Goldfinger (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Ian Fleming novel, see Goldfinger.

For the villain of the film, see Auric Goldfinger.

Goldfinger
Goldfinger film poster
James Bond	Sean Connery
Directed by	Guy Hamilton
Produced by	Harry Saltzman Albert R. Broccoli
Written by	Ian Fleming
Screenplay	Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn
Music by	John Barry
Main theme
Composer	John Barry Leslie Bricusse Anthony Newley
Performer	Shirley Bassey
Distributed by	United Artists (1964-1981) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1982-present)
Released	September 17, 1964 (UK) December 22, 1964 (USA)
Running time	105 min.
Budget	$3,500,000
Worldwide gross	$124,900,000
Admissions (world)	130.1 million
Preceded by	From Russia with Love
Followed by	Thunderball
IMDb profile

Ian Fleming's Goldfinger is the third film in the EON Productions James Bond series, and the third starring Sean Connery as Commander James Bond, British Secret Service agent 007. Released in December 1964, the film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and was the first of four directed by Guy Hamilton.

This film is one of the most critically acclaimed of the James Bond film series; for many, critics and fans alike, Goldfinger is the blueprint: the archetypes standard for the rest of the series, although the same often is said about the preceding film, From Russia with Love.

In 1965 Norman Wanstall received an Academy Award for Sound Editing for his work on the film. The American Film Institute has also honoured the film four times ranking it No. 90 for best movie quote ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred."), No. 53 for best song ("Goldfinger"), No. 49 for best villain (Auric Goldfinger), and No. 71 for most thrilling film.

Goldfinger was the first James Bond film broadcast on U.S. television, on September 17, 1972 by ABC. Simultaneously, it garnered the highest Nielsen Ratings of any film broadcast on television: 49 per cent of all viewers.

[edit] Background

Goldfinger, film critics have argued ^{[citation needed]} is the turning point of the James Bond films, both artistically and in its impact on popular culture. This was the first film to emphasize the high technology that became a staple of the film series. Likewise, Goldfinger reflected director Guy Hamilton's determined, tongue-in-cheek approach to the film's story. Goldfinger had a (then-relatively) large budget: $3.5 million dollars, and was the first James Bond film classified as a box-office blockbuster.

[edit] Plot summary

In the pre-title sequence, Bond destroys a Mexican drug lord's base with plastic explosives, and defeats a Mexican thug in a bedroom brawl (electrocuting him, impromptu, in a bathtub with a heat lamp-toss, foreshadowing Oddjob's death). The film's story-proper begins in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.A., with CIA agent Felix Leiter delivering to Bond a message from M to watch Auric Goldfinger.

Bond foils Goldfinger's cheating at gin, by distracting his woman employee, Jill Masterson, who is spying the card game with binoculars, and reporting to Goldfinger his opponent's cards. After foiling the scheme and forcing Goldfinger to lose, Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship in Bond's hotel suite. Afterwards, as Bond fetches fresh champagne from the kitchen, he is struck unconscious with karate chop to the neck by Oddjob, Goldfinger's Korean manservant. Once conscious, Bond discovers Jill covered with gold paint, dead of epidermal suffocation.

Later in London, Bond learns that his true mission is determining (per the Bank of England's request) how Goldfinger (an international jeweler-businessman) transports gold among countries, and to determine if he is doing so illegally. Bond meets Goldfinger, socially, on a golf course (it is then unclear if Goldfinger knows of Bond's role in his card loss). They play a high-stakes golf game; Bond lures Goldfinger with the prospect of winning a Nazi gold bar from World War II; Goldfinger cheats, Bond discovers him, yet allows the cheating to continue, switching Goldfinger's golf ball and forcing his loss, as they were playing strict rules. After settling the bet, Goldfinger warns Bond (acknowledging he recognizes him from Miami), by having Oddjob decapitate a statue with his steel-rimmed top hat. When Bond asks about the damaged golf club property, Goldfinger tells him he owns the club.

