Aluminium Christmas Trees: The iconic opening shot of Bond emerging from a tuxedo beneath a wet suit was inspired by Peter Tazelaar, a member of the Dutch resistance and a British Intelligence agent during World War II. Tazelaar had a mission to infiltrate a German-occupied castle in Scheveningen during a reception. He drove to the location aboard a dinghy wearing a wet suit, removing it after landing to reveal formal evening wear underneath. Tazelaar went on to be one of the initial inspirations for Bond, and the scene was added to the film by script doctor Paul Dehn, who knew him during the war. Also, Mythbusters proved that it’s possible.
And You Thought It Would Fail: The title theme was almost taken out of the film because Harry Saltzman hated it, saying, "That's the worst fucking song I've ever heard in my fucking life". Today it is considered one of the greatest of all Bond theme songs.
Awesome Art: Ken Adam's set-design, in particular Goldfinger's drawing room with the revolving pool table and the Fort Knox interior.
Awesome Music: GOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLD-FINNNNNN-GAAAAAAAAAAH! It's #54 on AFI's "Songs" List, and universally considered the definitive Bond theme song. This was illustrated vividly at the 2012 Oscars when Shirley Bassey was chosen to perform the song as part of its 50th anniversary tribute to the franchise. Ironically, it was never nominated for Best Song; the same year Bassey performed it on the Oscars, however, Adele's theme for Skyfall, which was musically similar to Goldfinger, became the first James Bond song to win the category.
An oddly common misconception is that Solo is an undercover FBI agent, hence why Bond slips him the tracker and the note with the details of Goldfinger's plan — even though Solo wouldn't need the note in that situation, because he'd heard the plan first-hand. There's no suggestion in the film that he's anything other than the gangster he's said to be, with Bond evidently slipping him the tracker so that Leiter will apprehend him and discover the note.
This film contains arguably the most famous and repeated scene of any James Bond film, the one where Goldfinger has Bond strapped to a table about to be sliced in half by a laser. It is often remembered and almost always shown in parodies as THE classic example of Bond Villain Stupidity as Bond inevitably escapes the death trap when Goldfinger leaves the room. But none of that happens in the film. Bond doesn't really "escape" at all. He convinces Goldfinger that if he dies, MI-6 will send another agent to replace him and that they know the truth behind Operation Grand Slam. Goldfinger doesn't really believe him, but is unwilling to take the chance, and is convinced that it would be more beneficial if he kept Bond alive in custody to dupe MI-6 into thinking Bond had things well in hand until it was too late. Bond remains captured for the rest of the movie when he is finally rescued by the US Army.
Complete Monster: The titular Auric Goldfinger is a man whose wit and politeness only mask the dangerous psychopath that he is. Obsessed with increasing his wealth at any cost, Goldfinger plans on poisoning an army barracks and the surrounding town, which would kill 60,000 people—for which he cares nothing about—and then detonating a nuclear device in Fort Knox to trigger a major economic crisis for his own profit. He punishes his assistant, who becomes a Bond girl and costs him a rigged card game, by having her murdered with golden paint that suffocates her, and later tries to have James Bond sawn in half with a laser. He gloats to his mob partners even though he was always planning on killing them and does— simply to bask in his own ego at his plan. Despite being one of the earliest villains that Bond ever faced, Goldfinger still remains one of the worst.
Crazy Is Cool: Painting people gold, smuggling gold even though he could acquire it legally, planning to bifurcate Bond with a LASER, building a scale model map used ONCE for a short briefing, detonating a particularly dirty bomb in Fort Knox. Goldfinger's absolute obsessive mania for gold drives him to extreme action, and by accumulating it enables him in even more. Crazy begets awesome begets crazy...
Oddjob. Probably the most copied and parodied Bond villain of all time, and even got his own Vicks 44 commercial. Not just copies and parodies, but homages too. Kung Lao, we're looking at you!
Goldfinger himself is a good example. He's easily the most famous Big Bad from the film series, even over Blofeld and Dr. No. Quite an achievement when you consider that this is the only Bond film starring Sean Connery that doesn't involve Blofeld or SPECTRE.
