Review - Goldfinger (1964)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we're just a couple weeks away from the release of No Time to Die, the twenty-fifth entry of the James Bond film series. Now, since there are so many of these movies, I don't have time to review every single one of them. So, instead, I'm going to give my thoughts on some of my favorite James Bond films from over the years. I do intend to review the all four films of the series that Daniel Craig has been in, as No Time to Die will mark his fifth and final outing as 007. So, with that in mind, let's dive into a beloved classic Bond film: Goldfinger.

          So, the movie focuses on James Bond, played by Sean Connery, as he is informed of a potential link between a series of crimes and seemingly-legitimate jeweler Auric Goldfinger. Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's hotel room in Miami, where he meets and hooks up with Jill Masterson, who helps Goldfinger cheat at cards. After an evening together ends with Bond getting knocked out in the bathroom, he wakes up the next morning to find Jill dead, her body completely painted gold. 

          Returning to London, MI6 boss M assigns Bond to follow Goldfinger, meeting him at a private golf club, with MI6 quartermaster Q giving Bond his equipment, as well as his signature car: the Aston Martin DB5. At the club, Bond plays Goldfinger in a round of golf, meeting Goldfinger's caddy and bodyguard Oddjob, who has a hat that can be used as a deadly weapon. 

         Bond, who plants a magnetic tracking device onto Goldfinger's car, follows him to Switzerland, where he meets Jill's sister, Tilly. Tilly wants Goldfinger dead for what happened to Jill, but she ends up killed instead. Bond, captured by Goldfinger, is strapped to a table, with a laser slowly moving to cut him in half. However, Goldfinger spares Bond at the mention of "Operation: Grand Slam." 

       Bond, after having been knocked out, awakens on Goldfinger's private plane, where he meets the pilot Pussy Galore. The plane lands in Kentucky, where Goldfinger reveals to a group of American mobsters that he plans to rob the gold reserves at Fort Knox by knocking out the military detail with a nerve gas. Goldfinger then proceeds to kill the mobsters with the same nerve gas, later revealing to Bond the true nature of Operation: Grand Slam: detonate a bomb inside of the vault at Fort Knox, making the making the gold reserves radioactive and useless, thus driving up the prices of his own gold reserves. Bond eventually convinced Pussy to replace the nerve gas with a less lethal knockout gas, which only knocks out the military guards for a short while.

         In Fort Knox, Bond is cuffed to the bomb, but he manages to free himself, and electrocutes Oddjob with an electric cable, steel bars, and Oddjob's own hat. The military, along with Bond's CIA friend Felix Leiter, arrive and deactivate the bomb. Bond ends up on a plane headed for Washington, but it's revealed that Goldfinger is on board, and Bond depressurized the cabin, flinging Goldfinger out of the plane. Bond heads to the cockpit, rescues Pussy, and the two escape the plane before it crashes, ending the movie with a tender moment between the two. 

          Okay, so Goldfinger is considered to be among the best of the James Bond series. Sean Connery is terrific as James Bond, while Honor Blackman is terrific as Pussy Galore, as are Gert Frobe as Goldfinger and Harold Sakata as Oddjob. The villain's plan to irradiate the gold reserves in Fort Knox is definitely unique, as it gets away from the cliche of robbing the gold reserves in a place like Fort Knox. I also really like the title track, as performed by Dame Shirley Bassey. It's easily one of the best Bond theme songs of all time, and is highly remembered for good reasons. 

       All in all, this is definitely one to check out if you haven't seen it yet. I give Goldfinger a rating of 5/5. This is Chuck signing off, and join me in the next Bond review: Thunderball.