"Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?"
"Noooo, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!"
Ah, here we go! Yes, it's Goldfinger, the first really memorable Bond movie because it's the first to give us everything a Bond movie would be known by all in one sitting: Q's gadgets, souped up Spy-Hunter style secret agent issue luxury sports car, a villain with a strange eccentricity, a gimmicky henchman, needlessly complicated torture methods that allow the hero plenty of time to escape, a classic credits sequence, classically quotable dialogue, and enough sexy dames to shake a (meat) stick at. Sha-fucking-zam!
Having blown up a South American drug smuggler's coke operation and electrocuted a would-be assassin in a bathtub (after scouting the thug in a flamenco dancer's eye, clear as the super-imposed image it is...), everybody's favorite chauvinistic secret agent and booze connoisseur isn't heading to Disney World, but to beautiful Miami Beach to dehumanize local bathing beauties with ass slaps and light molestation. His sexual harassment antics are soon halted though when his old CIA pal Felix Leiter (who looks a lot older since his run in Dr. No just two years prior) pops up to give James his latest assignment from the home office in London: Auric Goldfinger. Auric is an English industrialist (with a German accent that's heavier than his portly old man gut...) that British Intel wants to keep an eye on under suspicion of international gold smuggling operations. James interferes in Tubbo's operations early, botching a gambling scheme for the old man and cheating the cheater out of ten large. He also beds Auric's escort lady, only to get judo chopped in the back of the head and come to with the lovely lady dead in his bed... her body covered with gold paint... because taking the opportunity to kill Bond would've made too much fucking sense.
We first meet Goldfinger's now legendary minion Oddjob as he caddies for Auric during a "friendly" golf game between James and Mr. Tub-O-Guts. Yes, that's right, one of the coolest, hat throwingest bad guys to come out of British cinema makes his first appearance carrying a golf bag like a dingus. It is to laugh. After James cheats Brownfinger out of still more of his payola, Oddy redeems himself by showing off his decapi-hat and crushing a golf ball in his bare hand, so let's hope that Mr. Bond's wearing his titanium alloy nut cup for this adventure. Anyway, while trailing GF, James hooks up with Tilly, the sister of the babe he bopped in Miami Beach. Tilly's out for revenge against Auric for killing her sis, so naturally she and 007 "join forces". Before that can turn into an innuendo though, it turns out Till's only been added to the cast so we can see what happens when Oddjob's hat hits something other than marble. A piece of poon other than Moneypenny that Names doesn't get to hit?! Yeah, I'm as surprised as you.
Captured by the bad guy, Bond barters for his safety and once again becomes the personal guest of his enemy. Along the way he meets Auric's private pilot, the strong and sultry (and considered by many to be the best "Bond girl") Pussy Galore. Never has the word "pussy" been said so many times outside the context of a porno flick. While in Goldfinger's capture, James also learns of Auric's big plot, Operation Grand Slam: setting off a nuke in Fort Knox, making all of the gold radioactive and worthless, destroying the international economy. A plan illustrated by an elaborate system of gigantic models and a huge automated moving floor and walls system that probably cost the guy a good million or two just to set up his little display! Of course all that's left now is for James to put a stop to Goldfinger's plot, turn Miss Pussy over to the side of the angels, and crack open a bottle of 007 Ass Beat on Mr. 'Job. Olay.
In addition to everything the movie does right, there are plenty of logistical things going on here that'll make your common sense throw up on itself, namely the usual, "Why doesn't the villain just put a bullet in Bond's brain during one of the three or four times he had the chance?!" and the part about how a secret agent is constantly dropping his real name to whomever he runs into. There are other little nitpicker nightmares at work too, so if you're a stickler for realism then you might want to keep away. Also, fans of the Space Mutiny episode of "MST3K" take note, there are plenty of railing related deaths in the final reel to look forward to!
In the end though, this movie's got everything! We get car chases, gun fights, a hot chick in gold body paint, Chinese laborers, aerial acrobatics, someone getting sucked out of the window of a plane, a guy who kills people with his hat, and an old lady wielding a submachine gun! We don't even know why the old lady is there, she just shows up long enough to work one of those parking lot entrance arms and to shoot at our hero with a friggin' submachine gun! There are few words for how amazing that is, so I won't even try. Oh, and a little piece of trivia in case you're ever suck in a life or death situation that requires obscure knowledge of Sean Connery movies: Scaramanga wasn't the first Bond baddie to wield a golden gun in a 007 flick. Appropriately enough, Goldfinger whips his out a few times too. James Bond will return in Thunderball, but as for me, I’ll be returning after I take a few hits from my favorite hookah, also named, coincidentally enough, “Thunderball”.
