at his crotch. Bond quips, “Do you expect me to talk?” Auric says, “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.” Beautiful! Then Bond tricks him into thinking Bond knows more than he does, so Auric lets him live. ALWAYS A MISTAKE!

Goldfinger introduces Bond fans to a fun henchman named Oddjob played by the Japanese-American actor and professional wrestler Harold Sakata. Oddjob works for Goldfinger as his bodyguard, chauffeur, servant, and hitman. He is portrayed much differently in film than he was in Ian Fleming’s book, where he was shockingly grotesque. On screen, Oddjob’s appearance isn’t cause for terror, but his method of killing is: he flings his razor-sharp bowler hat at his subject and decapitates them. He also has a speech defect and only Goldfinger can understand what he says (good way to avoid paying someone to dub his lines!). Unfortunately, he has a literal taste for cats.

Shirley Bassey performs the memorable theme song for this movie.

Tune in tomorrow for more A-Z Bond!

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Information and images from Wikipedia, IMDB, and Pinterest.

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