Pussy Galore, just might be the most famous Bond Girl of all time, or at the very least tied with Honey Ryder, and not just for her Punny Name, but for being one of the first no-nonsense Femme Fatales in the franchise, that is redeemed by Bond, which would become a reoccurring theme, well in the film franchise at least. Not to mention her excellent portrayal by Honor Blackman.
While the film's treatment of women is not viewed favorably according to the standards of today, it does present women such as Pussy Galore as competent and in a generally positive way compared to the novel it adapts (written only a few years earlier), which not only seems to assume that an Action Girl must be a psychologically damaged lesbian, but also includes an extended Aesop against homosexuality and women's suffrage.
Oddjob being a mute who is completely subservient to a white villain might raise a few eyebrows today, but he's nonetheless depicted as being extremely competent and a terrifying foe for Bond.
Although Dr. No had a Chinese main villain, he was played by Canadian actor Joseph Wiseman in Yellowface (with a Hand Wave that he was biracial, with a German father and Chinese mother), as was Miss Taro, the film's other named Chinese character who was played by British actress Zena Marshall. And while Goldfinger has Japanese-American actor Harold Sakata playing the Korean henchmen Oddjob, the series started to avert yellowface by actually casting actors of East Asian descent.
Franchise Original Sin: The Bond franchise tends to go in waves of being more outlandish vs more realistic. After the relatively realistic first two films, this film cemented the more boisterous elements with epic action sequences, death traps, villainous masterminds and their creative defeats. This made the series more iconic and would go even bigger with lauded films like The Spy Who Loved Me, but would reach full absurdism in films like Moonraker and Die Another Day. This also made the series more ripe for parody; the Daniel Craig era specifically tried to avoid comparisons with the Austin Powers films.
Genius Bonus: Goldfinger's first name Auric. "Aurum" means "gold" in Latin.
Growing the Beard: While Dr. No and From Russia with Love are still well thought of, it was Goldfinger that was the first Bond film to be a huge hit at the box office (to the point that some theatres were holding showings 24 hours a day to meet demand), establish most of the tropes common to the series and show how flat out awesome Bond could be.
He's Just Hiding: It can be nice to hope that Tilly was only knocked unconscious, and Bond pretended she was dead to keep Oddjob from checking her for life himself.
Hoo boy, Bond's quip about something being "as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs" ended up unintentionally getting a lot of mileage.note It should be noted that at the time Goldfinger was being written and shot, the Beatles were a Boy Band who did a lot of covers. It was only two months before the film's release that A Hard Day's Night — the first album of all-original material — was released, and good as it was, it still didn't predict Rubber Soul or Revolver, much less Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road or Let It Be. At the time of Goldfinger, making fun of the Beatles was the 1964 equivalent of making fun of Justin Bieber would be today (which perhaps itself has an ironic lesson in it). And of course, one has to figure that even in the "swingin' 60s" the Beatles represented philosophies and ideologies that were or would be very much at odds with the ideology of Bond. The Beatles crowd wasn't Bond's target audience in 1964. In the end, though, Word of God is that he isn't referring to their music, but rather the incredibly loud legions of screaming fans at the concerts. Nine years later, one of the Beatles would write and sing the opening theme for a Bond film!
Bond's gadget filled Aston Martin used in this film was the inspiration for the Mach Five from Speed Racer. It comes full circle when the Mach Five's submarine mode is mimicked with the Lotus Esprit submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me.
The climax of the film revolves around Bond not being able to disable a nuclear bomb - turning the thing off and saving Fort Knox is actually done by someone else. Almost 20 years later, the first climax of Octopussy had Bond successfully deactivate a nuclear bomb all by himself.
In the final scene, Goldfinger holds Bond at gunpoint with a golden gun. Aside from being appropriate, this may have been an intentional nod to the recently deceased Ian Fleming's final novel, which at this point had not yet been published.
Goldfinger jokes that Oddjob is not a very good caddy because "Golf is not yet the national game of Korea". From 2008 onwards, the top ranks of the LPGA have been heavily dominated by South Korean players; plus the late Kim Jong-Il was reportedly a pretty fair golfer, despite embellished claims of him scoring 11 holes-in-one and shooting 38-under-par 34 . And to kick the hilarity of it even further, there's a South Korean golf course within spitting distance of the DMZ!.