Bond implants a homing device in Goldfinger's automobile and follows him to Switzerland, where he meets Tilly Masterson, Jill's sister. Tilly shoots at Goldfinger with a sniper rifle, missing him, but almost shoots Bond instead. As Tilly flees the scene in her Ford Mustang, Bond catches up to her and slashes two of her car's tires with a spike extended from the Aston Martin DB5 wheel hub; subsequently, Bond takes her to a service station.

That night, Bond reconnoiters Goldfinger's plant, learning that Goldfinger has a foundry and is casting parts of his Rolls-Royce in 18 kt. gold (white gold in the novel), to smuggle the gold from England to Europe. He also overhears Goldfinger talking with a Red Chinese agent about 'Operation Grandslam'. Leaving, he encounters Tilly re-trying to shoot Goldfinger, and accidentally trips an alarm. During their escape (deploying most of the car's modifications), Oddjob breaks Tilly neck with a throw of his metal hat and Bond is captured.

In the film's (and indeed in the entire series') most famous scene, Agent 007 is tied to a gold table underneath an industrial laser, the beam of which is slowly slicing the table, enroute to Bond's crotch. Goldfinger explains the laser to Bond (a high technology novelty in 1964): Bond, nervously, "I think you've made your point, Goldfinger. Thank you for the demonstration." Non-plussed, Goldfinger replies, "Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond. It may be your last."

Goldfinger admits enjoying lecturing to people he is about to kill; later in the story this plot device recurs in the 'Operation Grandslam' briefing.

Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"

Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die."

This cinematic scene differs from the corresponding literary scene: Goldfinger, using a buzz saw in "the pressure room", spares Bond in acceptance of Bond's offer to work for him. In the film, Goldfinger postpones Bond's execution, because he claims knowledge of Operation Grandslam, Bond's bluff convinces Goldfinger that he (Bond) is being watched and that his death would introduce a replacement double-0 agent to the case.

Gert Fröbe as the eponymous Auric Goldfinger, impersonating a U.S. Army Colonel, in his final scene, wearing only the U.S. collar insignia. He wields a gold revolver not in the novel, (though a gold-plated .45 calibre revolver figures in the last James Bond novel).

Later, Bond is put "on ice"; he wakes aboard Goldfinger's private Lockheed JetStar aircraft, piloted by Pussy Galore. She tells Bond that they are flying at 35,000 feet (10.700 m) to Baltimore, en route to Goldfinger's Kentucky ranch, near Fort Knox. During the flight, Pussy points a revolver at Bond; Bond lectures her that a .45 calibre bullet would pass through him and the fuselage "like a blow torch through butter" and would explosively depressurise the cabin and everyone would be "sucked into outer space." In flight, he activates the homing device in the heel of his left shoe; Leiter detects its signal and informs M of 007's whereabouts.

On landing, Bond is imprisoned in the stud farm, where Goldfinger is meeting with representative U.S. mafiosi, who have delivered the operational materials he needs. In his cell, Bond overcomes his guard, escapes, and then spies on the gangster meeting, learning that Goldfinger intends to kill the soldiers of Fort Knox with Delta-9 nerve gas, and then (supposedly) steal the depository's gold; at lecture's end, a henchman gasses the gangsters. Moreover, an early-leaving gangster, Mr. Solo, is shot and killed in a car that is then crushed, with the gangster's cadaver inside, to a metal cube in an auto junkyard compactor. Meanwhile, Pussy Galore re-captures Bond and returns him to his cell, guarded by several Koreans.

Later, Bond and Goldfinger discuss the practical details of Operation Grandslam; Bond notes that the gold's weight (10,500 tons) would take sixty men twelve days to load it onto two hundred trucks. Meantime, the U.S. military would stop the theft within two hours; Goldfinger tells Bond he does not intend to remove the gold, but instead plans to raid the depository long enough to place a "dirty" (cobalt and iodine) atomic bomb (see salted bomb) supplied by the Red Chinese government, to irradiate the U.S.'s gold supply, rendering it useless for fifty-eight years, multiplying the value of Goldfinger's gold supply at least ten-fold. The ultimate purpose of this Communist plot is to disrupt the economy of the Western world.

