Stupidest thing a Bond villain did excluding telling Bond everything / killing Bond right away

All Bond villians are narcissistic and spend enormous sums of money on elaborate lairs that can be counted upon to collapse like a bad souffle. Had they invested that money in a proper security and weapons training program then bond would not be THE most successful movie franchise in history.

Of course if you buy your lairs from here you deserve what you get.

No, he doesn’t.
“He’ll know everything I know”

“You know nothing, Mr. Bond”

“About Operation Grand Slam

“Two words you may have overheard that cannot possibly have any meaning for you, or for anyone in your organization.”

“Can you afford to take that chance?”
Goldfinger has him tranquilized.
Goldfinger’s best solution is to have Bond tell him what he knows as the laser beam (or buzz saw, in the novel) inches towards his scrotum, then off him. He doesn’t convince him that he has information worth keeping him alive for – his words simply imply that he knows something about Grand Slam. Goldfinger never even tries to pump him for what he does know, and never gives a hint that Bond may know something he doesn’t.

I’ve always figured Goldfinger wants to run his idea past a bunch of people who each believe they have an excellent reason to point out any potential flaws; he’s about to kill them regardless, so why not give them a quick chance to voice objections? If there’s a problem he’s failed to spot, wouldn’t he love for someone to explain why the plan can’t possibly work?

As it happens, we don’t actually get to see that bear any fruit with the folks in the room; except for the guy who backs out without giving a reason, all of the stakeholders are won over. We do, though, later get to see Bond comment on the presentation (complete with moving pool table and scale model of Fort Knox) by pointing out why the plan can’t possibly work: “Fifteen billion dollars in gold bullion weighs 10,500 tons. Sixty men would take twelve days to load it onto 200 trucks. Now, at the most, you’re going to have two hours before the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines move in and make you put it back.”

And, man, if that had been Goldfinger’s plan, then he’d sure be glad that someone mentioned that before he went through with it, right? But, of course, Goldfinger dispatches the objection, whereupon Bond genuinely changes his tune: “I apologize, Goldfinger. It’s an inspired deal! They get what they want, economic chaos in the West. And the value of your gold increases many times.”

Bond has every incentive to discourage the guy, but he comes up as empty as the folks who could’ve backed out while offering their reasons of choice. So, okay, Goldfinger’s conversational tactics come up empty, to the point of looking like he’s jawing away for no good reason – but only because it turns out the plan is just that unassailable.

By the way, one of the things that’s always bothered me about Goldfinger is that, when he finally gets into Fort Knox, he doesn’t take a sample.
Goldfinger loves gold, as he’s always saying. He loves showing off to the point of building a special presentation room and expounding to guys he’s going to off. One or two gold ingots from Fort Knox, which was about to be obliterated ina nuclear blast, would have been untoppable conversation pieces. It simply makes no sense that he wouldn’t have taken one or two of them, even if they were heavy.

Yes, one would expect him to finger the gold.

As Number Two made clear enough, the stupidest thing all Bond villains do is be Bond villains, investing a lot of money into those island lairs and things, when they could get a more certain and probably greater return investing the same money in legitimate ways.

But, then, Bond villains are not always driven primarily, or at all, by the profit motive. Some are megalomaniacs with a completely different agenda. Like Hugo Drax in Moonraker.

Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year.

I’ve discussed the problem with that before. Goldfinger loves gold, not the things he can buy with it: “…its brilliance, its divine heaviness”, “I welcome any enterprise that will increase my holdings”. It would be pointless to him to just increase the value of his existing stock.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great movie, and the scene you described is one of the reasons why. Most of the villains explain their schemes as if they’re lecturing a slow child. Gert Frobe is the only one I can remember who looks like he’s enjoying himself. It’s like he knows how clever he is and just can’t wait to show it off, especially to someone like Bond who can appreciate it.

That’s exactly what it is – Goldfinger, as Bond says “is insane, you know”. His plans are ridiculously expensive and don’t make much sense, but they’re fun. It’s only incidental that his scheme will screw up the world economy (although that’s what the Chinese want).

I can’t buy that Goldfinger would be satisfied with the value of his gold increasing. That’s why I’m baffled that he doesn’t scarf some samples from Fort Knox.

Goldfinger spares Bond only because Mr. Ling (who is disturbed that Bond overheard the name of Operation Grand Slam) insists. Goldfinger seems content to slice Bond from groin to sternum, despite the mess. It does make for one of the most dramatic and genuinely suspenseful moments in the series, but overall the plot makes no sense. Bond is fortunate that Auric Goldfinger is clearly insane because Bond himself is utterly incompetent in the film, getting himself captured, knocked out, compromised, or chained to a nuclear weapon at least once per reel. He also gets the Masterson sisters killed and totally fails to convey a message to his superiors or the CIA. His only victories–killing Oddjob, defenstrating Goldfinger, and turning Pussy Galore from man-hating lesbian to turncoat aid–are entirely coincidental.

Stranger

Casino Royale. Jimmy Bond swallowing the atomic blast pill.

That’s never made clear. I could see it happening, since Goldfinger doesn’t want to ruin his chances of Chinese cooperation, and his getting the Bomb, but it’s never disclosed exactly why he relented on this. I always put it down to insane Goldfinger’s whimsical nature.
In the book, Goldfinger uses Bond as an assistant to organize his meeting, which is pretty damned weird, and would make for a boring movie (James Bond, making copies!) Fleming must’ve liked the idea of his spy acting as assistant to his villain (and being, well, a spy), because he used the same idea in his last novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, where Bond again helps his nemesis with a business meeting of criminals. The difference is that in that one they only suspected he might be a spy.

Yeah, I came in here to mention the Goldfinger book. He keeps Bond alive to write memos and other light admin work. It was so stupid, I vowed never to read another one of those books again.

When Quantum of Silence was more current, I posted on the numskulled stupidity of any criminal scheme to profit off of Bolivian water rights, given the political history of the country and its endemic poverty, which to me strongly argued against any such scheme withstanding the political blow-back from either the Left (socialists, communists, progressive activists and most of the independent press) or of the Right (generals, populist/fascist dictators).

Well, lo and behold: an actual news item from 1999 demonstrating exactly what I’d predicted!

Diamonds are Forever - why the heck did Bloefeld keep Willard Whyte alive and employ Bambi and Thumper to keep him prisoner? Why not just kill Whyte? I can’t see what Bloefeld might have still needed from the guy; he seemed to be impersonating him perfectly already.

Moonraker. Drax left the big red button to stop the space station’s spinning within relatively easy reach of Bond, and then his mooks were apparently so disoriented by zero-G that 007 could go on a rampage with impunity.

Well, the real off-the-chart stupidity in Moonraker was from all the people who helped Drax with his plan and then had to stay on the ground. “Say there, Mr. Drax, these fifty satellites we’re building for you that spray fatal nerve gas into the atmosphere, what do you need those for, anyway?”

Dr. Ling becomes very animated after Bond mentions the name of the operation. Earlier (while Bond is eavesdropping from the foundry roof) he hears Goldfinger assuge Ling’s concerns about any activities that may divert his attention, i.e. smuggling gold.

Stranger

Or the dudes that worked in the giant tanker control room in The Spy Who Loved Me. I’d think promotion to the Atlantis hideout would be pretty good performance motivation.