Goldfinger is the third
film in the James Bond series and also the third to star Sean Connery
as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1964, it is based
on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars
Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the
title character Auric Goldfinger, along with Shirley Eaton as famous
Bond girl Jill Masterson. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R.
Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and was the first of four Bond films
directed by Guy Hamilton.
Agent
007 investigates a smuggling operation run by the obsessive
millionaire Auric Goldfinger and uncovers a plot to irradiate the
entire gold supply of the United States by detonating an atomic bomb
inside Fort Knox with the help of his private pilot, Pussy Galore.
Goldfinger was the first Bond blockbuster, 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 American states of Kentucky and Florida.
The release of the film 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. The promotion also included an image of gold-painted
Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson on the cover of Life.
Many of the elements
introduced in the film appeared in many of the later James Bond
films, such as the extensive use of technology and "gadgets"
by Bond and an extensive pre-credits sequence that was not a major
part of the main storyline. Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win
an Academy Award and opened to largely favourable critical reception.
The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in just two
weeks and is hailed as the series' quintessential episode, still
being acclaimed as one of the best films in the entire Bond canon.
With the court case between
Kevin McClory and Fleming surrounding Thunderball still in the High
Courts, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman turned to
Goldfinger as the third Bond film. Goldfinger had what was then
considered a large budget of $3 million, the equivalent of the
budgets of Dr. No and From Russia with Love combined, and was the
first James Bond film classified as a box-office blockbuster.
Goldfinger was chosen with the American cinema market in mind, as the
previous films had concentrated on the Caribbean and Europe.
Terence
Young, who directed the previous two films, chose to film The
Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders instead, after a pay dispute that
saw him denied a percentage of the film's profits. Broccoli and
Saltzman turned instead to Guy Hamilton to direct; Hamilton, who had
turned down directing Dr. No, felt that he needed to make Bond less
of a "superman" by making the villains seem more powerful.
Hamilton knew Fleming, as both were involved during intelligence
matters in the Royal Navy during World War II. Goldfinger saw the
return of two crew members who were not involved with From Russia
With Love: stunt coordinator Bob Simmons and production designer Ken
Adam. Both played crucial roles in the development of Goldfinger,
with Simmons choreographing the fight sequence between Bond and
Oddjob in the vault of Fort Knox, which was not just seen as one of
the best Bond fights, but also "must stand as one of the great
cinematic combats" whilst Adam's efforts on Goldfinger were
"luxuriantly baroque" and have resulted in the film being
called "one of his finest pieces of work."
Richard Maibaum, who wrote
the previous films, returned to adapt the seventh James Bond novel.
Maibaum fixed the novel's heavily criticised plot hole, where
Goldfinger actually attempts to empty Fort Knox. In the film, Bond
notes it would take twelve days for Goldfinger to steal the gold,
before the villain reveals he actually intends to irradiate it with
the then topical concept of a Red Chinese atomic bomb. However, Harry
Saltzman disliked the first draft, and brought in Paul Dehn to revise
it. Hamilton said Dehn "brought out the British side of
things". Connery disliked his draft, so Maibaum returned. Dehn
also suggested the pre-credit sequence to be an action scene with no
relevance to the actual plot. Wolf Mankowitz, an un-credited
screenwriter on Dr. No, suggested the scene where Oddjob puts his car
into a car crusher to dispose of a dead body. Because of the quality
of work of Maibaum and Dehn, the script and outline for Goldfinger
became the blueprint for future Bond films.
Principal
photography on Goldfinger commenced on 20 January 1964 in Miami,
Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel; the crew was small, consisting
only of Hamilton, Broccoli, Adam and cinematographer Ted Moore. Sean
Connery never travelled to Florida to film Goldfinger because he was
filming Marnie elsewhere in the US. Miami also served as location to
the scenes involving Felix's pursuit of Oddjob. After five days in
Florida, production moved to England. The primary location was
Pinewood Studios, home to among other sets, a recreation of the
Fontainebleau, the South American city of the pre-title sequence, and
both Goldfinger's estate and factory. Three places near the studio
were used, Black Park for the car chase involving Bond's Aston Martin
and Goldfinger's henchmen inside the factory complex, RAF Northolt
for the American airports, and Stoke Park Club for the golf club
scene. Southend Airport was used for the scene where Goldfinger flies
to Switzerland. Ian Fleming visited the set of Goldfinger in April
1964; he died a few months later in August 1964, shortly before the
film's release. The second unit filmed in Kentucky, and these shots
were edited into scenes filmed at Pinewood. Principal photography
then moved to Switzerland, with the car chase being filmed at the
small curves roads near Realp, the exterior of the Pilatus Aircraft
factory in Stans serving as Goldfinger's factory, and Tilly
Masterson's attempt to snipe Goldfinger being shot in the Furka pass.