Pussy Galore's Flying Circus (Goldfinger, 1964).

As Operation Grandslam begins, the women pilots of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus gas metropolitan Fort Knox, seemingly killing thousands of soldiers, civilians, and Felix Leiter and partner.

All is not as it seems, however. Yet earlier, Bond had seduced Pussy Galore, unknowingly persuading her to contact the CIA, who have substituted a harmless gas in place of Delta-9. Goldfinger had deceived Galore to believe that Delta-9 was an anesthestic, not a nerve gas: she'd not planned mass murder and had even called the gas project Operation Rock-A-Bye-Baby. Bond had told her the truth about Delta-9, seemingly at the time without effect, but later commented wryly that he must've "appealed to her maternal instincts."

Goldfinger's communist Koreans destroy the depository's main gate with a Bangalore torpedo, then use the laser to cut their way into the vault building; Bond is handcuffed to the atomic bomb. Outside, the revived U.S. Army fights Goldfinger's communist forces; Goldfinger escapes the battle, disguised as a U.S. Army Colonel; in the vault, Bond fist-fights with and eventually kills Oddjob (whose lethal metal hat proves electrically fatal to him). Afterwards, Bond vainly tries to deactivate the atomic bomb; Leiter and an expert deactivate it seven seconds shy of detonation — the timer indicates 007 seconds.

Later, Bond will meet the President for a personal, thank-you meeting; Bond's Washington, D.C.-bound flight in a business jet (again a Lockheed JetStar, but military) is hijacked by Goldfinger and Pussy Galore, who are escaping to communist Cuba; Bond and Goldfinger struggle for the revolver which fires, shatters a window, and depressurises the cabin. Goldfinger is sucked out of the window. Before the jet crashes, James Bond and Pussy Galore parachute from it and safely land on a tropical beach, to catch up on their kissing under cover of the parachute canopy.

[edit] Cast

• James Bond - Sean Connery
• M - Bernard Lee
• Felix Leiter - Cec Linder
• Miss Moneypenny - Lois Maxwell
• Q - Desmond Llewelyn
• Auric Goldfinger - Gert Fröbe
• Oddjob - Harold Sakata
• Pussy Galore - Honor Blackman
• Jill Masterson - Shirley Eaton
• Tilly Masterson - Tania Mallet
• Solo - Martin Benson
• Kisch - Michael Mellinger
• Mr. Ling - Burt Kwouk

[edit] Crew

• Directed by: Guy Hamilton
• Written by: Ian Fleming
• Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn
• Produced by: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman
• Music composed by: John Barry
• Film editing by: Peter R. Hunt
• Cinematography by: Ted Moore
• Production design by Ken Adam
• Titles designed by Robert Brownjohn

[edit] Soundtrack

Goldfinger
Soundtrack by John Barry
Released	February 25, 1964
Recorded	July 1964
Length	30:50
Label	EMI
Producer(s)	Frank Collura (Reissue)
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
John Barry chronology
Zulu (1963)	Goldfinger (1964)	Four in the Morning (1965)
James Bond soundtrack chronology
From Russia with Love (1963)	Goldfinger (1964)	Thunderball (1965)
Alternate cover
Re-release cover

Goldfinger is the first of three James Bond films with a theme song sung by Shirley Bassey. Though she only performed three such themes, her strong, brassy style became a thematic trademark. "Goldfinger" was written by John Barry and Anthony Newley. Originally, Newley recorded it, but it was re-recorded with Bassey's voice for the film and the soundtrack. In 1992, Newley's version was later released in the 30th Anniversary of James Bond on film, in the compilation collectors edition The Best of Bond...James Bond. Bassey's theme sold more than a million copies in the United States, earning a Gold album for her; in the United Kingdom, the theme song logged to number 21 in the charts.

