Welcome to Part 5 of In Conclusion: The James Bond Series. Previously we covered Roger Moore’s first two films and boy was he off to a bad start. Coincidentally enough the next two films on our countdown happen to be 2 more Guy Hamilton entries. So without further ado I present to you #14 and #13.
14.
You know, I honestly have no idea what’s going on in this poster. Connery is posed the same way Moore is in the Live and Let Die and in The Man with the Golden Gun except Moore’s gun is bigger. I have a feeling EON did that in the next two films as a bit of a phallic symbol since the divorce between Connery and EON was pretty messy from what I gathered. I’m assuming the circular object above him is the diamond satellite that plays a key role in the story of the movie and there’s helicopters. I’m assuming the scene shown is the climax at the oil rig.
I’m not really sure what Connery is standing on or if it even appears in the movie. I’m assuming the red head with him is Jill St. John’s Bond girl, Tiffany Case even though it looks nothing like her in the movie. Don’t ask me who the blonde is I’m just guessing they stuck her in there just because they felt Bond needed another woman on him. I do like the nice touch though of the “Forever” echoing down the poster. It’s not a bad poster, it does showcase Bond and it does (I guess) show the Bond girl (I’m not entirely convinced it’s her though) and it shows one of the best scenes in the movie but it just seems like they cut a pasted random parts of the movie on it.
This was Sean Connery’s last official James Bond movie and its an okay way to go. Charles Grey plays Blofeld and while people always associate him with camp I feel that given the right script he would’ve made a great Blofeld. He isn’t too bad, I just feel that they made his Blofeld something more out of a Frankie Avalon beach movie than a Bond flick. Bruce Glover and Putter Smith respectively play Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd and they do an amazing job and are by far one of my favorite henchmen in the series. They seem normal and calm but really they are deadly sociopaths whose only care is for their job and each other.
Jill St. John plays Tiffany Case, the Bond girl. Jill is relatively attractive but other than she’s pretty bad in this film. She was the start of the “useless, ditzy Bond girls” which I hope we never see again where the female is extremely vulnerable, naive, and at times completely idiotic. She does seem to be a tough and strong woman initially but grows ditzier as the movie goes on. The action scenes were well done once again and I really liked the end sequence on Blofeld’s ship along with the chase scene on the Vegas trip.
I thought Las Vegas was a great setting for the film and for once the desert isn’t as boring and the mountain landscape is nice as is the city itself. Vegas may feel dated by modern standards but it works for me in this story. The theme song “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey is a fantastic theme song for the movie. There is something about John Barry’s music and Shirley Bassey’s voice that is magical. One of the other aspects I surprisingly liked in this movie was the humor.
I know the humor turns a lot of people off but I thought it wasn’t bad, I laughed at a few of Bond’s quips. I feel with this movie there are a lot of things that are just off. Charles Grey wasn’t bad as Blofeld but why on earth did Blofeld exit the Casino in drag? The most powerful criminal in the world dressing as an old lady is wrong. A clever disguise, yes, but otherwise…no, just no. It makes Blofeld less intimidating and more Dr. Evil like.
I also didn’t like the recon of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but its understandable. I consider this to be a sequel to You Only Live Twice instead only. I also found the feeling at times that this was a Roger Moore film with Sean Connery. My reasoning for this is because the humor is Moore-ish and Connery feels like Moore at places. It’s weird, but that’s just how I feel. Some things do save this movie but otherwise it isn’t too great but at the same time it’s not as horrible as people describe it.
13.
It’s very weird to see such a simplistic poster after going through half the series so far. I like the simplicity though, it’s better than something like say the Octopussy poster which would make you think it’s some bizarre space flick of amazonian women. Although I will say the pictures they use seem to both work and not work. “James Bond is Back in Action” is shown to us by showing what appears to be Bond taking a dump. If that’s the case he must be in action everyday then or he’s busy making Never Say Never Again (more on that later).
“Everything he touches” is represented by Bond’s head over the bottom of a golden girl. To make it more creepy, he’s got the “rape face” going at the same time. That just doesn’t make for lovely imagery. “Turns into excitement!” is represented by what appears to be Bond kissing the girl from above. I guess she got so excited that she put her clothes back on and her skin color change. I guess that makes her like the Hulk except when she becomes excited she turns tan.
I actually consider this to be the most overrated of the Bond films. Most have this in the Top 3, I think its Top 15 material but it isn’t that great. Connery is Bond and does a great job here as usual. Gert Frobe plays Goldfinger and he does a reasonably good job. It’s hard to really compare him to anyone else since this is the first time we’ve seen a villain like Goldfinger.
Oddjob is his main henchmen. The guy kills people with his hat, how bad ass is that? Pussy Galore is the main Bond girl of the movie. She’s just kind of there at places in the sense that I guess they wanted to follow SOME of the novel so they placed her in it. The action in this movie is well…rare.
This movie is more of a suspense thriller than it is an action film. It’s pure story driven and you don’t see too many sequences like you see in later films. It’s great seeing Bond in the United States as I think Miami Beach works for a nice setting. What I don’t like is the fact that well…the latter half of the movie takes place in Kentucky. Kentucky isn’t exactly an “interesting” setting to me at least.
I thought Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” was a great title theme. I miss Shirley in Bond films, she’s always had great songs. Though I have some issues with this film that hinder it a bit. My main one is that it gets away from the Novel a bit by changing of the characterizations of Pussy Galore(she’s a lesbian in the novel) and the film itself doesn’t feel as strong as the book did. I also didn’t like that after building up Blofeld they got away from that element of the series but I guess they wanted to build the anticipation to the “big reveal” that was to occur later.
Well anyhow that’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for Part 6 of In Conclusion: The James Bond Series. I also take requests for anything like this to review and if you’re up for any debating e-mail me at jbasfo01@shepherd.edu.