Howie and I exchanged a private smile at that sentiment—for we harboured a secret that, as fate would have it, was about to lose its secrecy completely. The news reports, in a frenzy of excitement, disclosed that a number of the young women had breached the hotel’s security and had been captured searching the corridors for the room in which their wildest dreams might be fulfilled.
The cameras were on hand as the captives were brought out, disgruntled at their failure and then jubilant when they saw they were being filmed. As each came by the camera, they shook off their humble submissive attitudes and began to bounce and scream, and the policemen who escorted them by the arms where forced to subdue them with firmer grips and sterner expressions. These maniacal creatures, the rabid announcer assured the trembling population, would soon be confined to the City Watchhouse where charges of trespass and resisting arrest were not improbable.
Goldfinger said: ‘Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago : “Once is happenstance, twice is co-incidence, the third time it’s enemy action.”’
... Odd job’s body seemed to elongate toward the howling black aperture. There was a crash as his head went through and his shoulders hit the frame. Then, as if the Korean’s body was toothpaste, it was slowly, foot by foot, sucked with a terrible whistling noise through the aperture. Now Oddjob was out to the waist. Now the huge buttocks stuck and the human paste moved only inch by inch. Then, with a loud boom, the buttocks got through and the legs disappeared as if shot from a gun.
After that came the end of the world. With an appalling crash of crockery from the galley, the huge plane stood on its nose and dived...
Goldfinger saw Ian Fleming and James Bond at their peak, and provided the most stylish and innovative of the movies as well, not to mention the best villain, played with wit and naturalistic flare by Gert Frobe. In the first place, Fleming perfected his formula with this book—Denis Wheatley, more than anyone else, and perhaps Biggles, showed the way but Ian Fleming earned his immortally here. It provided all the raw materials for a truly ground-breaking movie—it is difficult to underestimate the film’s importance. The first two Bond movies were practice for this one, and with it the Christie-Hitchcock mould that had served thrillers so well up to that time was finally upstaged. Goldfinger created a whole new approach to action techniques, and developed pacing to a fine pitch. With its continual flow of highlights, it never letsup—the idea of padding out the middle between the crime and the capture of the baddies would never be valid again. Even the opening credits are amazing as action images ripple over the anatomy of the golden girl while Shirley Bassey belts out the raunchy theme. Everything was as near as it gets to perfection.
The best scene has Bond strapped to a bench with a killer laser proceeding up between his spread thighs (a circular saw in the book but just as effective), heading for his pride and joy. “Do you expect me to talk?” Bond blurts. To which an amused Goldfinger replies, “No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.”
The movie also alters Goldfinger’s evil scheme—for the better, believe it or not—along with the scintillating action, it is also clever and intelligent. There’s Shirley Eaton’s coat of gold paint, Oddjob’s deadly hat, and the whole business of Bond handcuffed to the A-bomb in Fort Knox—the counter stops at 007 seconds.
In the final fight, Goldfinger is squeezed out the window of the depressurised plane (in the book it was Oddjob, but his final fight with Bond is superbly staged) and, perhaps most unforgettable of all, John Steed’s former offsider Honor Blackman as a character with the astonishing name of Pussy Galore. As one critic put it, no one else can say “Pussy” quite the way Sean Connery can. The best Bond movie from the best Bond book—and the only real problem with it was that perhaps they all set their own standards too high.
