GOLDFINGER (1964)

“A Martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

These iconic words, which will forever be associated with one of cinema’s most famous characters, marked the emergence of a man with poise and charisma, first uttered in the global sensation Goldfinger. In Sean Connery’s third outing as British spy James Bond, we watch as the formula is finally perfected: this was the film that defined Bond both as a person and as a cultural artefact, a classy hero and a fashionable commodity designed for consumption.

Upon completing his most recent assignment in international espionage, James Bond (Connery) is tasked with pursuing Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), a businessman with a penchant for gold—and crime. As Bond’s investigation leads him to the heart of Operation Grandslam, he encounters the silently imposing henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata), and Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), a pilot who potentially holds the fate of the world in her hands.

Though the character had hit the big screen twice before in 1962 and 1963, the origin of Bondmania began in September 1964. Goldfinger is the Bondiest Bond movie to ever Bond. And yet, the film itself isn’t that great. Watching it today feels very much like an exercise in concessions due to the rampant sexism, with the male gaze feeling unendingly leery. Additionally, Goldfinger lacks genuine thrills as a result of Bond’s impenetrable plot armour, worsened by the dearth of characterisation for supporting characters, who enter and disappear from the story on a whim.

However, it’s undeniable that Goldfinger established the winning formula which made the character a global sensation. It introduced aspects of the films that we know and expect today and cemented the character as an icon of class. It was in no small part due to Sean Connery’s adept portrayal of James. He exudes both aggression and sexuality in equal measure: after killing a security guard and detonating his target, he proceeds with his evening by getting busy with a sultry local woman. From a wetsuit to a three-piece suit in the blink of an eye, he’s a jaguar amongst men. It’s for this reason that such simplistic lines became completely legendary: “Bond. James Bond.”

Indeed, Connery’s Bond has been ranked by the American Film Institute (AFI) as the third-greatest hero in cinema history, only behind Atticus Finch and Indiana Jones. Connery brought a real presence to a stereotype. While the scripts may well have ensured the character remained something of a cliché, Connery’s lithe form and vaguely reptilian sensuality made him a star. He’s not a muscle-bound brute like Oddjob.

Instead, he is the embodiment of sex in a new age, the bridge between the sexual mores of counterculture youth and the moral posturing of old, conservative fogies. In short, he personifies class and passion at the same time, a feat not easily achieved. However, he makes it look damned easy, wooing women with his knowledge of how champagne should be served: “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ‘53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Unlike in the previous two entries, Goldfinger represented a first attempt at characterising Bond beyond a simple archetype. Much like in the novel that inspired it, we get to see more of who James is as a person, as well as his psychological shortcomings: he’s indulgent and impulsive, which threatens his work. It’s for this reason that he tempers his desire to race the woman who overtook him, quietly scolding himself: “Discipline…”

Neither director Guy Hamilton nor screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn put too much stock into this aspect of the film. All three clearly understand that nobody attends a Bond movie to watch stunning characterisation. People wanted to watch Bond seduce, kill, and rescue planet Earth from yet another scheme involving world domination. That’s why when Bond walks away suavely as a bomb explodes behind him, we truly feel like this is what the character is all about: sophistication under pressure, an upper-class Epicurus in an Aston Martin, wielding a Walther P38 pistol.

This desire for escapism extends to the film in its entirety. Fight scenes are almost realistic at times, ensuring a sense of riveting action, but most only strive to be entertaining, often becoming overtly camp. This is playfully exacerbated by endless puns. When Bond dispatches a villain in a bath by chucking in a lamp, he remarks stoically: “Shocking.” Apparently, they were stuck on which electricity wordplay to use, so they allowed for another underling to be executed similarly: “He blew a fuse.”

Bond’s opposition is also gleefully exaggerated: Auric Goldfinger. His first name literally means “of gold” from Latin, and in case no one picked up on it, his surname made the connection a little more obvious. He’s the megalomaniacal billionaire who simply must have more wealth than he already has, leading him to seek “excellence in crime.” It’s not enough that he owns a social club, private planes, or an endless series of spinning mechanisms in his house. He must have more, and his pathological greed defines him.

Goldfinger also features the best—and first—henchman in the series in Oddjob. To this day, this swarthy jack-of-all-trades is the most iconic of all the underlings in the Bond franchise. This is no doubt partly due to his ridiculous method of killing people: he throws his steel-rimmed hat at their heads. If he misses, well… he has to go and pick his hat up again. There’s no reloading mechanism.

It’s certainly not a practical way to go about international crime, but it’s a memorable one. However, there are several other memorable moments involving Oddjob’s presence. He crushes a golf ball with bare hands, decapitates statues, and plods forward wordlessly, suffocating Bond with his pressure and seemingly unending strength. In a battle of the brain over brawn, we watch as gold literally bounces off this man of granite.

The thrilling formula would not have been complete, of course, without a love interest—or half a dozen. There are a total of six active sexual interests for Bond, two of whom are killed. One tries to betray him, one is dismissed with a polite spank, never to be seen again, with the old faithful Ms Moneypenny serving as his backup plan, should all of his lovers be killed off or try to murder him.

Bond’s interactions with people have always tended towards the absurd, but they were rarely more absurd than in Goldfinger. His blueprint appears to be: do they have a Y chromosome? If not, try to seduce them. If yes, try to kill them. Unless that is, they can be used to further British intelligence—in which case, buy them a Martini. It’s sex, danger, violence, alcoholism, and misogyny with a thin veneer of sophistication.

Some of Bond’s exploits haven’t aged well over the last 60 years. Pretty much every woman onscreen is there for James to ogle, with a revolving door of characters jumping in and out to appeal to the male fantasy. Six decades later, the film is so blatantly sexist that it borders on the hilarious.

This is perhaps first evident when Bond tracks Goldfinger to Miami, where he comes across his young, bikini-clad accomplice, who’s apparently just waiting to be seduced. It’s also clear how, without knowing anything about these women, he automatically assumes they’re sleeping with their boss, Goldfinger. When Pussy Galore reveals she’s Goldfinger’s personal pilot, Bond inquires: “And, just how personal is that?”

Due to the success of the film, this is a formula that was amplified, not toned down. Roald Dahl once revealed that, when he was writing the screenplay for You Only Live Twice (1967), he was told to incorporate three Bond girls into the mix. One should be murdered early, “preferably in Bond’s arms.” The second was to be a femme fatale, who is inexorably seduced by Bond’s overwhelming charm, with the third being the true love interest (if you can call it that). It’s folklore meets Bond: Goldfinger and the Three Bond Girls.

Alarmingly, Bond never once seems perturbed by how many beautiful women appear to die around him, something that was finally acknowledged in Quantum of Solace (2008). To an extent, this just seems to constitute bad writing: Bond comes across as completely remorseless for his behaviour, untroubled by the fact that he’s often a catalyst for unsuspecting women meeting their unpleasant demises. He has a woeful dearth of empathy, and his lack of conscience is occasionally puzzling: he never mentions the fact that two sisters died with him within days of each other.

The true Bond girl in this flick is the ridiculously named Pussy Galore. Based on Pussy Deakin, a Romanian-born Secret Service agent, Pussy Galore claims to be immune to Bond. Of course, she’s mistaken: no woman alive could resist Bond, a man so devilishly charming that he can provide lectures on scotch at the drop of a hat. Hilariously, in Fleming’s novel, Galore was originally written as a lesbian to explain how she could reject Bond’s sexual advances.

Although, in the film, it looks as though she continues to resist Bond’s seduction, with their sex scene coming across as more of a rape than anything else. This would make it Connery’s second rape onscreen in a single year, having sexually assaulted his wife in Marnie (1964). However, much like in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, his behaviour is justified: it is only in seducing Galore that the diabolical plot is foiled. This suggests that the most important member of Bond’s team is, in fact, his genital member. It’s for this reason that the laser sequence remains tense: if Bond is stripped of his penis, how will he save the day?

The balance between humour and action was what set the film apart from its predecessors. Speaking of Hitchcock, a filmmaker who was incredibly adept at balancing humour and tension, he adored the film. In particular, he praised the scene involving an old woman firing a machine gun. Many of the other deaths onscreen are playfully done. Oddjob’s hat, suffocating paint, a long fall onto a stack of gold, being sucked out of planes, and, of course, the electrocutions.

It’s also the editing that keeps everything moving at such a wonderfully brisk pace. The scene bridges are, much like our protagonist or the Martinis he drinks, superbly smooth. A plane flying a banner reading ‘Welcome to Miami’ introduces us to our next location. A close-up of a radio, with the announcer stating “I’m entirely satisfied,” slowly pans to Bond in bed with Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton). “That makes two of us,” Bond quips. We’re left to infer what transpired between the cut (if we needed any help in guessing).

It should be unsurprising that Goldfinger was well-received. Many cinemas held showings for 24-hours a day to ensure the demand was met. A monumental box-office success, it garnered more than $125M from a budget of a meagre $3M. The movie was even the fastest-grossing movie in cinema history when it was released and entered into the Guinness Book of World Records.

It wasn’t just the business angle of Goldfinger that impressed, however. Many of the world’s filmmakers took notice. Steven Spielberg has cited it as his favourite in the series, with even Federico Fellini extolling the film: “This is one of those films that make cinema carry on!” As some bizarre twist of fate, it was also the first film Pierce Brosnan claimed to have seen in the cinema, a little over 30 years before he’d be sitting in an Aston Martin himself.

Labelling the film as iconic is perhaps an understatement. John Barry’s music is phenomenal, with Shirley Bassey’s vocals providing the film with a jolt of life. The groovy soundtrack has influenced everything from Mission: Impossible (1996) to The Incredibles (2004). Pussy Galore’s pilots, all of whom are blonde and pneumatic, are introduced with a sweeping score of sexy saxophone music that takes you right back to 1964—for better or for worse.

Furthermore, the dialogue is impeccable: “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” Not a single line in the entire franchise has ever topped this one, and I doubt it ever will. The introduction of gadgets, terse henchmen, and beautiful “sacrificial lambs” all started in Goldfinger, which makes it the quintessential film of the franchise.

I still consider Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (2006) to be the best Bond film, though it’s difficult to compare these movies, despite the similarities in plot and character. With over forty years of separation between the two, it feels unfair to extol the better action and improved writing in Daniel Craig’s debut.

What is inarguable, however, is just how magnetic Connery was as 007. It may not be the best film in the franchise, but it is certainly the most quintessentially “Bond” work in the long-established series. The influence that Goldfinger had on cinematic espionage is impossible to ignore. Though parts have inevitably shown their age, the film and Connery’s performance have both remained a standard for all spy flicks to meet… and probably will for another 60 years.

UK •  US | 1964 | 110 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • CHINESE • SPANISH

Cast & Crew

director: Guy Hamilton.
writers: Richard Maibaum & Paul Dehn (based on the novel by Ian Fleming).
starring: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet & Harold Sakata.