History Headscratchers / GoldFinger

*** That's it exactly - specifically, collateral damage to the control room. Goldfinger wants to get into the vault, and he can't do that if the controls are damaged - they're NEVER getting through that door if it's sealed. To move it they needed heavy duty steel chains and a truck - it looking 'flimsy' is just a bad film prop. It's sturdy enough that he doesn't want to risk the amount of explosive it would take to make a hole big enough for the bomb.

** Pussy finding out about the lethality of the gas and that Goldfinger was lying to her is indeed why she turns in the film. Bond tells her in the same sex scene.

** [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Spaceballs It was the same as his combination for his luggage]]

* After Oddjob kills the gangster, why doesn't he take the gold out of the trunk of the car before crushing it? Wouldn't that be easier than extracting it later?

*** Exactly! Watching this and being confused about why it doesn't hold to modern sensibilities is like reading 'Le Morte d'Arthur' and wondering why it has such a huge boner for Christianity. There are so many more forces in effect on these works, political, economic and cultural, that have shifted since their creation, that it is easier to view them as artefacts of history than moral stories.

** I've always thought there was a level of ActorAllusion that mitigates it somewhat, but gets lost outside the UK, and due to the years since the film's release. At the time ''Goldfinger'' came out, Honor Blackman was best known as [[Series/TheAvengers1960s the Avenger Cathy Gale]] and as a judo black-belt. So there was probably a certain perception that nobody throws Honor Blackman around unless she ''lets'' them do it. (An accurate perception, too. Honor Blackman's a real-life badass, and could probably take Connery in a fight.) Certainly Blackman doesn't play the scene like she's ''really'' being forced - Pussy seems to enjoy (genuinely, non-[[DeadlyEuphemism euphemistically]]) "playing hard to get".

** It’s entirely true that James Bond muddle’s through the entire movie and barely influences the outcome. Auric Goldfinger is always one step ahead of our hapless hero – and that’s what makes it awesome. Goldfinger’s plan isn’t particularly less common sense than most Bond Villain plots. . .

* The mook Oddjob throws over the balcony in the Fort Knox vault after they get locked in has a gun. Why does Bond make no effort to retrieve it? Bond could have shot Oddjob then taken the key to unlock himself. Or circled back to get it later?

* The one aspect of this film that everyone criticizes, including Sean Connery, is that the entire plot hinged on Bond’s magic penis making Pussy have a [[HeelFaceTurn Heel-Face Turn.]] Putting aside how badly that scene has aged (and even pushed some serious limits in 1964) it seems more believable that Bond could’ve simply had a frank discussion with her that: 1.) She would not be sedating thousands of people but killing them. It’s certainly possible that she didn’t mind participating in a massive heist but would be less likely to commit mass murder. 2.) He knew that Goldfinger had just murdered an entire room full of very powerful men he no longer needed so Pussy and her pilots would likely suffer the same fate. Perhaps a little less dramatic, but less of a DeusExMachina.

* How did Goldfinger get the combination to the Fort Knox vault door?

*** Yes, but he's also under orders to watch Goldfinger, presumably in secret. This gives away to Goldfinger that someone has him under surveillance. At this point, Bond has know idea what M's interest is and revealing himself potentially endangers any future operations.

* SPECTRE is absent from this film after being prominently featured in both the previous film and the next one in the series. But is SPECTRE actually financing or supporting Goldfinger's master plan? With all the chaos and economic woes that would follow the irradiating of the US gold supply, that could very well benefit them too.