Goldfinger (sorry about the pictures, technical diffculties)

Sebastian Peill-M
11/30/15

This is it, the big one, Goldfinger, considered the most famous of the original Bond films (excluding films with Daniel Craig). The film was released 1964, and starred Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, and Harold Sakata. The film had a budget of 3 million and made a gross of 51.1 million dollars.

 Bond(Connery) has been tasked with investigating the rich businessman Auric Goldfinger (Gert) who has been able to move his gold supply from country to country without getting caught. Bond meets with Goldfinger and his silent but deadly henchman Oddjob (Sakata) for the first time by making him lose $15,000. Goldfinger gets revenge by painting Bond's female companion in gold paint, causing her to suffocate and die. Eventually Bond is able to learn about a plan that Goldfinger has to "knock off" Fort Knox gold depository. It involves a deadly nerve gas being dispersed by Goldfinger's personal pilot, Pussy Galore (Blackman, yes a very strange choice of a name) and an industrial laser that can cut through steel. Bond is able to befriend Galore after a judo fight and his "charm". She agrees to help him change the plan, and notifies the CIA of her and Bond's plan. Galore does her part and disperses the "deadly" gas and Goldfinger marches staright up to the vault of Knox. He then puts a nuclear bomb in the vault, stating that if the gold in Knox is radioactive his gold's value with increase 20 times. He leaves Bond handcuffed there and leaves to escape from the chaos outside. What happens next is very famous and cliche in Bond films, the henchman vs. agent fight. Bond and Oddjob fight, Bond with his training and Oddjob with his strength and razor edged hat. Bond eventually beats Oddjob and defuses the bomb, but is captured by Goldfinger again, when being transported to the White House for gratitude. Goldfinger gives a monlogue about how he could have gotten away with it and tries to shoot Bond. He didn't consider the fact that they in a plane and Goldfinger is sucked out a window. The movie ends with Bond and Galore doing what Bond does best.

Oddjob and  GoldFinger

Galore

 The music in this film really upgraded from the previous, there is a singer preforming the opening credits, Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger. This is the first Bond film to do this, previous may have had a theme song but they weren't preformed by a famous singer. The film contains of course the same original theme song, but instead of just using parts of that song throughout the film during important or action sequences, they including new sounds. During a very tense scene you can hear the music get louder and louder or during a sneaking scene very quiet and soft music. All of these combined create a great amount of "realism" to the film.

The Laser and Bond

 The camera angles in this film were a little disappointing in my opinion. Almost all of them are from a wide angle and most are medium close to far shots. Not many scenes have portrait shots so the talking is not as personal. As with the previous films they include landscape shots to indicate and set up the scenes.

 The acting skill, this was an awesome film when it comes to lines and how they are delivered. Some of Bond's first lines include a pun after he kills someone. Goldfinger is often considered one of the most complex villains of all Bond films and Gert portrays him very well. Oddjob is considered the most popular henchman and although he is a mute, he leaves a mark with his dangerous hat and martial art skills. Pussy Galore, besides having a weird name is a very interesting character, she seems drawn to Bond from the beginning, although she says that she isn't, she is only helping Goldfinger for the money and switches side to help Bond almost too easily, Blackman, although I haven't seen her in any other films, does an amazing job in this film. Part of the reason that this film is so popular is because of the characters and their portrayal.

The famous hat scene

All in all, this a great film and deserves all of its acclaim, despite lacking dynamic camera angles, it contains extremely well portrayed characters, all of who are remembered.
 Interesting Fact: The movie was the fastest grossing picture in film history when it was released and was entered into the Guiness Book of World Records.