History Literature / Goldfinger

Returning to London following a rather unpleasant mission of destroying a drug business in Mexico, Bond finds himself stranded in Miami for a day thanks to a cancelled flight. Purely by chance, he runs into an old acquaintance named Junius Du Pont, through whom he's introduced to Auric Goldfinger, the richest man in England. After eventually returning back home, Bond learns that Goldfinger is on [[DirtyCommunists SMERSH]]'s payroll and is tasked to get him arrested and his gold confiscated.

Returning to London following a rather unpleasant mission of destroying a drug business in Mexico, Bond finds himself stranded in Miami for a day thanks to a cancelled flight. Purely by chance, he runs into an old acquaintance named Junius Du Pont, through whom he's introduced to one Auric Goldfinger, the richest man in England. When Bond eventually returns back home, he learns that Goldfinger is on [[DirtyCommunists SMERSH]]'s payroll and is tasked to get him arrested and his gold confiscated.

* HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory: Bond types up a detailed description of Goldfinger's plot and [[MessageInABottle leaves it on the underside of a toilet seat in a plane]] (along with a note stating that whoever finds it and delivers it unopened to Felix Leiter care of the Pinkerton Detective Agency will be guaranteed a $5,000 reward), in the hope that one of the cleaning crew will find it; but is unable to know whether it gets found and delivered, found and thrown out, or intercepted by the bad guys.

* HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory: Bond leaves [[MessageInABottle a typewritten note on the underside of a toilet seat in a plane]], stating that whoever finds it and delivers it unopened to Felix Leiter care of the Pinkerton Detective Agency will get a guaranteed $5,000 reward, hoping that one of the cleaning crew will find it; but he doesn't know whether or not it got found and delivered, or thrown out, or found by the bad guys.

* HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory: Bond leaves [[MessageInABottle a note on the underside of the toilet on a plane]], stating that whoever finds it and delivers it unopened to Felix Leiter care of the Pinkerton Detective Agency will get a guaranteed $5,000 reward, hoping that one of the cleaning crew will find it; but he doesn't know whether or not it got found and delivered, or thrown out, or found by the bad guys.

* HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory: Bond leaves [[MessageInABottle a note on the underside of the toilet on a plane]], telling of Goldfinger's plot and saying that delivery of the note to Felix Leiter of the CIA will result in a reward, hoping that the cleaning crew will find it; but doesn't know whether or not it got found & delivered, or thrown out, or found by the bad guys.

* OnlySaneMan: Bond is the only person in Goldfinger's team that thinks Operation Grand Slam will fail. Tilly is too busy adoring Pussy Galore to care about it too much, and the other gangsters (except for Helmut Springer) sign on after Goldfinger promises them $1 billion each from the heist.

* RapeAsBackstory: Galore was raped by her uncle at aged 12. This led to her dislike of men and preference for women. Until Bond shows up, of course.

* ShownTheirWork: As part of his research, Fleming sent a questionnaire to an expert at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths—one of the livery companies of the City of London who assay precious metals for purity—with a list of queries about gold, its properties and the background of the industry, including smuggling.

* ScrewYourself: Bond tells Goldfinger to do this to himself, though through NarrativeProfanityFilter, when he refuses his second offer to let him and Tilly go.

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Goldfinger hires mostly Germans and Koreans, and his associates are American gangsters including at least one all-lesbian gang.

* DastardlyDapperDerby: Worn by Oddjob, which has a razor-edged brim, making it a lethal throwing weapon. However, he has to replace the felt covering after every throw.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The man Bond is assigned to follow on his new case is the same man -- Goldfinger -- with whom he'd just tangled in Miami. Bond himself lampshades this by bursting out laughing when M mentions Goldfinger's name. It's even the basis of the three-part structure of the novel, based on the aphorism "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Goldfinger encounters Bond, naturally, three times.

** And Felix Leiter's Studillac, first introduced in ''Literature/DiamondsAreForever''.

** And Felix Leiter's "Studillac", first introduced in ''Literature/DiamondsAreForever''.

* CoolCar: Bond's new Aston Martin DBIII, and Goldfinger's Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. This is actually the only novel in which Bond drives an Aston Martin – in the others he prefers Bentleys. The film series' [[ProductPlacement deal with Aston Martin]] was what cemented Bond as an Aston driver in popular culture.

