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Bud Brewster
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 Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:29 pm Post subject: Goldfinger (1964) |
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The James Bond series peaks right here, skillfully combining the suave, world-hopping, girl-hopping charm of From Russia With Love with the gadget-in-every-pocket whimsy that typified the secret agent craze. Sean Connery remains the ultimate James Bond persona, Gert Frobe is the totally believable villain, Harold Sakata's "Oddjob" is the perfect evil henchman, and Honor Blackman is the sexy Pussy Galore.
Honorable mention goes to Shirley Eaton, the gorgeous girl whom the vindictive villain kills by coating her body with gold paint.
Ironically, the girl used in the posters, album covers, and opening credits is the actress who played "Dink", Bond's pool-side playmate in one brief scene at the film's beginning.
Shirley Bassey's rendition of the hit title song became as much a "James Bond Theme" as the steel guitar piece which composer John Barry wrote for the first film and reused for all the others.
The plot is a doozy; Frobe wants to explode an atomic bomb in the gold vaults at Fort Knox so that America's gold reserve will be radioactive and useless, driving gold prices sky high. Bond is formidably armed for his battle with Goldfinger; he has a weapons-laden Aston Martin DB-5 which features built-in machine guns, oil-slick sprayers, smoke-screen blowers, extendable tire-shredders in the wheels, multiple license plates, and of course the famous ejection seat on the passenger side for removing unwanted passengers.
Goldfinger even offers sci-fi fans one of the first laser beam special effects ever done in a movie. The climactic fight between Oddjob and Bond inside the gold vault is almost as exciting as the one with Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love.
Directed by Guy Hamilton.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:35 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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scotpens
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Joined: 19 Sep 2014
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Location: The Left Coast
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| Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:44 pm Post subject: Re: Goldfinger - (1964) |
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| Bud Brewster wrote: | | Honorable mention goes to Shirley Eaton, the gorgeous girl whom the vindictive villain kills by coating her body with gold paint. |
The "gold paint" was actually a heavy, greasy skin lotion with faux-gold powder mixed into it. It had a realistic metallic sheen under the studio lights but was very messy. In some of the dozens of publicity photos of the gilded Ms. Eaton reclining on a red couch, you can see the gold stuff getting all over everything she touched.
| Bud Brewster wrote: | | Shirley Bassey's rendition of the hit title song became as much a "James Bond Theme" as the steel guitar piece which composer John Barry wrote for the first film and reused for all the others. |
According to Wiki (emphasis added):
| Quote: | | Monty Norman has been credited with writing the "James Bond Theme", and has received royalties since 1962. Norman collected around ??485,000 in royalties between the years 1976 and 1999. For Dr. No, the tune was arranged by John Barry, who would later go on to compose the soundtracks for eleven James Bond films. Courts have ruled twice that the theme was written by Monty Norman, despite claims and testimony by Barry that he had actually written the theme. Norman has consequently won two libel actions against publishers for claiming that Barry wrote the theme, most recently against The Sunday Times in 2001. |
| Bud Brewster wrote: | | Goldfinger even offers sci-fi fans one of the first laser beam special effects ever done in a movie. |
That sequence also contains one of the best brief dialogue exchanges in the James Bond series:
Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
Last edited by scotpens on Sun Nov 15, 2020 9:13 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Bud Brewster
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 12:08 am Post subject: |
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Thanks, Scotpens! Fascinating info.
On the matter of famous dialog, the first exchange between Sean and Honor Blackman which goes like this in the movie —
"My name is Pussy Galore."
" . . . I must be dreaming."
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— was originally written like this.
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"I'm Pussy Galore."
"I know you are . . . but what's your name?"
According to IMDB trivia, it was changed because it was deemed "too suggestive". 
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon May 06, 2024 7:14 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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orzel-w
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:45 am Post subject: |
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Goldfinger has always been my personal gold standard for judging other James Bond films.
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WayneO
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Bud Brewster
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| orzel-w wrote: | | Goldfinger has always been my personal gold standard for judging other James Bond films. |
I agree, Wayne. They got it right in Goldfinger, but they never quite got it right again. The recipe was perfect in that 1964 movie, a brilliant blend of action, romance, humor, and the promotion of an outrageous cultural trend that was at its peak.