Filming wrapped on July 11th at Andermatt, after nineteen weeks of
shooting. Just three weeks prior to the film's release, Hamilton and
a small team, which included Broccoli's stepson and future producer
Michael G. Wilson as assistant director, went for last minute shoots
in Kentucky. Extra people were hired for post-production issues such
as dubbing so the film could be finished in time.
Broccoli
earned permission to film in the Fort Knox area with the help of his
friend, Lt. Colonel Charles Russhon. To shoot Pussy Galore's Flying
Circus gassing the soldiers, the pilots were only allowed to fly
above 3000 feet. Hamilton recalled this was "hopeless", so
they flew at about 500 feet, "and the military went absolutely
ape". The scenes of people fainting involved the same set of
soldiers moving to different locations. For security reasons, the
filmmakers were not allowed to film inside the United States Bullion
Depository, although exterior photography was permitted. All sets for
the interiors of the building were designed and built from scratch at
Pinewood Studios. The filmmakers had no clue as to what the interior
of the depository looked like, so Ken Adam's imagination provided the
idea of gold stacked upon gold behind iron bars. Saltzman disliked
the design's resemblance to a prison, but Hamilton liked it enough
that it was built. The comptroller of Fort Knox later sent a letter
to Adam and the production team, complimenting them on their
imaginative depiction of the vault. United Artists even had irate
letters from people wondering "how could a British film unit be
allowed inside Fort Knox?" Adam recalled, "In the end I was
pleased that I wasn't allowed into Fort Knox, because it allowed me
to do whatever I wanted." Another element which was original was
the atomic device, to which Hamilton requested the special effects
crew to get inventive instead of realistic. Technician Bert Luxford
described the end result as looking like an "engineering
work", with a spinning engine, a chronometer and other
decorative pieces.
Untitled
Hamilton remarked,
"Before [Goldfinger], gadgets were not really a part of Bond's
world." Production designer Ken Adam chose the DB5 because it
was the latest version of the Aston Martin (in the novel Bond drove
an DB Mk.III), which he considered England's most sophisticated car.
The company was initially reluctant, but was finally convinced to
make a product placement deal. In the script, the car was armed only
with a smoke screen, but every crew member began suggesting gadgets
to install in it: Hamilton conceived the revolving license plate
because he had been getting lots of parking tickets, while his
stepson suggested the ejector seat (which he saw on television). A
gadget near the lights that would drop sharp nails was replaced with
an oil dispenser because the producers thought the original could be
easily copied by viewers. Adam and engineer John Stears overhauled
the prototype of the Aston Martin DB5 coupe, installing these and
other features into a car over six weeks. The scene where the DB5
crashes was filmed twice, with the second take being used in the
film. The first take, in which the car drives through the fake wall,
can be seen in the trailer. Two of the gadgets were not installed in
the car: the wheel-destroying spikes, inspired by Ben-Hur's scythed
chariots, were entirely made in-studio; and the ejector seat used a
seat thrown by compressed air, with a dummy sitting atop it. Another
car without the gadgets was created, which was eventually furnished
for publicity purposes. It was reused for Thunderball.
Lasers did not exist in
1959 when the book was written, nor did high-power industrial lasers
at the time the film was made, making them a novelty. In the novel,
Goldfinger uses a circular saw to try to kill Bond, but the
filmmakers changed it to a laser to make the film feel more fresh.
Hamilton immediately thought of giving the laser a place in the
film's story as Goldfinger's weapon of choice. Ken Adam was advised
on the laser's design by two Harvard scientists who helped design the
water reactor in Dr No. The laser beam itself was an optical effect
added in post-production. For close-ups where the flame cuts through
metal, technician Bert Luxford heated the metal with a blowtorch from
underneath the table Bond was strapped to. This scene would feature
an exchange between Goldfinger and 007 that would become a movie classic.
Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Mr Bond, I expect
you to die!
The
opening credit sequence was designed by graphic artist Robert
Brownjohn, featuring clips of all James Bond films thus far projected
on Margaret Nolan's body. Its design was inspired by seeing light
projecting on people's bodies as they got up and left a cinema.
Visually, the film uses many golden motifs to parallel the gold's
symbolic treatment in the novel. All of Goldfinger's female
henchwomen in the film except his private jet's co-pilot (black hair)
and stewardess (who is Korean) are red-blonde, or blonde, including
Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus crew (both the characters Tilly
Masterson and Pussy specifically have black hair in the novel).
Goldfinger has a yellow-painted Rolls-Royce with number plate "AU
1" ("Au" being the chemical symbol for gold), and
also sports yellow or golden items or clothing in every film scene,
including a golden pistol, when disguised as a colonel. Bond is bound
to a solid gold table (as Goldfinger points out to him) before nearly
being lasered. Goldfinger's factory henchmen in the film wear yellow
sashes, Pussy Galore at one point wears a metallic gold vest, and
Pussy's pilots all wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms.
The concept of the recurring gold theme running through the film was
a design aspect conceived and executed by Ken Adam and Art Director
Peter Murton.
The model jet used for wide
shots of Goldfinger's Lockheed JetStar was refurbished to be used as
the presidential plane that crashes at the film's end. Several cars
were provided by the Ford Motor Company including a Mustang that
Tilly Masterson drives, a Ford Country Squire station wagon used to
transport Bond from the airport to the stud ranch, a Ford Thunderbird
driven by Felix Leiter, and a Lincoln Continental in which Oddjob
kills Solo (a lone gangster who refuses to take part in Operation
Grand Slam). The Continental had its engine removed before being
placed in a car crusher, and the destroyed car had to be partially
cut so that the Ford Falcon Ranchero pick-up truck on which it was
deposited could support the weight. Felming wrote Goldfinger in 1959
and would recycle the Solo name when he helped develop the Man from
U.N.C.L.E. TV series in 1962.
Since the release date for
the film had been pre-determined and filming had finished close to
that date, John Barry received some edits directly from the cutting
room floor, rather than as a finished edit, and scored some sequences
from the rough, initial prints. Barry described his work in
Goldfinger as a favourite of his, saying it was "the first time
I had complete control, writing the score and the song". The
musical tracks, in keeping with the film's theme of gold and metal,
make heavy use of brass, and also metallic chimes. The film's score
is described as "brassy and raunchy" with "a sassy
sexiness to it".
Goldfinger
is said to have started the tradition of Bond theme songs being from
the pop genre or using popular artists, although this had already
been done with Matt Monro singing the title song of From Russia with
Love. Shirley Bassey sang the theme song "Goldfinger", and
she would go on to sing the theme songs for two other Bond films,
Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker. The song was composed by John
Barry, with lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse and the
soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200 chart.
The film's marketing
campaign began as soon as filming started in Florida, with Eon
allowing photographers to enter the set to take pictures of Shirley
Eaton painted in gold. Robert Brownjohn, who designed the opening
credits, was responsible for the posters for the advertising
campaign, which also used actress Margaret Nolan. To promote the
film, the two Aston Martin DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York
World's Fair and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the
world"; consequently, sales of the car rose. Corgi Toys began
its decades long relationship with the Bond franchise, producing a
toy of the car, which became the biggest selling toy of 1964. The
film's success also led to licensed tie-in clothing, dress shoes,
action figures, board games, jigsaw puzzles, lunch boxes, toys,
record albums, trading cards and slot cars.
AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
Untitled
Goldfinger Trailer -
Directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Sean Connery, Peter Cranwell,
Nadja Regin, Richard Vernon, Burt Kwouk. Someone is planning a major
robbery of Gold that could destroy the economy. James Bond is
dispatched by the MI6 and the Bank of England to find the people
responsible and stop them. Buy
Goldfinger here.
