tstone
07-01-2007, 04:52 PM
Slowly making my way through the early entry in the Bond series that I haven't really had a chance to see before, either at all or as the movie watching sophisticate that I am now.
A young Sean Connery at the height of his powers. A series that hasn't become too detached from reality, buried in excessive gadgetry, smothered in bad puns, or overwhelmed with over the top stunts. Goldfinger showed old school Bond at it's highest point. You believed Connery, and he did capture the two sides of 007 in this film, both the suave gentleman spy and the thuggish street killer, both necessary for his job.
Auric Goldfinger was loopy, but believable as a villian, his lust for gold leading him to conduct a scam to bump up the value of his gold stock, while throwing the economies of the Western world into a loop. His scam was thought out fairly interestingly. He did suss out the logistics of trying to move that much gold would be impractical, so he planned on turning it instead into nuclear soup. Of course, I wondered how he would actually suceed in getting a group of small plans to fly over a major American military installation without interferece. Now, they let him, because they were in on it and it had been altered, but I'm inclined that if Goldfinger had gone with it like he planned, that some of those planes at least might have gotten shot down short of their targets.
At any rate, Auric Goldfinger, though entertaining and interesting, isn't the most dangerous or menacing of the Bond supervillians. And of course, we got introduce to Oddjob, besides Jaws, one of the most interesting heavies Bond dealt with in the movies. But we only got him for one film.
Oh, and how about Pussy Galore? Besides having one of the coolest names of all the Bond babes, she is a busty blond bombshell who is NOT a helpless damsel in distress. She has skill in martial arts ability, is a master pilot. And geez, wotta rack.
I'm of the opinion that she's one of my all time fav Bond girls.
The best thing about this film is that it ages pretty well. It came out in 1964, but it's production values are high, and there is nothing about it that simply takes you out of the picture and screams DATED! Sure, some of the tech looks older, but it still fits and is believable, unlike some of the crap foisted on us in the later Moore era.
I think I'm going to have to add Goldfinger to my best Bond films of all time so far, alongside Goldeneye and Casino Royale
A young Sean Connery at the height of his powers. A series that hasn't become too detached from reality, buried in excessive gadgetry, smothered in bad puns, or overwhelmed with over the top stunts. Goldfinger showed old school Bond at it's highest point. You believed Connery, and he did capture the two sides of 007 in this film, both the suave gentleman spy and the thuggish street killer, both necessary for his job.
Auric Goldfinger was loopy, but believable as a villian, his lust for gold leading him to conduct a scam to bump up the value of his gold stock, while throwing the economies of the Western world into a loop. His scam was thought out fairly interestingly. He did suss out the logistics of trying to move that much gold would be impractical, so he planned on turning it instead into nuclear soup. Of course, I wondered how he would actually suceed in getting a group of small plans to fly over a major American military installation without interferece. Now, they let him, because they were in on it and it had been altered, but I'm inclined that if Goldfinger had gone with it like he planned, that some of those planes at least might have gotten shot down short of their targets.
At any rate, Auric Goldfinger, though entertaining and interesting, isn't the most dangerous or menacing of the Bond supervillians. And of course, we got introduce to Oddjob, besides Jaws, one of the most interesting heavies Bond dealt with in the movies. But we only got him for one film.
Oh, and how about Pussy Galore? Besides having one of the coolest names of all the Bond babes, she is a busty blond bombshell who is NOT a helpless damsel in distress. She has skill in martial arts ability, is a master pilot. And geez, wotta rack.
I'm of the opinion that she's one of my all time fav Bond girls.
The best thing about this film is that it ages pretty well. It came out in 1964, but it's production values are high, and there is nothing about it that simply takes you out of the picture and screams DATED! Sure, some of the tech looks older, but it still fits and is believable, unlike some of the crap foisted on us in the later Moore era.
I think I'm going to have to add Goldfinger to my best Bond films of all time so far, alongside Goldeneye and Casino Royale