 Bond finds himself waking up aboard of a private jet. We've now reached the exact halfway point of the film and we're finally introduced to the main Bond girl. My name is Pussy Galore, I must be dreaming. Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, yet again a classic Bond girl. I have to say though I would have loved it if they used the original line that they had in mind for this introduction. I am Pussy Galore, but of course you are. But what's your name? Which would have been even more smooth and tongue-in-cheek, but they drew the line at that being to suggest if they're… really wish they went with that. At any case, Pussy Galore is changed quite a bit from her source material. Originally, Pussy didn't show up until later on and was a lesbian head of an American female group of gangsters. Here, all of that is dropped and Pussy is made to be Goldfinger's personal pilot. The lesbian thing is not really mentioned either, but there is this line. One other thing about her though, and I've never really seen anyone mention this, so maybe it's me, but if you are Goldfinger's personal pilot, why isn't C being his personal pilot right now? What? Why? So you're telling me she flew all the way from Kentucky, or Baltimore, to Switzerland, and back, being the personal pilot of Goldfinger, and Goldfinger just took some other private jet instead? Why does Goldfinger's personal pilot have to be the one to fly Bond to Baltimore? Why wouldn't Goldfinger take the same plane so he can keep an eye on Bond? I mean, he knows exactly what Bond is capable of when he's alone with women working under him. He might just charm them against him. Isn't that a colossal mistake on Goldfinger's part? Or at the very least, why not have our job aboard of this plane? Or quiche, just in case? Nah, better just leave Bond all along with my personal pilot and his cute looking Asian girl with golden triangular tits. That'll show him. It doesn't take away from Connery oozing confidence and charm throughout this whole flight, fooling around with the shaving cream, knowing that my Lee is keeping an eye on him, slipping the Homer into his shoe. All of this is still super entertaining. Also, you gotta appreciate this sneaky little callback to Fromusia With Love. Remember the tear gas booby trap in the Atachi case? My Atachi case? Black Atachi case damaged when examined. So sorry. Apologies, quite unnecessary. That is such a subtle way of showing continuity. And when watching Bond films in order, which definitely is my recommended way of first watching them, you might catch on to some of these little knots. You gotta appreciate it. Anyway, Bond slips into, quite possibly, the most timeless, smart looking suit he ever wore. I mean, just look at this smooth son of a bitch. He has that factor of what Bond is all about. You want to be this bastard. Ah, Pushey, you know, this is just why we love Bond. So Bond lands in Baltimore. While Pushey Calour isn't the head of a female gangster group in this film, they still kept her as a leader of Pushey's Flying Circus. Featuring this squadron of blonde babes, complete with the stereotypical sexy music as they exit. Ah, the 60s. Classic. So Bond is taken to Goldfinger's ranch in Kentucky and is imprisoned there. It's kind of questionable why Goldfinger keeps Bond alive, though. In the novel, he had this weird reason where Bond had to do his paperwork with Tilly, who was still alive at this point in the novel. But here, he just keeps him around because he's afraid 008 might replace him. But Bond won't be able to report to MI6 anyway, so shouldn't he still be concerned that someone would come out to look for him? Instead, he just keeps Bond around so he can kill him later in Operation Grantsland. Oh well, a common criticism at this point in the film, Bond doesn't really do much other than sit around in his cell, makes a silly escape only to be recaptured again later. And I can see where people are coming from, but I feel Bond does try a couple of things of importance. I'll get into that later. But most of all, he's still at the center stage now, being this close to Goldfinger's heart of operation. And it's the only one able to actually try and stop Operation Grantslam. This is when we finally find out what Operation Grantslam is. In a very fun sequence, taking place in an underrated Ken Adam film set, by the way, Goldfinger brought in all these gangsters from several parts of the US that all invested one million bucks into Operation Grantslam. Goldfinger promises them that they will each receive 10 million tomorrow. What is the plan? Well, in typical Bond villain fashion, Goldfinger pushes some buttons and out pops a model of Fort Knox and of course, a huge picture of the target area. No Bond villains should go without. And meanwhile, the gangsters are