filmsgraded.com:

Goldfinger (1964)

Grade: 64/100

Director: Guy Hamilton
Stars: Sean Connery, Gert Frobe, Harold Sakata

What it's about. British agent 007 (Sean Connery) is sent to Miami Beach to spy on Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), a gold-obsessed zillionaire with a secret plot to rob Fort Knox. His allies are Oddjob (Harold Sakata), a mute and loyal strongman servant, and Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), a sexy pilot with a name that confirms the demise of the production code. How will Connery foil the greedy scheme of Goldfinger? And how many women will he seduce along the way?

How others will see it. This is one of the best James Bond films, inferior only to From Russia with Love. It is early enough in the long run of Bond movies that traditions are set, rather than topped. Bond is arrogant, but he's fallible, rather than smugly invincible. The girls are pretty if usually stupid, and the action is intense, rather than merely preposterous.

Viewers will notice early on that a hotel background has been pasted behind the actors, but the editing is better the rest of the way. The crime bosses gathered to be exterminated are eye-rolling stereotypes, but it's likely that few movie buffs will care. It is odd, though, that Goldfinger bothers to explain his plan to them when he intends to kill them all minutes later.

How I felt about it. Some of the film's weaknesses have been pointed out by others, but I will mention that a crushed car containing a million dollars in gold (at $35 an ounce) will have more than the impact of a small refrigerator when placed on the bed of a pickup truck. A fan is an electric shock hazard in a bathtub only if it is plugged in. A hat, no matter how sharp, is unlikely to cut the head off of a marble statue when thrown from a distance. It seems remarkable that Bond is allowed free movement on the horse stud farm with Galore, when he is known to be highly dangerous. He would be escorted by Oddjob as well.

Bond is sexist. He patronizes dumb blonde Dink with "Man talk," then dismisses her with a slap on the behind. His supreme confidence with women allows him to conquer Pussy Galore (an inspired name), but wouldn't it be easier to seize Goldfinger before he embarks on his mission and sets off his atomic bomb?

Nevertheless, we must admit that Goldfinger is fine entertainment, and it contains probably the best line of any of the films in the series, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" Look how nervous Connery is with a laser aimed at his privates. A later incarnation would maintain his distant, superior air even as he is cut in two.

In Goldfinger, Connery isn't the most smug man in the film. That honor belongs to Oddjob, who truly relishes his position as Goldfinger's right-hand man. Appropriately, he makes his first appearance after Connery sneers that the Beatles are best heard while wearing ear muffs. For that generation gap gaffe, you almost deserve to be knocked unconscious.


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