Goldfinger was premiered at
the Odeon Leicester Square in London on September 17th 1964, with
general release in the United Kingdom the following day. Leicester
Square was packed with sightseers and fans and police were unable to
control the crowd due to the number of people. A set of glass doors
to the cinema was accidentally broken and the premiere was shown ten
minutes late because of the confusion. The United States premiere
occurred on December 21 1964, at the DeMille Theater in New York
City. Goldfinger was temporarily banned in Israel because of Gert
Fröbe's connections with the 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.
Goldfinger
was generally a critical success and at the 1965 Academy Awards,
Norman Wanstall (right) won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects
Editing for his work, making Goldfinger the first Bond film to
receive an Academy Award. John Barry was nominated for the Grammy
Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture, and Ken Adam was nominated
for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for Best
British Art Direction (Colour), where he also won the award for Best
British Art Direction (Black and White) for Dr. Strangelove.
Goldfinger had a large
impact on the rest of the Bond series as its script came to be seen
as a template for all other Bond films to follow. It was the first of
the series showing Bond relying heavily on technology, as well as the
first to show a pre-credits sequence with only a tangential link to
the main story. Gildfinger also introduced the first briefing in
Q-branch, allowing the viewer to see the gadgets in development. The
subsequent films in the Bond series follow most of Goldfinger's basic
structure, featuring a henchman with a particular characteristic, a
Bond girl that gets killed by the villain, big emphasis on the
gadgets and a more tongue-in-cheek approach, though trying to balance
action and comedy.
Goldfinger has been
described as perhaps the most highly and consistently praised Bond
picture of them all and after Goldfinger, Bond became a true
phenomenon. The success of the film led to the emergence of many
other works in the espionage genre and parodies of James Bond, such
as The Beatles film Help! in 1965 and a spoof of Ian Fleming's first
Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1967. Indeed it has been said that
Goldfinger was the cause of the boom in espionage films in the 1960s,
so much so that in 1966, moviegoers were offered no less than 22
examples of secret agent entertainment, including several blatant
attempts to begin competing series, with James Coburn starring as
Derek Flint in the film Our Man Flint and Dean Martin as Matt Helm.
On television there was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which Fleming had
contributed too), I Spy, Mission Impossible, The Avengers, Honey
West, Danger Man and Get Smart.
Even within the Bond canon,
Goldfinger is acknowledged; the 22nd Bond film, Quantum of Solace,
includes an homage to the gold body paint death scene by having a
female character dead on a bed nude, covered in crude oil. Outside
the Bond films, elements of Goldfinger, such as Oddjob and his use of
his hat as a weapon, Bond removing his drysuit to reveal a tuxedo
underneath and the laser scene have been homaged or spoofed in works
such as True Lies, The Simpsons, and the Austin Powers series, when
Dr. Evil's henchman Random Task throws his shoe at Powers.
AV
CLUB SLIDESHOW DEPARTMENT
My Neat Stuff Slideshow - Jssor Slider, Slideshow with Javascript Source Code
Terence
Young, who directed the previous two films, chose to film The
Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders instead, after a pay dispute that
saw him denied a percentage of the film's profits. Broccoli and
Saltzman turned instead to Guy Hamilton to direct; Hamilton, who had
turned down directing Dr. No, felt that he needed to make Bond less
of a "superman" by making the villains seem more powerful.
Hamilton knew Fleming, as both were involved during intelligence
matters in the Royal Navy during World War II. Goldfinger saw the
return of two crew members who were not involved with From Russia
With Love: stunt coordinator Bob Simmons and production designer Ken
Adam. Both played crucial roles in the development of Goldfinger,
with Simmons choreographing the fight sequence between Bond and
Oddjob in the vault of Fort Knox, which was not just seen as one of
the best Bond fights, but also "must stand as one of the great
cinematic combats" whilst Adam's efforts on Goldfinger were
"luxuriantly baroque" and have resulted in the film being
called "one of his finest pieces of work."