constantly hilariously commenting on every damn thing that Goldfinger is doing. Of course, it's highly questionable why Goldfinger would go ahead and explain every last detail of his plan. The dynamining of the fence, the spraying of a lethal nerve gas to disable the guards around the area, only to use the exact gas to kill all of the gangsters off anyway. Why bother to explain all of this if he could have just activated the gas beforehand? Of course, the real answer is because we as the audience now finally learned what his goal is. But as a Bond fan that likes to think deeper about every damn detail in a film, my attempt of rationalizing this would be Goldfinger is a bit of a mech lomaniac that simply wants to share his genius. He's proud of all the planning and dedication that went into his plan. And he wants to share it with the only people in the world that could possibly appreciate the genius behind it. Other criminals, he just wants to see their jaws drop and see them left impressed before inevitably taking them out of the equation. So like I mentioned before, Bond makes a silly escape. Like seriously, where does the guard think Bond could have possibly gone to? You think he dug a hole within a few minutes he's been in this cell? It gets the job done, though. And Bond sneaks his way directly under the Fort Knox model, overhearing Goldfinger's plan of Operation Grantslam, making notes that he intends to try and get to Felix. That is, until he's discovered by Pussy, who takes Bond straight to Goldfinger. He tries to get the Grantslam notes to Felix with his homer in the pocket of Mr. Solo, the one gangster who didn't want anything to do with Goldfinger's plan. And here follows an entire sequence, which is probably the most pointless that could have ended up on the cutting room floor. John Barry's soundtrack over this whole thing just makes it seem like we're about to watch something spectacular and grand, but we're essentially just watching our job drive Mr. Solo through Kentucky, which is worlds apart from the gorgeous Switzerland sequence from before, while Felix is following him to the car junkyard, where our job takes care of Mr. Solo. And we see the car getting crust with the body all of the sudden completely gone, by the way. They could have at least left a dummy on the backseat and we have to sit through this whole process of the car getting crust. It's the only part of the film for me that's too slow. I guess now is as good time as any to mention the movie's sound editor, Norman Wonstol, who won the first Oscar in all of Bond for Goldfinger's sound design. I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with Norman in 2022 at the shaken nuts third event. And the man is a legend in playing the craft stable, seriously. But he also told the story of this particular scene and the sound of the actual machine crushing the car. He stumbled on by chance in the studio car park where workmen were just using some sort of compressor, which he recorded last minute with a toy recorder of all things, as he had no equipment around at the time. And then he won an Oscar. It's a fantastic story. So for the sake of the story behind the sound of this sequence, I love it. For the sake of the flow of the plot, I think the film could have worked fine without this whole thing. Arguably, it would have worked even better if we just see a job take off only for him to arrive moments later with Mr. Solo's remains in the cross cube and the rest left to the imagination of the viewer. Then we would be like, holy shit, what happened to Mr. Solo? So Bond's plan to report about Grand Slam has failed. So he has a drink with Goldfinger instead, enjoying the sun. The filmmakers have another improvement over the novel here. You see, in the novel, Operation Grand Slam did in fact come down to a heist operation in which Goldfinger was going to rob Fort Knox with the help of many American gangsters, including Pussy Galore's group. Here in the movie, they actually call out how implausible that really is. Fifteen billion dollars in Gold Bullion waste 10,500 tons would take 12 days to load it onto 200 trucks. Now, at the most, you're going to have two hours before the army, Navy, Air Force, Marines move in and make you put it back. That is until the movie pulls a twist of Goldfinger not actually planning to steal the gold, but to blow up a bomb in it, or as he calls it, an atomic device, rendering the biggest gold supply in the world useless for 58 years because of the radiation, increasing Goldfinger's own gold tremendously. And I love how Goldfinger absolutely enjoys it. How Bond is slowly putting these puzzle pieces together. You can totally see this maniac enjoys people admiring his genius plan, which again buys into my theory I had before as to why Goldfinger loved explaining