The soundtrack score was composed by John Barry, marking this as his second, credited James Bond film score. The last four tracks went unreleased in the original soundtrack record, and were only first released in the 30th Anniversary compilation album, The Best of Bond ... James Bond. In 2003, they were released in the remastered Goldfinger soundtrack album.

[edit] Track listing

1. "Goldfinger" - Shirley Bassey
2. "Into Miami"
3. "Alpine Drive / Auric's Factory"
4. "Oddjob's Pressing Engagement"
5. "Bond Back in Action Again"
6. "Teasing The Korean"
7. "Gassing The Gangsters"
8. "Goldfinger" - (instrumental version)
9. "Dawn Raid on Fort Knox"
10. "The Arrival of the Bomb and Count Down"
11. "Death Of Goldfinger, The End Titles"
12. "Golden Girl"
13. "Death Of Tilly"
14. "The Laser Beam"
15. "Pussy Galore's Flying Circus"

[edit] Vehicles and gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets

Aston Martin DB5

• Aston Martin DB5 - The most famous of James Bond's company cars. It was his first company car in the films, and is equipped with all of Q Branch's modifications (carried from adventure to adventure), including bulletproof front and rear wind screens, oil slick dispenser, smoke screen burner, front wing machine guns, rotating licence plates and, most famously, a passenger ejector seat (again used in Die Another Day, in an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish). Though the most recognised Bond car, it's actually only appeared in four films: Goldfinger and Thunderball starring Sean Connery, and GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies starring Pierce Brosnan (discounting The World is Not Enough, where the car scenes, bar a thermal satellite image, were cut). This silver-grey DB5 also was driven by George Lazenby in the 1983 television film The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair, and by Roger Moore in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run, it reappears in Casino Royale (2006) starring Daniel Craig. Leaving Timothy Dalton the only official James Bond not shown driving the DB5.
• The wetsuit that doesn't wet. In 1964 there existed "dry suits" which a diver could wear which would not allow water into the suit (for very cold water dives), but a dry suit is always distinguished by its rubber neck-seal, which the diver must poke a head through. No drysuit simply zips all the way to the neck, as Bond's wetsuit does. However, Bond's perfect white tuxedo is none the worse from water in the famous opening sequence of the film, despite a cover-suit which would be very hyperthermic out of water, if it worked.
• The Tilly Masterson character drives the then-new Ford Mustang in a duel with the gadget-equipped Aston Martin.
• Oddjob's steel-rimmed top hat, thrown in the movie, notably, like a Frisbee (a toy that had its nominal debut in 1958). In the novel, the hat is a steel-rimmed bowler hat.
• Goldfinger rides in a 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III, famous in its own right from appearing in the film. Its licence number plate (AU 1) includes the letters "Au", the abbreviated chemical symbol for gold. The expiration sticker is for "AUG 64", another reference to gold (and the year of the film).
• Homer - Bond is issued two homing devices by Q Branch. The first, the larger, is used by Bond to track the villain's Rolls-Royce automobile to his base. The second is the smaller and allows MI6 to track Bond's whereabouts; it is hidden in the secret compartment in the heel of one shoe. He later slips it onto the person of Mr. Solo who is taking his leave of Goldfinger's Fort Knox scheme; Bond hopes MI6 can then follow and capture Solo and question him about where he got the device. Unfortunately, the tracer is destroyed when Solo is murdered and his body crushed in a car-crusher along with the car he was in.
• The car-ferry airplane is an Aviation Traders Carvair, an aircraft that was built for transporting automobiles and well-off passengers. Only 21 Carvairs were ever built and therefore it is relatively unknown. Modern viewers may not be surprised at this airplane, which may superficially appear from the nose-bulge to be the well-known 747. However the 747 was not conceived until 1965, and did not fly commercially until 1970. [1]
• Goldfinger's "private" jet. The first Lear Jet was still unsold when this film was released, and the Lockheed JetStar used in the movie as both Goldfinger's jet and the government's jet, was still very new, so the idea of a business jet or private jet was quite novel in 1964.
• The giant laser. Lasers did not exist in 1959 when the book was written, and they were a novelty in 1964 in the movie; this may be the first film appearance of the device (it is even referred to as an "industrial laser", which surely did not exist yet in 1964). The Bond set uses a scaled-up prop which visually suggests the original 1960 Theodore H. Maiman ruby-crystal laser, complete with coiled external flashlamp (see laser for history), and the beam is red. However, in the movie the laser beam is continuous, which is never the case with the 1960 flashlamp design. Reportedly the film prop actually used a low-powered helium-neon continuous beam gas laser, but the beam didn't show on the film, so it had to be added as an optical special effect. The effect on the table is simulated by a welder cutting through it from below with an oxyacetylene torch.
• The Chinese atomic bomb. Communist China was known to be working on becoming a nuclear power in the early 1960s (despite Soviet withdrawal of such assistance in 1960), however, China did not detonate its first nuclear weapon until October, 1964 (see 596 (nuclear test)), which occurred after this film's screenplay was written and its release (September 17, 1964). Thus, the Red Chinese atom bomb, like the industrial laser, is an expected, yet unrealised device, in this film.
• Although not shown on screen, a reference is made in dialogue to the attache case Bond used in From Russia with Love. While aboard Goldfinger's jet, Bond asks for it and is told it was damaged upon examination, a reference to the anti-tamper device referenced in the previous film.