But the cultural trend passed, and movies about tuxedo-wearing, martini-drinking, bed-hopping secret agents just didn't have the same flavor they did before. It was a little like what happened to science fiction after the 1950s passed and the public's reverent attitude toward scientific advancement began to sour for various reasons.
The two Derek Flint movies came after the peak of the spy craze, and the first one was a brilliant spoof of that waning trend, perfectly delivered with a straight face and a wry wit. But the second one blew it by spoofing the first movie, and it was like a comedian telling us when to laugh by going yuck-yuck at his own jokes.
The Roger Moore versions of Bond were all like the second Flint movie, and they just didn't work for that very reason.
The Pierce Brosnan films actually recaptured the Sean Connery version of Bond to some degree, and they succeeded admirably by treading a fine line between too much and too little of the Bond staples: pretty girls, glitzy gadgets, slam-bang action, and fast-paced stories.
Daniell Craig's version of Bond is a whole 'nother smoke, and it doesn't even try to recapture the flavor of the by-gone spy craze. What it does instead is just too cynical and serious for my tastes, and I haven't like any of them very much.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon May 06, 2024 7:15 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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orzel-w
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:52 am Post subject: |
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Daniel Craig is the first Bond I've really approved of since Connery.
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WayneO
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Krel.
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Bud Brewster
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Krel wrote: | | The "Goldfinger" song was originally sung by Anthony Newley. |
Well, gee, it started out real nice — but about thirty seconds into it Anthony started doing what Anthony always does, and I started cringing and giggling, both at the same time.
Oh well . . . 
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon May 06, 2024 7:17 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17637
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know exactly why, but this trailer for Goldfinger is a bit disappointing. It makes the movie look more like one of the Bond copies than a Bond original. The fast editing and rapid text blurbs make you think the trailer is promising more action than the movie really has.
And the announcer with the British accent just doesn't have the forceful authority of the announcers in so many American trailers.
Tell me what you guys think of it 
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_________________ Goldfinger Official Trailer
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon May 06, 2024 7:17 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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orzel-w
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| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:37 pm Post subject: Re: Goldfinger - (1964) |
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| Bud Brewster wrote: | | ...the famous ejection seat on the passenger side for removing unwanted passengers. |
"You're joking."
"I never joke about my work, Double-O Seven."
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Custer
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Joined: 22 Aug 2015
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| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, that is a bit overly-hectic and scrappy. I prefer this trailer:
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Bud Brewster
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Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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THAT is a masterpiece! Is it a fan-made trailer, or is it something done for the Blu-ray release perhaps?
Thanks, Custer. It put me in the mood to watch that movie before it half over.
_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon May 06, 2024 7:18 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Custer
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| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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Just going by the comments on the YouTube page, it looks as if it was made by a fan - but 195,589 views can't be bad!  |
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Custer
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| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Bud Brewster wrote: | | . . . all his dialog was dubbed! |
Well, almost all, if we can trust Wikipedia. "Gert 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. Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox whilst Gert Fröbe's natural voice can be heard above. However, he was redubbed for the rest of the film by stage actor Michael Collins." |
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Krel.
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| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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An example of how Ken Adams knew what he was doing. I saw an interview with Ken Adams once, where he talked about the gold vault set. He said that in real life you would not store gold like that. It is just to dangerous due the weigh of the gold. He said that the gold in Fort Knox was probably kept in small vaults. He was correct.
Not long after seeing the interview, I saw a program on Fort Knox. They interviewed a man, that when he was in high school on the football team, he and his teammates were hired to help with the inventory of the gold in Fort Knox. He said that the gold was kept in small, deep closet-like vaults.
On either side of the door there were ledges about knee high. These ledges were a few inches shorter than a gold bar, to help in handling the gold. You have to be very careful because the bars weigh about 50 pounds (it could be more, it has been a few years), and they would break your foot if you dropped one on it. The gold isn't stacked very high because of the weight, and the danger, I don't remember how high though. He did it for years, until the government stopped the yearly inventory.
David. |
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