Goldfinger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Goldfinger is a 1964 spy film and the third instalment in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It stars Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film is based on Ian Fleming’s 1959 novel of the same title. Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, and Shirley Eaton also star. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman produced Goldfinger. The film was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.

The film’s plot has Bond investigating the gold magnate Auric Goldfinger, who plans to contaminate the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. Goldfinger was the first Bond blockbuster, with a budget equal to the two preceding films combined. Principal photography occurred from January to July 1964 in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States.

Goldfinger was heralded as the film in the franchise where James Bond “comes into focus”. Many elements introduced in it appeared in many of the later James Bond films, such as Bond’s extensive use of technology and gadgets, an extensive pre-credits sequence that stood largely alone from the main plot, multiple foreign locales and tongue-in-cheek humour. The film’s release led to several promotional licensed tie-in items, including a toy Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys, one of the biggest-selling toys of the 1960s, and an image of gold-painted Eaton on the cover of Life.

Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award (for Best Sound Editing) and opened to a largely favourable critical reception. The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in two weeks and grossing over $120 million worldwide. In 1999, it was ranked 70th on the BFI Top 100 British films list.

Margaret Nolan played Dink, Bond’s masseuse from the Miami hotel sequence. (Vernon and Nolan appeared in A Hard Day’s Night that same year.) Nolan also appeared as the gold-covered body in advertisements for the film and in the opening title sequence as the golden silhouette, described as “Gorgeous, iconic, seminal”.

Margaret Nolan as Dink

Photos

Opening sequence

The opening credit sequence, designed by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn, features clips of all James Bond films thus far projected on Margaret Nolan’s body. Its design was inspired by seeing light project on people’s bodies as they got up and left a cinema.

A nude woman painted gold lies on a bed. A cushion in the forefront obscures her buttocks.
Shirley Eaton as the murdered Jill Masterson—”one of the most enduring images in cinematic history”

Visually, the film uses many golden motifs, reflecting the novel’s treatment of Goldfinger’s obsession with the metal. All of Goldfinger’s female henchwomen in the film except his private jet’s co-pilot (black hair) and stewardess (who is Korean) are red-blonde or blonde, including Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus crew (both the characters Tilly Masterson and Pussy specifically have black hair in the novel). Goldfinger has a yellow-painted Rolls-Royce with number plate “AU 1” (Au being the chemical symbol for gold), and also sports yellow or golden items or clothing in every film scene, including a golden pistol, when disguised as a colonel. Jill Masterson is famously killed by being painted with gold, which, according to Bond, causes her to die of “skin suffocation”. (While this is an entirely fictional cause of death, the iconic scene caused much of the public to accept it as a medical fact;[ an urban legend circulated that the scene was inspired by a Swiss model who accidentally died the same way while preparing for a photo shoot.[60]) Bond is bound to a cutting bench with a sheet of gold on it (as Goldfinger points out) before nearly being lasered. Goldfinger’s factory henchmen in the film wear yellow sashes, Pussy Galore twice wears a metallic gold vest, and Pussy’s pilots all wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms. Goldfinger’s Jetstar hostess, Mei-Lei, wears a golden bodice and gold-accented sarong. The concept of the recurring gold theme running through the film was a design aspect conceived and executed by Ken Adam and art director Peter Murton.