[edit] Locations

[edit] Film locations

• Miami, Florida
• London, England
• Stoke Poges Golf Club, Buckinghamshire, England
• Geneva, Switzerland
• Fort Knox, Kentucky
• Baltimore, Maryland
• Washington, DC

[edit] Shooting locations

• Pinewood Studios
• Stoke Poges Golf Club, Buckinghamshire, England
• Switzerland

• Pilatus Aircraft Factory, Stans and Furka pass (compare the pictures on [2])

• Miami, Florida
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Fort Knox, Kentucky - exteriors only

[edit] Awards

[edit] Miscellanea

Sean Connery in Goldfinger Promotional photo.

• The villain's name was borrowed from Ian Fleming's neighbor, architect Ernő Goldfinger, and his character bears some resemblance. Erno Goldfinger consulted his lawyers when the book was published, prompting Fleming to suggest renaming the character "Goldprick", but Goldfinger eventually settled out of court in return for his legal costs, six copies of the novel, and an agreement that the character's first name 'Auric' would always be used.

• 'Goldfinger' is typically a German-Jewish name, and the protagonists of the novel know this, but neither Bond nor Mr. Du Pont think Goldfinger is Jewish. Instead, Bond pegs the red-haired, blue-eyed man as a Balt, and, indeed, Goldfinger proves an expatriate Latvian.

• In the film, Goldfinger’s ethnicity is Teutonic, given Gert Fröbe's heavy German accent (which required dubbing) and dyed red-blond hair. Fröbe was chosen as the villain because producers Saltzman and Broccoli had seen his performance in a German thriller titled 'Es geschah am hellichten Tag' ('It happened in broad daylight', 1958), which is based on the story Das Versprechen (The Pledge), by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. In that film, Fröbe was a psychopathic serial killer named Schrott, who vents his frustrations with his dominating wife against children. Broccoli and Saltzman had seen the movie and decided upon the 'big bad German' for the role. In the film, a new Goldfinger fascination with Nazi gold history is revealed when Bond tempts him to betting high stakes against a lost, historical Nazi gold bar, an incident not in the novel (the golf game is merely for a large amount of cash).

• All of this didn't help when the film was temporarily banned in Israel due to Gert Fröbe's connections with the actual Nazi Party. The ban, however, was lifted many years later when a Jewish family publicly thanked Fröbe for protecting them from persecution during World War II.

• The novel identifies Goldfinger as a SMERSH operative; in the film he is working with Communist China, taking a break from the main employer of the first two and next three films, SPECTRE.

