Goldfinger (1964), directed by Guy Hamilton

Sean Connery as James Bond

I’ll cut right to the chase: for me, this is pretty much the perfect Bond film. I think that people look for different things from a Bond movie, but this one is right in the Goldilocks zone for my personal taste. It’s a little sillier than its predecessor, but stops short of absurdity or ridiculousness. The villain is a great example of the blending of serious threat with over-the-top theatrics, and the character work in general manages to balance the twin influences of serious superspy thrills and indulgent, popcorn-munching audience appeal better than almost any other movie in the franchise. Liking Goldfinger isn’t exactly a bold statement from a Bond fan, though, so let’s look at just what makes this movie so special in the broader Bond canon.

It’s clear almost from the first moments of the movie that Guy Hamilton brings a different sensibility to the Bond franchise than did Terence Young. We start out with arguably the most iconic of the series’ many credits sequences: they’re projected onto the bodies of women painted gold over the smooth R&B tones of a Shirley Bassey song, and this level of heightened presentation persists throughout the entire film. Everything in this movie is a little ‘more’ than the previous two entries, and for the most part it works out perfectly. This film also starts the sometimes-trend of starting with Bond finishing up a previous mission before our current story starts, which I have always thought is a fun way to hint at the broader life of the character outside of the plots of the films. So after Bond finishes wiping up a drug cartel, he decides to take some R&R, but work intrudes into his Miami Beach vacation when he gets orders from MI6 to look into the shady character who lends the film its name, Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). These opening scenes are excellent: they establish what an expert Bond is, deliver us some astonishingly sumptuous location shooting, and waste no time in moving our protagonist and antagonist together for the series of mental duels that comprise the majority of the film on the way to Goldfinger’s daring Fort Knox heist/terrorist attack.

It’s this conflict that forms the heart of the film, and I think I appreciate it for its greater focus on the rivalry between Bond and Goldfinger. With the previous entries, you have evil masterminds plotting from the shadows, and agents that pose temporary threats, but nothing like the conflict here that plays out over the entire film. “Red” Grant may have been hunting him for the entirety of From Russia with Love, but Bond’s mostly unaware of it. Goldfinger is an excellent foil, and it’s the dynamic between the two that makes this movie one of the most engaging of the early Bond movies. It’s not all perfect: on rewatching, I feel fairly confident that the British were much more engaged by high-stakes golf than I am, but even that scene adds to the verbal swordplay and maneuvering the two men are doing. It escalates over the course of the film, with Goldfinger’s hubris clearly serving as the foundation of his defeat. It may have been the source of many jokes about villains keeping heroes alive for dubious reasons, but the dynamic actually works very well here and makes sense in context. Goldfinger keeping Bond alive also results in some excellent ‘captive hero’ dramatic tension, where Bond knows everything but has to find a way to get the information out while under constant surveillance, which is a great conceit for a spy film.

The movie has far more to its credit than its central pair of adversaries, however. It also has one of the best supporting casts of any film in the series’ history. Odd Job (the magnificent Japanese Pro Wrestler Harold Sakata) is one of the most recognizable and beloved characters in the Bond Rogues’ Gallery despite only appearing in this one film and having no real dialogue other than grunts and screams. He’s just that compelling a presence. The Bond girls are excellent this time around as well. Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) makes much of her brief screen time, despite being unfortunately fridged shortly thereafter. Her sister Tilly (Tania Mallet) gets a few more scenes, but still can’t escape the family curse. Although both of them have an ultimately small impact on the story, they are a cut above the usual standard for these performances. Both manage a convincing combination of vulnerability and strength in their difficult circumstances. And then, of course, there’s Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), regularly (and rightly) hailed as one of the best Bond girls of all time. She’s capable and confident, a presence nearly as superhuman as Bond’s own. She can fly, she can fight (she’s seen using judo in the movie) and she can lie as easily as she breathes. She is also far more morally complex than many other Bond girls from this era, with a good amount of dialogue to express her rather cutthroat (but reasonable) philosophy as a talented, powerful woman. There are some consent issues from a modern perspective that probably read as pretty sketchy to a modern viewer in that very 1960s “it’s okay because I know she really wants it” way. Although the broader relationship definitely works in context, it matches contemporary rape narratives of unenthusiastic consent too well to be completely ignored by the modern viewer. Despite problematic depiction, though, Pussy Galore is an excellent and well-developed character who adds to the tapestry of over-the-top characters that make this one of my favorite Bond films.

This movie really is the complete package. Moreso than either of its predecessors, it establishes the tropes and patterns that will define Bond for the next couple of decades. Probably half of all Bond movies are stuck in an attempt to ape the chemistry and thrill of this entry in the franchise. The very idea of the ‘Bond movie’ largely descends from here. The previous two were (very good) spy movies starring James Bond, but this one is a ‘Bond film’ through and through (with all the good and bad that that implies). If you are more of a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy kind of spy fan, than this is likely to be seen as the start of a slow descent into mediocrity, but for me it’s truly the zenith of the early Bond films, arguably Connery’s best performance as the character, and one of the all-time high water marks for the series before it did, indeed, get a little too silly.

Best Bond Line: (after electrocuting someone) “Shocking. Positively shocking.” Yes, this line is dumb, but it makes me grin like an idiot every time. I won’t apologize.

Bond’s License to Kill Count: 9, but one of them requires like a 10-minute fight, so it might count extra. I’m also giving him credit for Goldfinger himself there, although it’s a bit of an edge case.

Final Score: