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007 James Bond - Goldfinger
Studio executives summary / pitch
The main character is called Pussy Galore!!! Golden age Bond, they never got much better than this one.
Opening Sequence

James Bond (Sean Connery), wearing wet suit, breaks in to building. Removes wet suit has white dinner jacked suit underneath. Plants a time bomb. Goes to trendy bar, woman wobbling her tits.

Bond goes to apartment to find woman in bath. She gets out, Bond snogs her. Bond is attacked by man in gray suit, Bond throws him into filled bath and throws in an electric fan which electrocutes him...

Short plot summary

Auric Goldfinger (played by Gert Fröbe) is a mad'n'bad guy who loves gold. His main plan is to make all of Fort Knox's gold reserves radioactive in an attempt to destabilize the world economy (yes, folks, these are the days of the gold standard).

Goldfinger's sidekick, and general hard nut, Oddjob (Harold Sakata) has a cast iron hat used to behead statues.

Bond is tooled up with Astin Martin DB5 with modifications which include an ejector seat, the ability to spray oil on the road, machine gun fire and smoke bombs...

All needed to cope with main threat Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) a 1960's 'independent woman' who is eventually won over by a sexy man.

What our panel of critics thought

"Mr OddJob is short and solid but this is no disability to him kicking some ass in the figurative sense, although in actuality his leg could only get as high as most men's shins."

"A top hatted stocky shorty - bravisimo - what a terrible shame there was no naked cavorting in a shower. Mr OddJob would get my vote were he to stand in any mid ranking government position."

"Oh, romantic me! Oooo-Sigh! Geneva just a honk and a pip away and our hero never misses a chance to chat up the ladies... those were the days!"

"Mr Bond, how could you give that nice woman a double blow out! It's almost disgraceful the way your sharp pole popped out of your car like that to burst her tire's. Phalic symbol this you greasy haired slut!"

"I had a car like that once, or at least it made that beeping noise behind the dash board, never had a radar in it though."

"Male chauvinism has never been bettered in a motion picture. Slap my ass, greasy hair boy, as I leave to avoid overhearing any of your 'man talk'."

"There is a fine line between cool sexual banter and smarmy letchy yuckiness. Thankfully our Bond pings from extreme to extreme without so much as a comb of his thick creamy-lush hair (toupee boy!)"

"I am told, by my advisors, that, had the laser beam burned through his naughty bits, it would have smelled of roasted pork. Mmmh, I'm starting to feel slightly peckish!"

"An all over the body, body painting murder attack! It is quite an achievement to kill someone by painting their entire body like that. She must have stayed very still. Had she struggled a bit it would have been really interesting to see her try to defend herself, only to be killed by that last dab of paint... I have a feeling the director did not think this through completely: He missed a naked woman erotic fighting session, with almost limitless opportunity for innuendo. Are they trying for the erection market or not?"

Please tell me the ending or plot overview if necessary

Goldfinger is sucked out of an airplane after firing a gun in an attempt to kill our boy Bond. Luckily, our girl Pussy is flying the plane at the time and manages to keep control of the decompressed vehicle long enough for her and Bond to jump out with a parachute (the stunt budget must have been tight as in the TV version we saw the jumping bit wasn't shown).

Yes kids, they have big lush tonguey sesh in the grass at the end.

Quotable quotes (real)

"There are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 below the temperature of 38 degrees. It's almost as bad as listening to the Beatles without ear muffs."

"Aaaarr. Aaarrrr!" - OddJob.

JB: "Do you expect me to talk?" GF: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!"

If I were to watch this at home how best should I sit?

In the position of about to be ejected from the ejector seat position of don't press the red button whatever you do greasy hair boy!

Could this be made into a situation comedy

Pussy Galore is a guaranteed situation comedy stalwart and it is such a shame nobody from any of the networks ever followed this up.

Pussy's Flying Circus would be set in a flying school, have 80 year old grandmother types firing machine guns, and OddJob would be the Ladka equivalent. Don't laugh, it could have happened...

Was there anything which really annoyed you about this movie?

Mike Myers' GoldMember is amazingly similar to GoldFinger, apart from the Myers creation is slimmer and can roller-skate.

When they sprayed the poison gas, everyone fell down too quickly, there was no-one with a hand round neck choking expression. A missed opportunity for improvised acting by unknowns.

The digital clock timer at the end seems to stop going down when we are not watching the numbers clicking over, stopping, eventually, at 007 - how likely is that?

Can you see strings on the plane near the end as it zooms left to right across the screen, or was the film marked on the version we saw for this review?

Would your cat enjoy this movie? Would your dog like it? Other pets?

Cats will purr delightedly to be named as a main character in a Bond movie, and may carry themselves about the house with a determinedly arrogant air for days after this movie. WARNING: Your cat may attempt the Pussy Galore move of flipping James Bond over on his back in the hay on the dog.

Dogs may attempt to gas the cat with its own botty air, but get frustrated when the cat does not pass out as quickly as the army does in this movie at the end.

Small white mice are fans of OddJob, and may daydream of setting up a nest on his head under the top hat. Ensure their in cage wheel is nicely oiled to avoid over-squeak.

Does the film attempt technobabble? If so, does this succeed?

It's a sorry thing to have to say about England's finest, but this Scottish Bond isn't really trying at times. Has he become overwhelmed by the technology at his disposal? He has a machine gun in the Austin Martin but doesn't use it to shoot the old Gran when she fires at him... could do better.

Other comments

Named by a number of people as the best Bond movie.

Date of review

July 17 , 2002

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