• Ian Fleming wrote the novel on which the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is based, and there are many connections between the films (see "The Bond Connection" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)). These include the use of Gert Fröbe in both films, and the fact that both movies feature techno-magical cars.

• Production Designer Ken Adam incorporated further exotic devices into the Aston Martin, including a mobile telephone, though the producers rejected this as too outlandish (despite that one was used on Bond's Bentley in the earlier film From Russia With Love).

• In the novel, Goldfinger has a yellow-jacketed pornographic book and gold-painted prostitutes, golden food and drink, a yellow-painted car, a blonde secretary, and even a ginger-colored cat (eaten by Oddjob for dinner after Bond uses it in a ruse). He employs Korean servants repeatedly referred to as "yellow-faced." The film keeps the color of the automobile and the secretary’s hair, but not the racially insensitive material (although Oddjob and many henchmen remain Korean). In compensation, the film has many similar motifs: Goldfinger's red-blond hair; the henchwomen are either red-blonde or blonde (including all of Pussy Galore’s pilots) save Goldfinger's Asian personal jet stewardess (Tilly and Pussy are brunettes in the novel). Goldfinger sports yellow and golden clothing in every scene, including a gold pistol, when disguised as a U.S. Army colonel. The factory henchmen wear yellow sashes, Pussy wears a gold vest, and the pilots wear yellow sunburst stars. Goldfinger's homage to gold ("I love its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness.") is one of few dialogue lines from the novel retained relatively intact in the film.

• Ian Fleming himself liked the color of gold enough to own a gold-plated typewriter, on which he wrote some Bond novels. In the mid-1990s this machine was purchased by the fifth official Bond actor, Pierce Brosnan, in Jamaica.[3]

• The gold-painted girl in the opening credits is actually Margaret Nolan, who plays Dink, Bond's Miami masseuse.

• Theodore Bikel, who played Capt. Von Trapp in the original Broadway version of The Sound of Music, screen-tested for the role of Goldfinger.

• Scenes from the film are shown during the opening credits sequence, although footage from the helicopter chase in From Russia with Love and the explosion on Crab Key from Dr. No are also featured. This is also the first opening credit sequence to show the face of the actor playing James Bond; this would not happen again until The Spy Who Loved Me.

• For an unknown reason Jill and Tilly's surname was changed from Masterton to Masterson for the film.

• Sean Connery never traveled to the United States to film this movie. Bond's American scenes were filmed in Pinewood Studios, London. The scene where Bond pushes down the light switch to turn on his suite's light, discovering the dead, golden Jill, is an English light switch on an English soundstage.

• The film's opening teaser sequence is based on the novel's opening where Bond is in the Miami Airport lounge thinking about his recent killing of a drug smuggler.

• The iconic slow aerial shot that follows the opening credits is that of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, which still stands. The big band piece accompanying the shot is John Barry's "Into Miami."

• Jack Lord initially was slated to reprise the Felix Leiter role, originated in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. Different stories abound as to why he was replaced at the last minute, by Cec Linder, ranging from Lord demanding more money and equal billing with Connery to schedule conflicts, to the producers not wanting Lord back as Leiter, concerned he might upstage Connery. The next actor to play Felix Leiter in Thunderball, Rik Van Nutter, took on an appearance that more resembled Jack Lord's in Dr. No.

• The golf club scene was shot at Stoke Poges Golf Club in Buckinghamshire. When Oddjob decapitates the statue, the statue's head falls onto its arm, causing it to move and miraculously reposition. Later, when Bond switches on his car's radar scanner, the Golf Club's actual location is correctly show on the screen.

• Concerned about censors, the film's producers thought about changing Pussy Galore's name to "Kitty Galore". They kept the original name when British newspapers began to refer to Honor Blackman as "Pussy" in the lead up to production. Pussy's name is actually connected to her leadership of a circus group of cat-burglar, cat-women Amazon lesbian acrobats (called "abrocats") in the novel, but that connection, and other complications, did not survive to the screen adaptation. Although Pussy's sexual preferences are hinted at by a line to Bond ("You can turn off the charm. I'm immune".) and her initial resistance to Bond's sexual advances, especially in the barn, it is never stated she is lesbian in the film. Similarly, Bond's original response when Pussy introduces herself ("Yes I know, but what's your name?") was changed to "I must be dreaming!" to avoid censorship.

• In Goldfinger's jet, he asks stewardess, Mai Li, for his attaché case, which she reports destroyed on examination, a reference to the armed attaché case issued to Bond in the previous film, From Russia With Love.

• Ian Fleming also contributed to the original draft screenplay for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. television series, in which one of the heroes was named "Napoleon Solo". That name originally came from the novel: Napoleon Solo is one of the crime bosses Goldfinger invites to participate in his scheme to steal the gold from Fort Knox. However, the character appearing in the film is a gangster referred to only as "Mr. Solo" (coincidentally "Mr. Solo" was a working title for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.); he exits the story due to "a pressing engagement." In the film he is shot in his car and taken to a junkyard and crushed in a car compactor.

• Ford Motor Company supplied the 1964 model Lincoln Continental for the compactor scene (much anguishing American audiences), in return for the film's showcase of the new Ford Mustang in the Swiss mountain road sequence; astute viewers, however, will see that its hubcaps have switched to 1963 Continental hubcaps in the compaction sequence (the 1963 Lincoln Continental's V8 engine was removed). There are other Ford product placements in the film. During the crushing of the car, the crew remained silent, awed by what they were doing. A Ford Thunderbird serves as the vehicle for Felix Leiter while tailing Bond in Louisville, Kentucky.

• In order to simulate the sound of crumpling metal in compactor, sound effects editor Norman Wanstall used the noise of crumpling beer cans. The film has the compactor car-cube returned to Goldfinger so he can "separate" his gold from the "late Mr. Solo." Oddjob has a pickup truck (a 1964 Ford Falcon Ranchero) available to remove the compacted cube, so there is a plan to return the cube to Goldfinger. There, Goldfinger tells Bond he must now separate his gold from the late Mr. Solo, but this scene's purpose appears to be to give Bond a chance to pun on Solo's "pressing engagement." The audience is not supposed to notice that Goldfinger could have saved himself the whole problem, by simply having Oddjob remove the briefcase of gold bullion before the car is crushed. (Note the gold weight is ignored here as well: it would be possible to carry $1 million in gold bullion in a suitcase at today's prices, but wouldn't have been possible, even for Oddjob, at any exchange rate from 1964).

• In the end sequence, when the atomic bomb is defused, the original ending countdown shown was "003" seconds remaining to detonation. When the film was released in the U.S., the producers changed it to 007 seconds, but the dialogue line remained: "Three more ticks and Mr. Goldfinger would have hit the jackpot". Of course, the timer actually clicked more than once per real-time second, so it could have actually been around three more seconds to detonation.

• For security reasons, the filmmakers were not allowed to film inside Fort Knox. All sets for the interior of Fort Knox were designed and built from scratch. However, a letter from a real-life Fort Knox controller complimented Ken Adam and the production team on their vivid imaginations. The three-dimensional scale-model outdoor map Goldfinger used during his mission briefing, is currently displayed at Fort Knox.

• Script co-writer Paul Dehn would later be hired to write most of the entries in the Planet of the Apes film franchise, in part due to his work on Goldfinger.

• Fleming visited the set of Goldfinger, but died in 1964 shortly before it was released, so he never saw the film.

[edit] In popular culture

• In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in one episode, when Will meets his new teacher, he shouts, "OoooH! Were you the bad guy in Goldfinger?!"

[edit] Myths

Although James Bond films are not known for their technical accuracy, but rather for outlandishly plausible action, two incidents in this film bear special examination: skin asphyxiation, and bullet-induced airplane explosive decompression.