Returning to London following a rather unpleasant mission of destroying a drug business in Mexico, Bond finds himself stuck in Miami for a day due to a cancelled flight. By chance, he meets an old acquaintance named Junius Du Pont, and through him he also meets Auric Goldfinger, the richest man in England. When he eventually returns back home, he learns that Goldfinger is on [[DirtyCommunists SMERSH]]'s payroll and is tasked to get him arrested and his gold confiscated.

* IdiotBall: Bond has foiled Goldfinger's plot. He is féted in Washington and flying home, even though the villain – whom he knows to be a resourceful, relentless, egomaniac genius – is still at large. At the airport, an official tells Bond he will need a vaccination to fly. Rather than travelling incognito, resisting having a needle stuck into him, or just running for it and escaping the US by some other way, Bond takes the needle... and regains consciousness in Goldfinger's plane.

* TechnicolourEyes: Pussy Galore apparently has the only violet eyes Bond has ever seen. (No doubt Fleming based this on the popular perception that Creator/ElizabethTaylor's eyes were violet - in reality they were just a deep blue that appeared a beautiful violet on old film stock.)

* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier: The book opens with Bond at the Miami airport with a glass of whiskey in hand, thinking about the Mexican killer whom he was [[KillingInSelfDefense forced to kill in self-defence]], and attempting to rationalize about it by telling himself the dead man was very likely a very bad person. After his flight to New York gets cancelled his initial big plan for the evening is to get himself drunk enough that he'll be able to stop thinking about it and his inevitable one-night stand will have to carry him into bed.

* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier: The book opens with Bond with a glass of whiskey in hand, thinking about the Mexican killer whom he was [[KillingInSelfDefense forced to kill in self-defence]], and tries to rationalize about it by telling himself that he was very likely a very bad person. His initial big plan for the evening is to drink himself so silly so that he can stop thinking about it and that his inevitable one night stand has to carry him into bed.

* IdiotBall: Bond has foiled Goldfinger's plot. He is féted in Washington and flying home, even though the villain - a resourceful, relentless, egomaniac genius - is still at large. At the airport, an official tells Bond he needs a vaccination to fly...Instead of travelling incognito, resisting having a needle stuck into him, or just running for it and escaping the US another way, Bond gets the needle and regains consciousness in Goldfinger's plane.

* CoolCar: Bond's new Aston Martin DBIII, and Goldfinger's Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. This is actually the only novel in which Bond drives an Aston Martin - in the others he prefers Bentleys. The film series' [[ProductPlacement deal with Aston Martin]] was what cemented Bond as an Aston driver in popular culture.

* EarlyBirdCameo: Bond gets stuck behind an irritatingly slow driver who later turns out to have been Oddjob.

* BondVillainStupidity: Goldfinger has Bond and Tilly captive in his home. He has realised Bond is extremely dangerous to his mission and has Oddjob torture him to unconsciousness. Instead of having Oddjob kill them, Goldfinger employs Bond as a secretary and confidant. Bond ruins Operation Grand Slam.

* CoolCar: Bond's new Aston Martin DBIII, and Goldfinger's Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. This is actually the only book in which Bond drives an Aston Martin - in the books he prefers Bentleys. The film series' [[ProductPlacement deal with Aston Martin]] was what cemented Bond as an Aston driver in popular culture.

* UncannyValley: Goldfinger in the book. However, the effect comes across from the odd combination of his appearance and his dress sense: in the golf scene, Bond notes that Goldfinger looks like he went to a costume designer and asked, "what do people wear when they go to play golf?" The result was unsettling to look at because it didn't look natural at all.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Branching into InterchangeableAsianCultures, karate, a Japanese martial art, is described to be "a branch of judo" with Chinese origins, and how [[spoiler:Oddjob]] is "one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt" in the discipline.

* CoolCar: Bond's new Aston Martin DBIII, and Goldfinger's Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.

%%* AntagonistTitle

* AntagonistTitle

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArt: Branching into InterchangeableAsianCultures, karate, a Japanese martial art, is described to be "a branch of judo" with Chinese origins, and how [[spoiler:Oddjob]] is "one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt" in the discipline.