Goldfinger (1964)

The third installment in the famed James Bond series

Summary

-During an investigation into smuggling from a gold magnate, a plot to contaminate Fort Knox's gold reserves is uncovered

Cast

-Sean Connery: James Bond

-Gert Frobe: Auric Goldfinger

-Honor Blackman: Pussy Galore

-Shirley Eaton: Jill Masterson

-Tania Mallet: Tilly Masterson

-Harold Sakata: Oddjob

-Bernard Lee: M

-Cec Linder: Felix Leitner

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

Did You Know?

-This movie is the first appearance of a laser beam in any 007 movie

-Every scene that appears to be the US was actually filmed at Pinewood Studios in London. One instance to explain this is when Connery flips the light switch down to find the gold-painted corpse of Jill. Light switches in England are designed to flip down to turn on lights instead of flipping them up as is done in the US

-Goldfinger is seen wearing something yellow or gold-colored in almost every scene. He even has a gold revolver. In the James Bond series, he is the first "man with a golden gun"

-Honor Blackman, who plays Pussy Galore, had been playing the character Cathy Gale on the 1961 TV program The Avengers. She had to quit that role for this one. An episode of The Avengers from 1965 makes a reference to this by having John Steed receive a Christmas card from Cathy Gale, sent from Fort Knox, Kentucky.

-This film was the first movie role for American-born Japanese wrestler/weightlifter Harold Sakata, who plays Oddjob

-Sean Connery was married at the time to Diane Cilento. He wore a flesh-colored bandage over his wedding ring

-The original car for this movie was not an Aston Martin DB5, but an E-Type Jaguar, which was a lot cheaper. The car model was driven by production designer Ken Adam. Aston Martin's David Brown supplied two production prototypes of the then newly released Aston Martin DB5. One was to be used for driving and the other to be used for adding gadgets. It was not until 2002's Die Another Day that a Jaguar-type spy car was used

-This was the first film that Pierce Brosnan, who would play James Bond in the future, saw in theatres

-After accepting his role as Goldfinger, actor Gert Frobe was asked if he had any private interests or hobbies. He replied he loved football (soccer). Resulting from this, a Rolls Royce would arrive later every Saturday at the London hotel where he stayed and would take him to the matches

-The most famous of the James Bond cars, seen in this movie and 1965's Thunderball, was a 1964 silver birch Aston Martin DB5. This car was never driven by Roger Moore as James Bond

-The original novel states that Bond drove an Aston Martin DB3 and the only upgrades he had to it were reinforced bumper guards and a secret compartment for his Colt .45 pistol

-When Sir Sean Connery died on October 31, 2020, Shirley Easton, who played Jill Masterson, is the last surviving cast member. Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020 and Margaret Nolan, who played Dink, died on October 5, 2020. Nolan and Connery died within six weeks of each other

-In a 2007 interview, Margaret Nolan said she enjoyed working with Sean Connery. She said he was a gentleman and would give her a lift home in his Rolls Royce after filming

-In the novel, Goldfinger was only five feet tall while in real life, Gert Frobe, who played Goldfinger, was 6'1''

-This was the debut of the Aston Martin

-In 1965, Sears paired up with AC Gilbert to sell an exclusive James Bond-themed Road Race playset. It was a slot car track that came with two cars and scenes from the mountainside road chase

-Despite what everyone thinks, it was in the film Dr. No that Sean Connery had worn a hair piece, not Goldfinger. He had started losing his hair at 17 and had to wear a hair piece for a lot of his films

-Bond makes a joke about drinking room temperature champagne being like "listening to the Beatles without earmuffs". Richard Vernon, who plays Col. Smithers, was in A Hard Day's Night (1964). He played a businessman arguing with The Fab Four on a train

-The airport in the UK that Bond and Goldfinger fly to Switzerland from is the real Southend Airport in Essex. During the period of which this movie was filming, it was in a British Air Ferries period, making it the third busiest airport in London. The map tracker clearly shows where it's at. It was originally known as RAF Rochford. Since the mid 2010s, it's been known as London Southend Airport, whose airport code is SEN

-Despite the fact that Oddbjob is Korean, the actor who plays him is American-born Japanese

-Gert Frobe had incredibly strong reservations about Goldfinger using nerve gas to rid himself of witnesses. He felt that, with him being German, there would be strong Nazi concentration camp suggestions. This movie was banned in Israel for years after Gert Frobe revealed he was a member of the Nazi Party. The ban was lifted after, most surprisingly, a Jewish family came forward to praise Frobe for protecting them from persecution during WWII