[edit] Asphyxiation argument

Life cover : Goldfinger

In one scene, the villain's girlfriend, Jill Masterson, is murdered by "skin suffocation." She is painted with gold paint and died, because her skin is unable to breathe. According to urban legend, the concept was based on the death of a Swiss fashion model who painted herself and asphyxiated. Another urban legend in Europe involved Italian children who were painted gold as part of a religious parade, and died.

Though this is a plausible explanation for this unusual method of killing, it has been argued whether or not it is possible. Humans, being mammals, achieve respiration via their mouths and nostrils to fill their lungs with air. The only animals that breathe through their skin are amphibians, insects and worms. In fact, were it true that people breathe, in auxiliary fashion, through their skin, it would, therefore, be impossible for people to engage in extended bathing, mud baths, scuba diving and, indeed, body painting - activities requiring extended covering of the skin. If one did try murder via gilding, the victim would die of heat stroke, but only after a long period and not in the manner shown in the movie. The gold paint would clog the pores and prevent perspiration, rendering the body unable to properly regulate its temperature. Dying in this fashion, however, would take several days and is a very inefficient manner of killing.

The Discovery Channel series, MythBusters has twice attempted to prove or disprove whether skin suffocation due to paint was possible. In both experiments one of the hosts of the series was covered head-to-toe in gold paint. The first experiment was called off when the subject began experiencing breathing and blood pressure problems. In a follow-up experiment, a different subject was covered but this time showed no ill effects [4].

A different urban myth (similar to the permanent marker myth) is that there is (or was) a chemical in metallic paints that is toxic and can be somehow absorbed through the skin, causing illness and eventual death; this has yet to be proven, but it may be plausible. A third myth is that painting your skin will not kill you, but it will cause skin problems if you don't wash the paint off properly; this may also be plausible^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Explosive decompression airplane window argument

In a 2003 episode of Discovery Channel's MythBusters, the mythbusters attempted to recreate a scene in several movies (including Goldfinger) in which a window in a jet at high altitude is broken by a bullet, resulting in a passenger being sucked through the window hole by the force of the decompression. The popular idea that this was a realistic possibility almost certainly dates from the Goldfinger book and film (Bond in the film claims a .45 bullet fired at 35,000 feet will cause people to be sucked into "outer space"), and it had settled into the national consciousness firmly enough to be mentioned in the 1970 film Airport (where a character tells of seeing this happen).

MythBusters' attempted a recreation of the phenomenon by over-pressurizing a commercial airliner sitting on the ground to a differential of 8 p.s.i. (the normal pressure difference between inside and outside a commercial airliner at cruising altitude), then firing a handgun at the window. They were unable to re-create any kind of window blowout or sudden cabin decompression, using a firearm (instead, a small hole merely appeared in the plastic). Even when explosives were used to blow a window out entirely, a dummy passenger near the window stayed in the cabin. A claim was later made by the MythBusters team in a Skeptic Magazine interview, that the U.S. government had sought data from this particular segment, since federal agencies and their contractors had been seriously contemplating the same sort of tests, in relation to its armed sky-marshal program, after the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Fortunately, today's airliner windows apparently do not behave in the same way as the window in the Lockheed JetStar used to represent a jet at 35,000 ft in the film.

[edit] Technical and shooting mistakes and bloopers

Quite apart from the major plausability arguments, a list of technical mistakes and scene shooting bloopers is given at www.mi6.co.uk.

As an example of a technical problem, the 5500+ lb 1964 Lincoln Continental (not including the gold still in the trunk) would still weigh the same after being compacted, and could not possibly be transported in Oddjob's Ford Ranchero pickup, with a maximum carry weight of 1000 lbs.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Goldfinger

• Goldfinger (1964) at the Internet Movie Database
• MGM's site on Goldfinger
• Explanation of dying by gilding
• Another explanation of dying by gilding
• James Bond and the Oedipus Complex: The Subtext of Goldfinger