Inferred Holocaust: US-Chinese relations in the aftermath of Goldfinger's plot. China has just financed and supplied a terrorist attack and attempt to detonate a nuclear device on US soil. Worse, despite his globe-trotting nature, Bond never visits mainland China (he does visit Hong Kong, but as a British colony it would be spared in an all-out nuclear war between the US and China).
Goldfinger, who has a perfect blend of cruelty, charm, and brilliance that makes him one of Bond's most popular foes.
Oddjob. Despite having no lines, Harold Sakata's rather terrifying screen presence made Oddjob, along with Red Grant in the previous film, the iconic Bond henchmen. Indeed, many henchman after this have been an Expy of either Oddjob or Grant.
Memetic Mutation: The crotch laser scene along with the line "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!"
Moral Event Horizon: Goldfinger has a knack of crossing lines, such as poisoning an army barracks and the surrounding town - 60,000 people (he shrugs this offby saying that motorists kill as much in two years) - and then detonating a nuclear device in Fort Knox to trigger a major economic crisis for his own profit. Or when he kills his assistant Jill Masterson by having her murdered with golden paint. Or when he kills Jill's sister Tilly for trying to avenge Jill's murder. Or when he kills the assembled mobsters who wanted to take part in his plan.
Jill Masterson has 5 minutes of screentime, but due to her iconic death scene, she is one of the most well-remembered characters from the entire franchise.
The old lady who suddenly pulls out an MP 40 and shoots at Bond's Aston Martin when he escapes from Goldfinger's other henchmen may also count.
Questionable Casting: Some fans and critics had a confused reaction to Cec Linder in the role of Felix Leiter, whom some found to be too old to play Bond's best friend, with Bond author Raymond Benson describing him as looking "more like Sean Connery's uncle than his best friend" (though ironically, he was a year younger than Jack Lord). A somewhat downplayed case, however, thanks to Linder's admirable performance as Felix.
Sequel Displacement: Many people start the Bond series with this one. Or they think this is the best, among 25.
Alongside the legendary groin laser, Jill Masterson's gold-painted corpse is one of the most iconic images in the film, if not the entire franchise.
The golf game that climaxes with Oddjob decapitating a statue with his razor-rimmed hat.
Bond removing his diving suit to reveal an immaculate white dinner jacket, complete with carnation.
Q showing Bond the Aston Martin DB5, setting the template for future scenes between the two characters.
The one-on-one fight against Oddjob, which became the template for more mano-a-mano final battles of Bond against The Dragon, usually after The Big Bad is dead or escaping.
It's far too obvious that the plane crashing at the end is a model.
Subverted during the gassing of Fort Knox, the soldiers don't "die" convincingly—all of them clearly take the time to lie down comfortably rather than reacting the way people would really react to poison gas. Additionally, one soldier can be seen tapping another on the arm as they miss their cue to drop to the ground, while others miss it completely and are still standing while everyone else around them collapses. The DVD Commentary reveals that this was deliberately done to hint to viewers that the gas isn't real and that the men are faking their reactions to it. This might have also been more clear had a Deleted Scene been kept that would have clearly indicated that the soldiers were going to fake it.
When the car containing Solo's body is lifted into the crusher, we can see directly into the backseat and there is no sign of Solo's body being in there.
In the scene where Oddjob knocks the head off a statue with his hat, the severed head bounces off its arm, which visibly gives way, revealing the statue to be fake.
There’s a very noticeable edit to replace Connery with a stuntman when Pussy grabs his legs and causes him to fall hard onto the duct.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Tilly Masterson is on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for Goldfinger murdering her sister, so you might think she and Bond might team up to take him down. Nope, she's killed shortly after Bond meets her and the whole vengeance thread is dropped as quickly as it's brought up.
James forcing a kiss on Pussy Galore and her falling into his arms is today seen as "Rape as Love" rather than the aggressive courting it was meant to be. It's worse in the book, where he literally bangs the gay out of her, though the encounter is more (for lack of a better term) consensual there and only happens at the very end. Although the book makes it clear that Pussy was already attracted to Bond by then, Bond using "Tender Loving Care" as a euphemism for what he's about to do is very creepy, due to the fact that his next actions are pretty much the opposite of TLC.
