MOVIE REVIEW: Goldfinger Part 2

(Continued from the previous post.)

Bond was eventually captured and what followed was one of the most iconic scenes, an exchange of dialogue between an antagonist and a protagonist in a film. Goldfinger really had lots of iconic scenes.

Goldfinger (left) interrogating Bond (right) from independent.co.uk

Bond was fixed on a platform before a laser machine as Goldfinger was laying out his evil plans. Bond tried to buy himself some time and maybe convince Goldfinger not to kill him by saying different reasons. One was that MI6 would undoubtedly send 008 to replace him if he would not report about his assignment. Another was that he overheard Goldfinger's evil plan "Operation Grand Slam". This was when Bond asked Goldfinger, "You expect me to talk?" and Goldfinger answered, "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." Soon after, Bond was released and was just kept as a prisoner inside Goldfinger's lair.

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore from jamesbondfanon.wikia.com

Bond met Goldfinger's pilot, Pussy Galore, as they were on their way to Goldfinger's lair in the United States. Unlike in "Dr. No", Goldfinger's lair did not have a fancy hotel room and services for Bond, although he would be treated fairly good in later scenes. Bond escaped his guards and overheard Goldfinger's evil plans again, this time in detail because Goldfinger was actually presenting it to a set of businessmen whom would also be all killed by Goldfinger. Although one was shot by Odd Job and not killed alongside his businessmen mates. This scene would be replicated 21 years later in "A View To A Kill".

Bond placed his GPS tracker and left a note in it to be fetched by Felix Leiter. As the day of Goldfinger's plans came near, Bond made Pussy Galore fell for him despite her obvious resistance ever since they met each other.

Pussy turned sides and would be revealed to help Bond stop Goldfinger's plan.

Bond, together with Odd Job and a bunch of Goldfinger's troops made it to Fort Knox and executed the plan. Bond was handcuffed inside the vault and the CIA, and the authorities swooped in to foil the plan. Goldfinger escaped hastily leaving his plan to Odd Job.

Although left for damnation by his employer, Odd Job stayed loyal to the plan and still went on to stop Bond from foiling their plan. After a heavily painful fight with Bond, Odd Job came across death when he was electrocuted after reaching for his metal hat. He came out to be one of those villains who was ultimately killed because of their unique weapon of choice, or characteristic.

Bond diffused the bomb set by Goldfinger and was soon on his way for recognition from the President of the United States. However, Bond's plane to the White House was hijacked by Goldfinger and Pussy. 

Bond was shocked to see Goldfinger pointing his golden gun at him inside, but he managed to distract Goldfinger by asking where Pussy was. He tried to grab the gun from Goldfinger, however, a shot was fired during the process and led to the breaking of the airplane window. Goldfinger got sucked out to his death as Bond and Pussy tried their luck in landing the airplane.

Goldfinger and his golden gun from wikipedia.org

They did land down safely, and Bond told Pussy this cool one-liner, "this is no time to be rescued", as the film shifts into its end credits.

As what would happen over the next 50, or more, after this film, the next Bond actors would get to their top Bond form by the time they would be in their 3rd movie (The Spy Who Loved Me, The World Is Not Enough, Skyfall). They would be in their best shape, and they would be more confident than ever by the time they would reach their 3rd Bond outing. This film, Goldfinger, started it all. Sean Connery was the epitome of coolness and suave spy action hero. Although the plot was not the best, the gadgets, the action scenes, the chase scenes, the characters, and Bond were all top-notch.

MOVIE REVIEW: Goldfinger Part 1

We now come to the third Bond film in the official EON Productions James Bond franchise, the quintessential Bond film "Goldfinger".

Goldfinger movie poster from imdb.com

Although many Bond films take it as the best Bond film of all time, I don't. I basically do not like it because of this reason: Bond does nothing in this movie. There is no spying. Yes, he escaped his room and was able to know the plans of Goldfinger, but the film did not require him to do more spy work since he was already in the villain's lair. No need to track Goldfinger down.

