'Goldfinger,' 60 Years, 60 Facts: All About the 3rd James Bond Film

Sixty-two years after the James Bond film series began, it's still going strong, with 25 films under its belt and a 26th eventually going into development. Of them all, Goldfinger, currently celebrating its 60th anniversary, remains one of the most popular.

For many people, agent 007 has always been a part of pop culture in much the same way that The Beatles are, but there was indeed a time when both were exploding for the first time, the world swept up simultaneously in Bondmania and Beatlemania. And unless you were there, you simply have no idea how big it really was or how insane the fervor.

Released in 1964, Goldfinger was the third entry in the James Bond film series and — along with 1962's Dr. No and 1963's From Russia with Love — propelled actor Sean Connery into a superstardom that never faded, even when he left 007 behind after six films.

The plot of the film has James Bond going off to investigate what seems to be gold smuggling by magnate Auric Goldfinger, but what's uncovered is a plan to radiate the gold in Fort Knox so that the value of his personal holdings will see tremendous growth. And while this sounds like a fairly grounded plot line, the film introduces a great many elements that would come to define the 007 film series for decades to come.

So join us for this unique celebration of Goldfinger — 60 years, 60 facts!

1.

Goldfinger was the third James Bond movie, but it was the seventh 007 novel by Ian Fleming, published in 1959, five years before the film was released.

2.

Author Ian Fleming took his inspiration for Goldfinger from a conversation he had with a broker specializing in gold while at an English health spa called Enton Hall. As they discussed the gold trade, the ideas for the adventure began to form.

3.

Between the second Bond film, 1963's From Russia with Love, and this one, actor Sean Conner filmed the thriller Woman of Straw, with Gina Lollobrigida and Ralph Richardson, as well as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie.

4.

While Terence Young had directed Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963), Guy Hamilton made his 007 debut with Goldfinger. He would go on to direct Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

5.

Sean Connery was actually uptight about the Goldfinger script, feeling that its approach — with increased humor and a penchant for the ridiculous — was getting too far away from the seriousness they'd established in the previous two films, especially From Russia with Love.

6.

British singer Shirley Bassey handled vocals on the title track, which reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 21st on the UK charts, while the soundtrack album — composed by John Barry — reached the top of the Billboard 200 chart. Bassey would record the title tracks for Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Moonraker (1979) as well as the unused "Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" for Thunderball (1965).

7.

To record the song, Shirley Bassey sang while the opening credits were playing so that her vocals would match what was happening on screen. However, she nearly passed out while holding that final note as the credits played out. Something similar nearly happened to Tom Jones on the next film when he sang the title track to Thunderball.

8.

Sir Michael Caine (in the days before he was knighted) was the first non-Bond employee to hear John Barry's score for Goldfinger as he was a house guest of the composer's at the time.

9.

Did you know that the song "Goldfinger" was rewritten as "Gold Label" for a series of cigarette commercials?

10.

While it was well known that Sean Connery wore a toupee through much of his career, it was reportedly with Goldfinger where the need for it actually arose.

11.

What's in a name, you might ask? Ian Fleming got "Auric" from the adjective meaning "of gold," and Goldfinger came from his disdain for Erno Goldfinger, a Hungarian modernist architect.

12.

Whereas From Russia with Love was treated very much like an espionage film, Goldfinger made a significant change in the Bond character, as noted by film historian Steven Jay Rubin, author of The James Bond Films: "With Goldfinger, the writers created a new agent, an indestructible man who would survive any situation. It was no longer a question of whether Bond would survive, it merely became a case of which button he would push, or what he would say."

13.

Richard Maibaum, already a mainstay of the series as a writer, was joined on this film by poet turned screenwriter Paul Dehn, whose other script credits include Seven Days to Noon (1950), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and three of the original Planet of the Apes films from 1970 to 1972.

14.

Actor Orson Welles, whose vast credits, of course, include Citizen Kane, was considered for the role of villain Auric Goldfinger, but his salary demands were too high and producers passed him over. He would actually play the villain Le Chiffre in the 1967 007 spoof Casino Royale starring Peter Sellers.

15.

Austrian actor and folk singer Theodore Bikel screen tested for the role of Goldfinger and apparently came quite close to securing the part. His prior credits included The African Queen (1951), The Kidnappers (1953), The Enemy Below (1957) and My Fair Lady (1964).

16.

