Goldfinger is a 1964 spy film and the third instalment in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is based on the 1959 novel by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe and Shirley Eaton. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. The film was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The plot has Bond investigating the gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, who plans to irradiate the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox with a dirty bomb. Goldfinger was the first Bond film to take over $100 million, with a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. Principal photography took place from January to July 1964 in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States.
Goldfinger was heralded as the film in the franchise where James Bond "comes into focus". Many elements introduced in it appeared in many of the later Bond films, such as the extensive use of technology and gadgets by Bond, an extensive pre-credits sequence that stood largely alone from the main plot, multiple foreign locales and tongue-in-cheek humour. The film's release led to a number of promotional licensed tie-in items, including a toy Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys, which became the biggest-selling toy of 1964, and an image of the gold-painted Eaton on the cover of Life.
Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award (for Best Sound Editing) and opened to largely favourable critical reception. The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in two weeks and grossing over $120 million worldwide. In 1999, it was ranked 70th on the BFI Top 100 British films list. Goldfinger was followed by Thunderball in 1965.
Plot
After his latest mission, James Bond relaxes at a hotel in Miami Beach. His superior, M, through CIA agent Felix Leiter, directs him to observe bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger, also staying at the hotel. Bond discovers Goldfinger cheating at a high-stakes gin rummy game, aided by his employee Jill Masterson, whom he interrupts and blackmails Goldfinger into losing. After an evening with Jill, Bond is knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant, Oddjob, and awakens to find Jill covered in gold paint, dead from skin suffocation.
In London, M tasks Bond with determining how Goldfinger smuggles gold internationally. Q supplies him with a modified Aston Martin DB5 and two tracking devices. Bond plays a round of golf with Goldfinger at his country club in Kent, using a bar of recovered Nazi gold supplied to him by the Bank of England to distract him. Goldfinger attempts to cheat, but Bond tricks him into losing the match. Goldfinger warns him against interfering in his affairs, and Oddjob demonstrates his formidable strength, along with a steel-brimmed hat. Planting a tracker in Goldfinger's car, Bond follows him to Switzerland and meets a woman named Tilly, who tries to assassinate Goldfinger but is inadvertently stopped by Bond.
Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's refinery in Switzerland and overhears him telling Chinese nuclear physicist Ling that he incorporates gold into the bodywork of his Rolls-Royce Phantom III to smuggle out of England. He also hears him mention "Operation Grand Slam" and encounters Tilly, who reveals herself as Jill's sister, out for revenge. An alarm is then tripped, and Oddjob kills Tilly with his hat while Bond is captured, strapped to a table and menaced with an overhead industrial laser. Bond lies to Goldfinger that MI6 knows about Operation Grand Slam and, if he is killed, will promptly shut it down instead of holding off, so that he can identify all parties aiding Goldfinger. To prevent that, Goldfinger spares his life and has him tranquilized, and put on his private jet, operated by his pilot Pussy Galore, who flies the captive Bond to Goldfinger's stud farm near Lexington, Kentucky.
Bond escapes his cell and witnesses Goldfinger's meeting with several American Mafia bosses, who have supplied materials to him for Operation Grand Slam and been promised $1 million each. The plan involves breaking into the US Bullion Depository at Fort Knox after incapacitating the troops stationed there. He promises to pay the criminals $10 million each if the scheme succeeds, but they ridicule his plan. One of them, Mr. Solo, demands to be paid immediately and leaves before the others are killed with a nerve gas. Bond is caught by Pussy but attempts to alert the CIA by planting his other tracker in Solo's pocket as he leaves. However, this is destroyed when Oddjob kills Solo and has his car crushed with his body inside.
Bond confronts Goldfinger over the implausibility of his scheme, only later deducing from Ling's presence that the Chinese government has provided a dirty bomb to irradiate the gold, making it unusable for decades. Goldfinger's bullion will skyrocket in value and the Chinese will create economic chaos in the West.
Operation Grand Slam begins with Pussy's pilot troupe spraying gas over Fort Knox, seemingly knocking out the troops. Goldfinger's private army breaks into Fort Knox and enters the vault as Goldfinger arrives in a helicopter with the bomb. In the vault, Bond is handcuffed to the bomb. Unknown to Goldfinger, Bond persuaded Pussy to alert the authorities and replace the gas with a harmless substance. Goldfinger locks the vault with Bond and Oddjob inside. When the US Army attacks, Goldfinger kills Ling and escapes. Bond manages to free himself and fight Oddjob, eventually electrocuting him by use of his steel-rimmed hat between two electrified poles. Although Bond forces open the casing of the bomb, he is unsure of how to disarm it. After killing Goldfinger's men, US troops open the vault, and a specialist shuts off the bomb seven seconds before it can detonate.