Principal
photography on Goldfinger commenced on 20 January 1964 in Miami,
Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel; the crew was small, consisting
only of Hamilton, Broccoli, Adam and cinematographer Ted Moore. Sean
Connery never travelled to Florida to film Goldfinger because he was
filming Marnie elsewhere in the US. Miami also served as location to
the scenes involving Felix's pursuit of Oddjob. After five days in
Florida, production moved to England. The primary location was
Pinewood Studios, home to among other sets, a recreation of the
Fontainebleau, the South American city of the pre-title sequence, and
both Goldfinger's estate and factory. Three places near the studio
were used, Black Park for the car chase involving Bond's Aston Martin
and Goldfinger's henchmen inside the factory complex, RAF Northolt
for the American airports, and Stoke Park Club for the golf club
scene. Southend Airport was used for the scene where Goldfinger flies
to Switzerland. Ian Fleming visited the set of Goldfinger in April
1964; he died a few months later in August 1964, shortly before the
film's release. The second unit filmed in Kentucky, and these shots
were edited into scenes filmed at Pinewood. Principal photography
then moved to Switzerland, with the car chase being filmed at the
small curves roads near Realp, the exterior of the Pilatus Aircraft
factory in Stans serving as Goldfinger's factory, and Tilly
Masterson's attempt to snipe Goldfinger being shot in the Furka pass.
Filming wrapped on July 11th at Andermatt, after nineteen weeks of
shooting. Just three weeks prior to the film's release, Hamilton and
a small team, which included Broccoli's stepson and future producer
Michael G. Wilson as assistant director, went for last minute shoots
in Kentucky. Extra people were hired for post-production issues such
as dubbing so the film could be finished in time.
Broccoli
earned permission to film in the Fort Knox area with the help of his
friend, Lt. Colonel Charles Russhon. To shoot Pussy Galore's Flying
Circus gassing the soldiers, the pilots were only allowed to fly
above 3000 feet. Hamilton recalled this was "hopeless", so
they flew at about 500 feet, "and the military went absolutely
ape". The scenes of people fainting involved the same set of
soldiers moving to different locations. For security reasons, the
filmmakers were not allowed to film inside the United States Bullion
Depository, although exterior photography was permitted. All sets for
the interiors of the building were designed and built from scratch at
Pinewood Studios. The filmmakers had no clue as to what the interior
of the depository looked like, so Ken Adam's imagination provided the
idea of gold stacked upon gold behind iron bars. Saltzman disliked
the design's resemblance to a prison, but Hamilton liked it enough
that it was built. The comptroller of Fort Knox later sent a letter
to Adam and the production team, complimenting them on their
imaginative depiction of the vault. United Artists even had irate
letters from people wondering "how could a British film unit be
allowed inside Fort Knox?" Adam recalled, "In the end I was
pleased that I wasn't allowed into Fort Knox, because it allowed me
to do whatever I wanted." Another element which was original was
the atomic device, to which Hamilton requested the special effects
crew to get inventive instead of realistic. Technician Bert Luxford
described the end result as looking like an "engineering
work", with a spinning engine, a chronometer and other
decorative pieces.
The
opening credit sequence was designed by graphic artist Robert
Brownjohn, featuring clips of all James Bond films thus far projected
on Margaret Nolan's body. Its design was inspired by seeing light
projecting on people's bodies as they got up and left a cinema.
Visually, the film uses many golden motifs to parallel the gold's
symbolic treatment in the novel. All of Goldfinger's female
henchwomen in the film except his private jet's co-pilot (black hair)
and stewardess (who is Korean) are red-blonde, or blonde, including
Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus crew (both the characters Tilly
Masterson and Pussy specifically have black hair in the novel).
Goldfinger has a yellow-painted Rolls-Royce with number plate "AU
1" ("Au" being the chemical symbol for gold), and
also sports yellow or golden items or clothing in every film scene,
including a golden pistol, when disguised as a colonel. Bond is bound
to a solid gold table (as Goldfinger points out to him) before nearly
being lasered. Goldfinger's factory henchmen in the film wear yellow
sashes, Pussy Galore at one point wears a metallic gold vest, and
Pussy's pilots all wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms.
The concept of the recurring gold theme running through the film was
a design aspect conceived and executed by Ken Adam and Art Director
Peter Murton.
Goldfinger
was generally a critical success and at the 1965 Academy Awards,
Norman Wanstall (right) won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects
Editing for his work, making Goldfinger the first Bond film to
receive an Academy Award. John Barry was nominated for the Grammy
Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture, and Ken Adam was nominated
for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for Best
British Art Direction (Colour), where he also won the award for Best
British Art Direction (Black and White) for Dr. Strangelove.