Ultimately chosen to play the title character was German actor Gert Frobe, who was certainly imposing as the villain, but gave the production the challenge that he could barely speak any English, his voice dubbed by British actor Michael Collins in the end.

17.

After the credits, the first part of the film is set in Miami and involves a number of characters — including Bond — but none of the actors were there except for Cec Linder, who was playing CIA agent, and 007's American buddy, Felix Leiter. Connery was elsewhere filming Marnie.

18.

It seems that quite a bit of the film takes place in America, but in reality only five days were spent shooting in Miami and a bit of time in Kentucky, but most of the rest of production took place in England, although there was some shooting in Switzerland.

19.

Goldfinger's right hand woman was Pussy Galore, portrayed by actress Honor Blackman, who at the time was well known for playing Cathy Gale on the British spy series The Avengers. As she told the media, "I wasn't really shaken by this character until I went on the promotion tour of the States with the picture and hardly any of the interviewers would call me by my character's name. They said, 'How do you feel about playing a character with this name? Don't you find it rather distasteful?' and all this. They really took it so seriously, you know? I set them up rotten, because they'd been given instructions from above that they mustn't say 'Pussy Galore.'"

20.

One of cinema's most iconic moments is when Sean Connery's James Bond awakens from being knocked out, walks into a hotel's bedroom and finds the lady he was with, Shirley Eaton's Jill Masterson, sprawled out on the bed, naked, dead and painted head to toe in gold paint. It's a truly stunning moment. "I only had two scenes with Sean Connery," said Eaton, "who was attractive and studious. It was only a week's worth, so I never imagined that the film and my role would have such a lifelong iconic" — there's that word — "existence."

21.

Goldfinger was the first movie that 10-year-old Pierce Brosnan — a future James Bond himself — had ever seen. "Which," he laughs, "for a young lad from Ireland, was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. There was this gold lady laid out in the bed, naked. So James Bond has been part of my cinematic heritage, as it were, as an actor."

22.

Playing Jill Masterson's sister, Tilly, is Tania Mallet, whose character meets her end after seeking revenge for Jill's death, but is instead killed by Odd Job. This was her only featured film role.

23.

While James Bond creator Ian Fleming was able to visit the set of Goldfinger, he passed away before the film's release. While he obviously witnessed some of Bond's enormous popularity, he couldn't imagine how big the character would become or that he'd still be around in 2024

24.

The villain's obsession with everything gold was even worse in the novel. While suntanning he preferred to wear gold-colored underwear, his library was filled with yellow-covered pornographic magazines, and when he engaged in sex, he preferred his partner be painted gold.

25.

Goldfinger's henchman was Odd Job, the man who throws a razor-rimmed derby with deadly accuracy and is a mountain of an adversary for Bond. He's played by the Hawaiian-born Harold Sakata, an American Olympic weight lifter and professional wrestler. As can be seen in the commercial above, he was able to get a lot of mileage out of his association with 007.

26.

Odd Job grunts in the film, but that's about it. We're never told why, although in the novel Ian Fleming provides an explanation: he has a cleft palette.

27.

Given that this was the third time that Sean Connery was playing 007, and the films were growing more popular, he was unhappy with his salary and during filming a dispute between he and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman broke out. When the actor was injured during a fight scene with Harold Sakata's Odd Job in the Fort Knox set, they managed to work things out: Connery would receive 5% of the gross of each of his Bond films (including Goldfinger), which would mean a total of four more movies.

28.

Bond's fight with Odd Job ends with the latter being electrocuted as he grabs his hat stuck between two metal bars at the exact moment 007 applies a severed electric wire to to them. The effects used actually burned Harold Sakata's hand, but he refused to let go of the hat until Guy Hamilton yelled, "Cut!"

29.

One of the mainstays of the Bond films was actor Desmond Llewelyn as Q, the man who supplies Bond with his gadgets and who was in most of the films upto  and including 1999's The World is Not Enough. In Goldfinger, director Guy Hamilton helped establish the oftentimes adversarial relationship between Bond and Q, telling Llewelyn, "You hate the bugger. Think about it. He comes down here, pays no attention to what you take, takes your props away, uses them in completely different ways than you intended, never returns them. I mean, the man's a menace as far as you're concerned, and the sooner 009 turns up, the happier you'll be."

30.

