Maybe it’s just my ignorance showing, but if someone asked me to think of a Jamaican superstition, dragons would probably be towards the bottom of the list.
“Take a dragon dis, mon!”
When I first posted about Glodfinger earlier in the thread, I think I said something about this being the one where the franchise found its voice.
Dr. No was whatever it was, and From Russia With Love played more like a straight spy thriller than what we’ve come to think of as a Bond movie. Goldfinger hit on the formula that worked at the box office, and the rest, as they say, is history.
That was the movie Pterry left out of Moving Pictures.
Gert Fröbe’s performance as Goldfinger is one of the things I really like in the movie. The scene where the villain explains his cunning plan to the hero has become a cliché, and most actors don’t seem to put much thought or effort into it. But in Goldfinger it works; twice, in fact. When he’s explaining to the mobsters, he seems to take some joy in how he’s outsmarted and manipulated them into helping him. Later, with Bond, when he explains what he’s really up to, he can barely contain himself. He’s finally found someone who can appreciate how really clever he is.
Yeah, it’s kinda stupid to build that whole model for people who are going to be dead in five minutes. Maybe we can fanwank it and say that it was a distraction so he could get all his accomplices in one place, then slip out and kill them.
Maybe he just likes little models.
What was stupider was shooting the dissenting gangster, Mr Solo, then crushing the car in which he was shot, BEFORE taking the gold out of the boot. Also, come to think of it, wasn’t it one of Goldfinger’s cars anyway? Oddjob was driving it. Madness!
Number Two : In addition to our cable holdings, we own a steel mill in Cleveland. Shipping in Texas. Oil refineries in Seattle. And a factory in Chicago that makes miniature models of factories.
Every time someone points out something stupid from Goldfinger; the more I love that movie.
Bond has an Aston Martin tricked out with multiple awesome weapons from Q branch. He is defeated by a mirror.
I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of.
You can like it fine in spite of the stupidity, millions do, but because of?
My fanwank is — well, remember how Bond witnesses the sales pitch, and promptly mentions the flaw he’s spotted to Goldfinger? Sure, the memorable part is the reveal that, yeah, that won’t actually be a problem, which is when an impressed Bond stops trying to talk him out of it — but the point is: hey, isn’t that exactly what a guy would do if he spotted a flaw in the showcased plan?
So figure that’s Goldfinger’s goal: run it past guys he’s going to kill anyway, to give them a chance to bring stuff to his attention, just in case they think of something he hasn’t taken into account…
…and, okay, as it happens, we don’t get to see that play out; folks either see nothing worth mentioning, or mention something he already knew; but, since it could’ve worked, it can make sense to roll the dice on maybe getting a useful tip from the impromptu brain trust (and if they come up empty, he’ll settle for gloatingly making a big show of being oh-so-clever).
Interesting suggestion.
It could also be that Goldfinger built the model to help with his own planning, and the training of is co-conspirators. He did have the commando team that went in, demolition specialists to take out the fence and the door, Pussy’s pilots, and the helicopter pilot who brought him to the depository. All of those people could have used the model to help with planning and coordinating their part in the operation. So there’s no proof that he built it just for the hood’s convention.
My tastes are nothing to be proud of. They are lowbrow to the extreme and I marvel at nothing more than a storyteller’s audacity.
In their universe, are these super villains building their megastructures in secret? I mean, volcanoes with retractable roofs? And space rockets and underwater habitats. And every one of them has a secret (?) army. All these things would require extensive outside support.
Say what you want about Goldfinger…he knows how to plan. He wore a Generals uniform under his clothes just in case???
Back to Pu…Ms. Galore. It really does feel like a scene was cut out.
Felix: “Why did she betray Goldfinger??”
Bond: “I must have appealed to her maternal instinct.”…Hunh?? Also, Connery delivers the line like he was surprised. Which I think has to just be a mistake. If Bond thought the plan was going to plan…he let 60,000 +people get killed rather then try a last-second suicide plan??
But like I said, the movie looks great and there’s enough subverted expectations to make it very interesting. Both Masterson girls die. The Beeper plan fails. He fails to get away in the Aston Martin TWICE.
Welp Thunderball and You Only Live Twice next…and fortunately I LOVE OHMSS. I’ll slog through Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die and The man with the Golden Gun and then I think rather then watch more Moore Bond…I’ll watch Ffolkes (North Sea Hijack") instead
Suppose Goldfinger’s plan had succeeded- what then? He couldn’t possibly get away with it. He’d be so hunted down.
The construction of the classic volcano lair is one of Bond’s great mysteries. Maybe aliens did it. Stromberg’s underwater HQ isnt secret though; Bond visits it completely freely (as ‘Robert Sterling’).
Licence To Kill (1989)
I thought I had seen both Dalton films when they came out. I believe I was mistaken; I would have remembered this one.
My feelings on this are mixed. On the one hand, I thought this was a really good film. It was thrilling and exciting, with some excellent performances. Robert Davi was note perfect in his role. Young Benicio del Toro was fun to see. The dueling Bond Girls did what they were supposed to do; I liked them both quite a bit. I loved seeing Desmond Llewelyn get more to do as Q. Wayne Newton is even in it!
But here’s the thing – it just didn’t feel like a Bond movie. While I liked and defended Dalton’s edgier and more intense Bond in Living Daylights, this is a whole other animal. This Bond is out of control, angry, desperate. Very much not his typical character traits. This is a revenge movie: A guy goes after the drug kingpin who killed his buddy’s wife. That the guy is James Bond was almost secondary. (I actually thought for a minute they’d killed off Felix. The fact that he survived was honestly a bit of a cop-out. Anyway, his marriage was even shorter than James’s.)
I really think this would have made a great stand-alone film that didn’t feature James Bond. Sure, it has many of the trappings of a Bond film, and the action sequences are terrific. The climactic chase scene was amazing… but it felt much more Indiana Jones than James Bond. Bond was so far out of character that he really wasn’t Bond anymore. His Licence to Kill has been revoked, but so what? He kills a bunch of people anyway, with no repercussions. And in the end, what do you know, M is eager to take him back. This whole film just doesn’t make sense within the 007 universe.
So yeah, what can I say? This one’s got me all mixed up. I kind of loved it, but I kind of didn’t like it. I’ll probably think of more to say tomorrow.
Next up: Goldeneye
Agree with pretty much everything you said there. It is probably the least “James Bond” of the James Bond series and more like a generic 80s action/revenge flick. It does have one of the very best villains though, as you say. Davi is perfect and genuinely terrifying. There is a funny bit where, after his capture near the start, a reporter asks him “Is it true you’re really Colombian?”. Hmm I wonder to whom they could be referring there…?!
There are a few plotlines or character traits that were gleaned from Fleming’s novels and short stories, including the stingray whip, yacht and obnoxious character of Milton Krest from The Hildebrand Rarity, and the maiming of Felix from Live and Let Die, complete with the note “he disagreed with something that ate him”.
Dalton is great again, it is a massive shame he didn’t get his third film, which was planned but due to financial troubles never got as far as production.