the plan to the gangsters before killing them. This face says it all. And it's so telling of the character of Goldfinger. It's a real credit to the screenwriters because this makes his plan so much more believable. What follows is a scene in which Pussy suddenly decides to seduce Bond to make Felix and the other CIA guy believe that Bond is in no danger at all. As they move into the barn, we get the moment that is often called out to be on the rapey side as Bond simply forces his way onto Pussy. While I do agree that if we were to have a scene like this in today's cinema, feminists would probably try and boycott the movie. And yeah, it would be more cringe worthy and maybe controversial to see something like this in modern times. But again, trying to look at this within the context of the time it is made, I don't think the filmmakers had any intention to make this seem rapey at all. It was intended as sort of a 60s love dance in which Bond has to slowly seduce a woman who essentially gives in. With consent, I must add. As you can clearly see here too, though by today's standards, this is hardly perceived as something romantic, winning a woman over in a way that Bond does do here, but I'm willing to bet that some of our grandparents back to differ. Within the context of the sixties, it's intended to be much more innocent. And not only that, but the whole winning her over part is essential to the rest of the plot as we find out later. As Operation Grand Slam goes into effect, again, all of this is 60s cinema in all its glory. And I can't help but always smile at the charm of everything going on on the screen here. So the entire army around Fort Knox is knocked out by pussies flying circus and the nerve gas with all the soldiers hilariously falling down on cue. The goons come in to blow up the gate. And the one in front here is an early cameo of a young future Bond producer, Michael G. Wilson, by the way, and Goldfinger flies in along with the same laser. And all of this is just super entertaining. The interior of Fort Knox, as designed by Ken Adam, is still to this day, absolutely jaw dropping. Nobody knows what the interior of Fort Knox looks like, but the design he came up with is all inspiring. And I also love the look that Goldfinger gives as he first enters the building. You can see the temptation on his face as he looks at the vast stacks of gold. Should he try and steal some of that before setting off the bomb? You can tell that he considers it for a brief second. But no, Grand Slam comes first and the atomic device as he calls it is brought in and Bond is handcuffed to it. Everything seems to be going painfully according to plan, that is until the authorities, including Felix, suddenly wake up from the gas, now clued in on the plan. How? All thanks to Bond getting pussy. He was convinced to switch the fatal Delta 9 gas for a harmless gas knocking everyone out for just a few minutes and thus a shootout between the soldiers and Goldfinger's goons commences. And Goldfinger immediately switches to plan B, wearing US soldier clothes underneath his coat, ruthlessly shooting his own men, convincing the Americans he's one of them only to shoot them in the back. And it just makes him all the more a classic Bond villain. He's not about to fill his plan now. So the vault is closed and Bond is now trapped with the bomb. Also, our job is left in there to die. And you got to admire this guy's loyalty to Goldfinger. His other man Kish immediately panics and wants to try and defuse the bomb. While our job just wants the plan to succeed. Even if that means he'll die. This ensues one of the most exciting climaxes in the series. Bond facing our job and his lethal bowler hat. We know from the build up in the movie what his hat is capable of and how dangerous this damn thing is. Where Bond's battle with Red Grant in the previous film felt very raw and dark. This one feels more typical cinematic Bond fighting an overpowered henchman on a larger than life film set. An element of a clock ticking away on a bomb. While soldiers in different colors are fighting outside. Much like many more elements in this film. Again, it set a template for so much more things we would come to associate a Bond film with. And while the fight might be much more cartoony or I'd like to say larger than life than the Red Grant one, it still manages to pull you on the edge of your seat as somehow within the universe of Bond. It manages to stay believable. The eventual defeat of our job being electrocuted is very good as well, but that likely has something to do with the fact that Harold Sakata was generally burning himself, but he didn't let go because Guy Hamilton didn't say cut. So it wasn't just his character that showed insane loyalty. It's a great demise to arguably the most iconic of Bond