Auric's opinion on Koreans: "The cruellest people in the world." Actually downplayed from the novel, where it is made clear Bond agrees with him and thinks Goldfinger is absolutely right, making a point of calling Oddjob an "ape" repeatedly and thinking that Koreans are lower than apes for some reason. The film at least allows you to rationalize it as Auric's racism alone.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: There have been many stories about people who watched this film as kids. A film that includes Bond finding a dead, naked girl that he slept with earlier, and her sister later having her neck broken by Oddjob's hat. Though 11-year-old Pierce Brosnan for one didn't mind too much, starting a lifelong love for the franchise and ultimately playing the role himself.
The book:
Harsher in Hindsight: Bond's (and by extension, Ian Fleming's) negative attitude towards Koreans, no doubt fuelled by The Korean War, became this in light of Die Another Day (not only does Bond spent fourteen months as a POW in North Korea, but the film being reviled in the country).
Hilarious in Hindsight: Goldfinger claims he had to temporarily ditch Bond at his mansion to bail out one of his Korean employees who got mistaken for a "bloody Jap" by some drunk U.S. Air Force men. Then in the film, his top Korean employee is played by Japanese-American Harold Sakata. Even better: Bond mistakes Oddjob himself for a Japanese wrestler, an exact description of Sakata.
Idiot Ball: After foiling Goldfinger's plot and being féted in Washington, Bond prepares to fly 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 some other way, Bond takes the needle... and regains consciousness in Goldfinger's plane.
Memetic Mutation: The extremely outdated views on gays and lesbians have been known to provide dark laughs for Bond fans, particularly the bit character described as, in complete seriousness, a "pansified Italian."
Narm: In general, everythingIan Fleming seems to believe about gay people. For the right reader it can pass all the way around from Values Dissonance into being actively funny, if in a dark way.
At one point during Bond's dialogue with Tilly, Fleming describes their eyes meeting in a mix of "master-slave signals", which just sounds silly, especially right after Tilly's been established as a headstrong, independent female character. It makes even less sense once it becomes clear she's most definitely not into him.
The idea that gay people are "sexually failed" is hilarious in itself. As is Bond/Fleming's idea that feminism (and female suffrage, which is a dated view even for the time!) led to a generation of "bisexual misfits".
Older Than They Think: In the novel and the film, Goldfinger smuggling gold by having the body of his car made of it, was a method featured in a 1952 film titled The Devil Makes Three, seven years before the publication of Fleming's novel.
Strangled by the Red String: Tilly Masterson's attraction to Pussy Galore gets her killed because it immediately strips her of all common sense.
Homosexuals are referred to as "sexually failed people".
Koreans are described by Fleming — through Bond — as "lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy." This is the most bigoted Fleming's work ever got — previous "ethnic" villains like Dr. No and Mr. Big were somewhat stereotypical, but were at least dangerously competent and very intelligent — and a common guess among readers is that Fleming's views were influenced by the then-recent war. To make it worse, Oddjob and Goldfinger's Korean servants are the only Koreans Bond's actually encountered, and he immediately assumes all Koreans are as horrible as them.
There's also a rather mean dig at the American South during the end, when Galore tells Bond that down there, a woman is considered a virgin if "she can outrun her brother."
Bond figures Galore for the Token Good Teammate in Goldfinger's operation pretty much solely on the basis of her being the only woman. He's right, but that still seems like quite the leap of logic. Though it can possibly make sense in another way: as a relatively unknown small-time criminal, she's the only senior partner who isn't a major mob boss Bond already knows is an utter scumbag, so in that sense she would at least be the best bet.
Tilly Masterton goes from being an Ambiguously Gay "proud independent woman who don't need no man" to being slavishly in love with Pussy Galore, to the extent that she runs to her death in true Too Dumb to Live fashion, at a moment in the story where her latent lesbianism becomes the defining aspect of her character.
, a member of the Dutch resistance and a British Intelligence agent during World War II. Tazelaar had a mission