Bond boards a jet to have lunch at the White House, but Goldfinger hijacks the plane at gunpoint, tying up the crew in the hangar and putting Pussy in the cockpit. Bond and Goldfinger fight for the gun, which fires, shattering a window and creating an explosive decompression that sucks Goldfinger out of the plane, killing him. Bond and Pussy parachute to safety. Leiter's search helicopter passes over the pair. Pussy tries to alert him, but Bond playfully declares, "This is no time to be rescued," and draws the parachute over them as they kiss.
Cast
Sean Connery as James Bond (007), an MI6 agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger. Connery reprised the role of Bond for the third time in a row. His salary rose, but a pay dispute emerged during filming. After Connery suffered a back injury filming the scene in which Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, the dispute was settled: Eon agreed to pay Connery 5% of the gross of each Bond film he starred in. Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as Pussy Galore's Flying Circus. Blackman was selected for the role because of her role as the skilled judoka Cathy Gale in The Avengers, for which she had received martial arts training. The script was rewritten to make Pussy Galore a judoka as well. The character's name follows in the tradition of other Bond girls' names that are double entendres. Concerned about American censors, the producers thought about changing the character's name to "Kitty Galore", but they and Hamilton decided "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and [told him] we were big supporters of the Republican Party." During promotion, Blackman took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning the character's name. While the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials and for the American market she was subsequently called "Miss Galore" or "Goldfinger's personal pilot". Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger, a wealthy, psychopathic man obsessed with gold. Orson Welles was considered as Goldfinger, but his financial demands were too high; Theodore Bikel and Titos Vandis auditioned for the role. Fröbe was cast because the producers saw his performance as a child molester in the German film It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958). Fröbe, who spoke little English, said his lines phonetically, but was too slow. To redub him, he had to double the speed of his performance to get the right tempo. The only time his real voice is heard is during his meeting with members of the Mafia at Auric Stud, while Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox. Goldfinger's dialogue was redubbed for the rest of the film by TV actor Michael Collins. The match is widely praised as one of the most successful dubs in cinema history. Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson, a Bond girl and Goldfinger's aide-de-camp, whom Bond catches helping the villain cheat at a game of cards. Eaton was sent by her agent to meet Harry Saltzman and agreed to take the part if the nudity was done tastefully. It took an hour and a half to apply the paint to her body. Although only a small part in the film, the image of her painted gold was renowned and Eaton appeared as such on the 6 November 1964 cover of Life magazine. Joan Collins had been originally offered the role but turned it down as she was pregnant with her son. Tania Mallet as Tilly Masterson, Jill's sister. Although Mallet was a well-known model, Goldfinger was her sole film role. She had previously auditioned for the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love. Harold Sakata as Oddjob, Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant. Director Guy Hamilton cast Sakata, an Olympic silver medalist weightlifter, as Oddjob after seeing him on a wrestling programme. Hamilton called him an "absolutely charming man", and found that "he had a very unique way of moving, [so] in creating Oddjob I used all of Harold's own characteristics". Sakata was badly burned when filming his death scene, in which Oddjob was electrocuted by Bond. He, however, kept holding onto the hat with determination, despite his pain, until the director called "Cut!". Oddjob has been described as "a wordless role, but one of cinema's great villains." Bernard Lee as M, 007's boss and head of the British Secret Service. Martin Benson as Mr. Solo, the lone gangster who refused to take part in Operation Grand Slam. The surname Solo was re-used by Ian Fleming when he was briefly involved in creating the character Napoleon Solo for the American TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which led to a threatened lawsuit by Bond producers Broccoli and Saltzman, forcing Fleming to back out of the series. Cec Linder as Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA liaison in the United States. Linder was the only actor actually on location in Miami. Linder's interpretation of Leiter was that of a somewhat older man than the way the character was played by Jack Lord in Dr. No; in reality, Linder was a year younger than Lord. Austin Willis as Mr. Simmons, a Miami tourist who falls victim to Goldfinger's gin rummy cheating scheme. Willis was originally cast as Felix Leiter, but switched roles with Cec Linder at the last minute. Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary Bill Nagy as Mr. Midnight, the gangster whose contributions Goldfinger says helped smuggle the nerve gas across the Canadian border
Desmond Llewelyn is not credited in the opening sequence, but he plays Q, the head of Q-branch. Hamilton told him to inject humour into the character, thus beginning the friendly antagonism between Q and Bond that became a hallmark of the series. He had already appeared in the previous Bond film, From Russia with Love, and, with the exception of Live and Let Die, would continue to play Q in the next 16 Bond films.