Upon another viewing, I came to realize that he did something somehow. It was still him who made Pussy Galore turn to the good side.

The film opens with a pre-title sequence unrelated to the film's story. Disguised in a bird underwater costume, Bond appears and plants a bomb in a drug facility. After doing so, he removes his underwater suit and reveals a neatly dressed white and dry tuxedo. On a party, he meets a woman and is engaged in a fight scene. Not very shocking, right?

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger from filmforum.org

The theme song of this film was sung by Dame Shirley Bassey in her first calling, She would then sing two more times for 1971's Diamonds Are Forever and 1979's Moonraker. (Teeeeen-ten, tenteneneeeen...)

Bond's mission for this film is to watch over Auric Goldfinger. Goldfinger was suspected to be smuggling gold and yes, he was and more.

Upon meeting Goldfinger, Bond tricked him into losing a card match and on their next meeting, he tricked him again into losing a golf match with him, this time around. This made Goldfinger pissed, even killing off his woman, Jill Masterson as an aftermath of their first encounter.

Just as Bond and Jill finished their affairs in bed, Goldfinger sent his henchman, Odd Job to deal with the humiliation that Goldfinger had. Odd Job killed Jill by completely painting her in gold paint, which led to her demise. Bond was knocked out as he was reaching for the fridge to get some drinks. The introductory scene for Odd Job was quite memorable for me because of the resemblance that it had with the introduction to the series Hitchcock Presents. 

Bond was back in England, in a briefing in M's office. He was told not to make the mission a private vendetta, to avenge the death of Jill Masterson. After a separate briefing with M and the bank secretary for a gold bar, Bond met Q in his lab.

In here was the very first appearance of Q's lab, with very little gags in line with the testing if Q's prototypes. We were also shown Q's gadgets for Bond, along with his new car, the Aston Martin DB5. No invisible cars at this point yet, just GPS trackers, revolving plates, and an ejector seat, along with various insane weapons for Bond to use.

James Bond and his Aston Martin DB5 from fortune.com

Bond continued his mission on a golf course wherein Goldfinger was playing at. They were arranged for a match, and Bond took the chance to use the gold bar to distract Goldfinger into missing a shot. Goldfinger tried to cheat his way to win by having Odd Job (his caddy, too) release an extra ball. However, Bond realized that the ball was a fraud. Bond used it to his advantage by citing a rule concerning the use of different balls in a match. Goldfinger was obviously pissed and realized that it was also Bond who tricked him in Miami.

Odd Job showed off a special skill of him and his hat to scare off Bond.

Odd Job (left) throws his hat at a statue, with Bond (center), and Goldfinger (right) from 007james.com

Bond followed Goldfinger using the GPS tracker that he planted on Goldfinger's car after their golf match. Goldfinger flew to Switzerland along with his car. So did Bond. So did Bond.

While Bond was following Goldfinger in Switzerland, Bond spotted another car behind him. Realizing it was a woman on the driver's seat, Bond snooped in and damaged her car so she would ride in Bond's Aston Martin instead. What I loved in this scene was when Bond tried to show off but the woman stopped him mid-introduction. "My name is Bo--."

Bond eventually talked with the woman and suspected that she was up to something. Later that evening, Bond got in contact with her again as Bond was infiltrating Goldfinger's lair. Apparently, the woman was out for revenge for she was the sister of the murdered Jill Masterson, the one painted in gold. She was also killed by Odd Job after being chased. Bond couldn't protect her.

The car chase was one of the best of the series because of the gadgets used. The Aston Martin DB5 exposed its secret weapons during the car chase, but the best bit was when Bond used the ejector seat on one of Goldfinger's goon. 

Bond using the Ejector Seat of his Aston Martin DB5 from 007james.com

Part 2: https://angelorem.blogspot.com/2019/02/movie-review-goldfinger-part-2.html