Goldfinger (1964)

     (CW: Discussion of rape) Coming out of Dr. No (1962) it occured to me that older Bond might just be too vapid to hold any interest beyond modeling a gross male powerfantasy that really doesn't appeal to me. I wondered if I would even be capable of enjoying any Bond movie made before about 1980 or so. I remember enjoying the two times I saw From Russia With Love (1964) but the last time I saw that was years ago and I was a very different person then. As a result it was with some trepidation that I pressed play on Goldfinger.

    My worries were allayed almost instantly. The film's cold open showed silly gadgets, ostentatious set design, and a far more winking, self aware, performance from Sean Connery. He delivers two punny one liners in quick succession after killing a nameless mook in a rather "shocking" and visually spectacular (for the 60s) way. All the while casually hitting on a swooning woman. One that he endangered his life over for just a few minutes time alone. Thats exactly the silliness I want and expect from James Bond. Especially early James Bond. I am more than happy to watch a caracture so committed to the power fantasy he represents that it borders on self parody while still being played straight enough to please those to whom the fantasy actually appeals. Of course this tone extends past the cold open. Unlike last week's snore fest Goldfinger is full of personality and fun from top to bottom. It has the first appearance of Bond's famous suped up Aston Martin, neat gadgets (again for the 60s) like a tiny magnatized tracking device, and an absolutely bonkers set of villains bent on an insane but, unquestionably dasterdly, plot. Far from Dr. No's plan to prank America to establish Spectre's reputation on the world stage, Auric Goldfinger's plot is to detonate a nuke in Fort Knox to increase the value of his own gold. Gold which he has been smuggling by melting it down and replacing the shell of his car with it (incidentally a concept used a few years later in a Speed Racer episode). We also have Oddjob a mute with a fancy hat trick, and the most infamously named Bond girl of them all: Pussy Galore. This movie unequivically codified what James Bond would become and solidified the tropes and formula for decades to come.

    While its always a good start, I do need more than unmitigated cheese and silliness to really take to a movie, and surprisingly Goldfinger delivers in that respect too. I instantly noticed that Goldfinger was far more colorful and visually interesting than Dr. No even attempted. Of course there is the striking image of Jill Masterson dead on the resort bed covered from head to toe in gold paint. Not only is it a brilliantly surreal image, but its also subtly erotic without being overtly exploitative (by Bond standards). Whereas Dr. No has all of one interesting set (the villain's exotic island lair) Goldfinger throws interesting set after interesting set at us including a billiards room that transforms bombastically into a heist planning/presentation room complete with a huge lit map of Fort Knox and a scale model that is conveniantly hollow to allow Bond to peek through it's tiny windows in another brilliantly surreal image. Goldfinger is also not just a pretty face. Last week I asserted that spy fiction is fundamentally about investigation and discovery as the spy must follow clues to learn what dasterdly plot the big bad has cooked up and how to stop it, and in this arena Goldfinger excels. Bond has to do some actual espionage over the course of the film to discover a series of breadcrumbs that all come together when the villain monologues his plan and puts it all together for both Bond and the audience. Even better, the reveals don't stop there! There is another betrayal (but more on that later) and Goldfinger escapes certain death in a fun albiet predictable last minute "it's not over yet" moment. It's all genuinely fun and engaging intreauge.

    Though the context in which that set appears gives me pause. Ostensibly, Goldfinger is laying out his plan to rob Fort Knox to a group of co-conspirators with whom he claims he will share the profits. But of course Goldfinger's plan is not to rob Fort Knox but rather irradiate the gold inside to render it dangerous to circulate thus increasing the value of his own, so he just gasses the conspirators anyway. Maybe I missed somthing, but it seemed to me this only served to give Bond a way to learn about the plan so that he could tell Pussy Galore the pieces she's missing. At least I assume thats what he did. The movie didn't exactly show us that, preferring to have an exceedingly uncomfortable scene where Bond "seduces" (read: rapes) Pussy Galore into defecting and feeding details of Auric's evil plot to governmetn officials. The way the movie presents it makes it appear as though Bond has magic jizz that turns Pussy Galore into a good girl who does what she's told which is a real black mark on the film. Not only is it grossly sexist, but it also throws away the one good female character I've seen in any similar movie of it's time. Pussy Galore was a hard independant woman who was only interested in the profit that Goldfinger promised her from Fort Knox. Furthermore, she also lead a crack stunt flying team of all women. While this is somewhat exoticised I never got the feeling that they were fetishized or belittled at all by the film. Pussy was this close to being a "bad bitch" archetype that women could usefully appropriate into a symbol of badass feminine indepandance but a Bond movie's gotta Bond movie and rape her into submission.

    What makes this worse is that it's unclear, and ambiguous writing, and it didn't have to be that way. Bond had two pieces of information that Pussy Galore didn't. First he knew that the gas Goldfinger intended to use to knock out the US soldiers stationed at Fort Knox would in fact kill them, and that Goldfinger never intended to steal any gold from Fort Knox. The movie could justfy Pussy's defection by having Bond clue her into the fact that Goldfinger was not planning on spliting any gold with her. This does eliminate the power fantasy of Bond getting to have sex with the supposedly untouchable woman but if they couldn't let that go they could have used the other bit of info. Upon learning that Goldfinger intended on killing tens of thousands of people Pussy could show some ammount of compassion that she and Bond could... well bond over, and they could still have an intimate moment.

    Long story short Goldfinger was a fun if deeply problematic watch, but you don't have to let it's deep social problems prevent you from enjoying your favorite movies. I acknowledge as a cis guy it's easier for me to look past the blaitant rape scene but if that ruins the movie for you I totally understand and respect your opinion... possibly more than my own. We all just need to keep in mind that it's possible to recognize problems in the things we like and still like them. I am privilaged to be in a position where I can recognize that James Bond is a mysogynistic, rapist piece of shit, and still take enjoyment in the witty dialogue and setpieces of this very well crafted bit of silly spy fiction. Hope I have just as much fun with next week's Diamonds Are Forever (1971).