henchmen. The final seconds are again, ads of your seat inducing as Guy Hamilton constantly switches from clock ticking to chaos to Bond struggling to diffuse the bomb. Well, the actual bomb diffuser still seems too far away for the little time that is left. It's very good and it never feels to pull me in. No matter how many times I've watched this film, when eventually the bomb maker does show up to neutralize the bomb, the filmmakers changed it from three seconds left on the timer to 007 seconds left, even though the dialogue still fits the original idea. Three more ticks, Mr. Goldfinger would have hit the jackpot. Again, though, to come back to the argument that Bond doesn't even do that much impressive stuff in this film. I mean, he gets one woman killed in Miami, then he thrills Goldfinger to Switzerland, where he gets the sister killed too, and is captured and strapped to a laser that would have killed him had he not talked his way out of it. Then for the rest of the film, he spends his time as a captive until he eventually is strapped to a bomb he himself doesn't even diffuse. Even Bond himself seems to be aware of this. The president wants to thank you personally. Oh, it was nothing really. I know that, but he doesn't. However, in spite of all that, I'd still argue Bond played a major key role in preventing the plan. You see, had he not been spying underneath the model, Grant Slam would have succeeded. Had he not gotten pussy on his side, no matter how controversial you look at that scene, thousands of innocents would have been killed. Had he not stopped our job, a murderer would have simply gotten away with it. Sure, he's not the one to diffuse the bomb, but without Bond, that bomb diffuser wouldn't have been there to begin with. Of course, we're not quite finished yet, as Goldfinger is still alive too, appearing in the plane with some unknown guy who's only seen in this particular shot, by the way. I'm not sure if it's a movie mistake or some guy that is just forgotten about, but either way, it really doesn't matter. This is probably the only sequence I think the book did better. In the book, Goldfinger hijacks the plane and Bond strangles our job, who ends up being the one sucked out of the plane. Also, the communication between Bond and the control tower in the book, announcing himself as Agent 007 after saving the day, is such a cool moment. Here, things are over quite quickly, as Bond shoots a window and Goldfinger is sucked out of it, and quite a dated effect. It doesn't take away from the movie too much, but the climax in Fort Knox is simply much better. So the plane crashes and our hero gets pushy under the parachute. So that was another look at Goldfinger, and to come back to my original question, whether or not it's overrated, I can still wholeheartedly say that I am in the camp that believes this is an absolute masterpiece for three key reasons. It's iconography, it's importance to the franchise, and it's insanely high entertainment value. When talking about Goldfinger, it just cannot deny it's probably the most important thing in the book, it's probably the most iconic Bond film with every other scene, from Bond's white tuxedo lighting the cigarette, with the explosion, the shocking. Shirley Bassey's title song, The Golden Girl, the DB5, Oddjob and his bowler hat, the car chase in Switzerland, the laser scene, Pussy Galore's introduction, Goldfinger explaining his Operation Grants Land, the ingenious production design by Cat Adam. It pretty much has something iconic on the screen every ten minutes, which brings me to its importance to the franchise. Dr. Null was important for starting it all and adapting the literary Bond to the screen. From Russia With Love expanded on that success, but with Goldfinger they invented and perfected the blueprint of the cinematic Bond. This is when the franchise truly started to become its own unique thing outside of the novels, which brings me to its high entertainment value. As I mentioned in the beginning of this video, out of the first three movies, I'd say Goldfinger comes from the weakest source material. Dr. Null and from Russia With Love are both better books in my opinion. Goldfinger the novel recycles a lot of ideas from the Moonraker novel, which tells you a lot about how good of a job the filmmakers did in adapting it here. It's not only much better than its source material, I think it easily is a vast improvement to the previous two films. That includes the more lighthearted tone and all the arguments you could bring up about Bond not really doing much in the third act. It's a cinematic milestone, the quintessential Bond film. And I have definitely called this film a 24 karat masterpiece before, but it truly is its essential watching not just for Bond fans, but for any movie enthusiast.