One of the last Bond films to clock in at under two hours, Goldfinger is tightly-paced and economical in its usage of extraneous material. The character development of From Russia with Love is replaced by a greater attention to action. There are several memorable fight sequences (including a climactic struggle between 007 and Goldfinger's nasty henchman, Oddjob) and a lengthy car chase that has Bond's Aston Martin trailing smoke screens and oil slicks, firing built-in guns, and ejecting the passenger seat. The level of excitement in Goldfinger is up a notch from its predecessors.

When the British Secret Service decides that they want supposedly-legitimate bu

llion dealer Auric Goldfinger under observation, agent 007 is chosen for the job. After Bond finds a naked, dead woman on his bed, covered head-to-toe with gold paint, the investigation takes on a new urgency. It seems that Goldfinger is planning something big -- "Operation Grand Slam" -- and anyone who interferes is targeted for elimination, including, of course, Bond. But, when Goldfinger captures the British agent in Switzerland, he decides to keep him as a hostage rather than kill him. So Bond accompanies the criminal and his entourage to Kentucky, where Goldfinger plans to engineer the greatest crime in history: knock over Fort Knox.

He is a hero, but not a bore. Even faced with certain death, he can cheer himself by focusing instead on the possibility that first he might get lucky. He's obsessed with creature comforts, a trial to his superiors, a sophisticate in all material things and able to parachute into enemy territory and be wearing a tuxedo five minutes later. When it comes to movie spies, Agent 007 is full-service, one-stop shopping.

Not every man would like to be James Bond, but every boy would. In one adventure after another, he saves the world, defeats bizarre villains, gets to play with neat gadgets and seduces, or is seduced by, stupendously sexy women (this last attribute appeals less to boys younger than 12).

Goldfinger's people invade Fort Knox and bum their way into the vault. Goldfinger has an atomic bomb wheeled into the gold reserve and chains Bond to it. The 'dead' troops attack, and manage to disrupt Goldfinger's operation, but Goldfinger activates the bomb and escapes in the uniform of a US General, killing his Chinese liaison as he goes. Bond attempts to defuse the bomb, fighting off and killing Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata) while he does so. In the end, an expert disarms the bomb. On his way to meet the President of the USA, Bond is hijacked by Goldfinger but manages to kill him in a scuffle.

Attempting to escape with this information, Bond is captured by Goldfinger and taken to Kentucky, USA, where Bond overhears Goldfinger explaining to a group of American hoodlums that he intends robbing Fort Knox. Each of the hoodlums has provided something - nerve gas, manpower, a laser cutter - expect a hefty return on their investment. Instead, Goldfinger kills the hoodlums and reveals to Bond that he is being paid by the Red Chinese to detonate a nuclear device in Fort Knox in order to irradiate the entire gold supply of the USA. Cue economic chaos and the sudden increase in value of Goldfinger's gold reserves. Goldfinger uses Pussy Galore's (Honor Blackman) Flying Circus of female pilots to spread what he thinks is nerve gas across the Fort Knox military base. But Bond has managed to subvert Pussy Galore and get a message out to Felix Leiter: the nerve gas has been replaced with something harmless and the troops who fall over as if dead are actually faking.

In the midst of Bond's "golden era" of the '60s, it's hard to single out one film as the best, but history has shown Goldfinger to be among the series' most enduring entries. Although more gimmicky than From Russia with Love, this film is equally as entertaining. And, of course, it takes the Bond films in a slightly different direction, blazing a trail that they have been following ever since, all the way from Goldfinger to Goldeneye.

Sean Connery, back for the third time in the role that made him famous, plays the lead character with the same easy elegance and wit he displayed in From Russia with Love. 007 can be a man of action or a man of style, and Connery is equally at home as either. In Goldfinger, Bond gets one of his better opponents. The title character (played by Gert Fr

Some topics in this essay:
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