Another great scene in Goldfinger is when Goldfinger has Bond strapped to a table with a laser slowly inching its way towards 007's crotch, literally threatening to split him in half. The sequences gives us the wonderful bit of dialogue where Bond asks, "Do you expect me to talk?" to which Goldfinger responds, "No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die." And he comes pretty close to doing just that. In the novel, however, Fleming, clearly inspired by the old movie serial The Perils of Pauline, actually had a buzz saw threatening Bond's manhood.

31.

Although the above sequence looks very cool in the finished film, actually shooting it was anything but, including a pair of special effects guys, one beneath with a light and the other with a blowtorch to go over a spot in the sheet of metal that had been cut in half and welded back together. Connery was laying there and smoke was coming out of the spot and he was really beginning to sweat, because that flame was getting dangerously close to his crotch for real.

32.

Actress Margaret Nolan plays the film's first "Bond Girl" (people cringe when they hear that phrase now), Dink, who we see giving 007 a massage in Miami early in the film. Beyond that, she wore a gold bikini and was painted gold for the film's title sequences (you can see them on the entry for the Shirley Bassey title song) as well as the soundtrack cover and advertisements for the movie. This would all lead to her appearing in the November 1965 "James Bond Girls" edition of Playboy magazine. Additionally, Nolan had a bit part in the 1964 Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night.

33.

During production of From Russia with Love, the decision had been made for film number three to actually be On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but for a number of reasons, that was put on hold as there wasn't enough time to prepare for location in Switzerland to meet the September 1964 release date. Goldfinger was chosen instead, though OHMSS (as it's commonly known) did reach theaters in 1969 with George Lazenby as James Bond).

34.

The credit sequence for the film was considered innovative for its time. It was created by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn, who projected film clips from the first three Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger) on model Margaret Nolan's body. The way he explained it, the inspiration came from seeing movie images projected on people as they stood up and walked out of theaters.

35.

Burt Kwouk, who has a small role as Mr. Ling (who provides Goldfinger with the small atomic bomb with which he plans to irradiate the gold in Fort Knox) went on to appear in over 200 other films, including many entries of the Pink Panther films as the house servant of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau.

36.

Look closely at the gangsters Goldfinger is explaining Operation Grand Slam to, and you'll see among them is Garry Marshall, future producer of such classic TV shows as The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy.

37.

One of the key scenes in the film is James Bond engaging in a game of golf with the film’s villain, Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe). Connery had to learn the game for filming, but ended up genuinely falling in love with the sport, and it’s been a part of his life ever since. In an interview reported by PGA.com, he explained, “I began to see golf as a metaphor for living, for in golf you are basically on your own, competing against yourself and always trying to do better. If you cheat, you will be the loser, because you are cheating yourself.”

38.

Another integral part of the Bond formula that made its debut in Goldfinger was the pre-credit action sequence that had little or nothing to do with the main plot; just Bond wrapping up his last adventure before engaging in a new one.

39.

The gold motif is virtually everywhere in this film. Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus are all blondes, Goldfinger owns a yellow-plated Rolls Royce, he wears yellow or gold clothing every time we see him, when disguised as an American colonel, he waves around a gold pistol, he has Odd Job paint Jill Masterson in gold paint, allowing her to die from "skin suffocation" and the laser sequence has 007 tied to a slab of gold. All of these notions were conceived by production designer Ken Adam and art director Peter Murton.

40.

Although the film has a climactic sequence within Fort Knox, the production crew was only allowed to go up to the facility's fence and no further. What this meant is that production designer Ken Adam had to use his imagination to bring it to life on soundstages for the film.

41.

For the moments when Pussy Galore's Flying Circus flies over the troops guarding Fort Knox to knock them out, the government gave pilots permission to fly above 3,000 feet. Director Guy Hamilton claims that the military went "absolutely ape" when, instead, he instructed them to fly at only 500 feet.

42.

When the gas is unleashed, you'll see that various soldiers are collapsing from around the area. This was actually the same group of soldiers who were moved from place to place and shot falling to the ground.

43.

"Operation Grand Slam" is the name given to Goldfinger's plan involving the gold in Fort Knox. In Fleming's novel, his intent is to actually steal the gold there, but the screenwriters develop the more brilliant ideal of irradiating it, therefore making it untouchable and increasing the value of his own supply.

44.

The film introduced Bond's most famous car, the Aston Martin DB5, equipped with, among other things, machine guns, oil slick, bullet proof rear screen, revolving license plates and ejector seat (which comes in handy at a very convenient moment).

45.

mi6-hq.com offers this info: "Bond's Aston Martin DB5 was actually two cars, one of which wasn't really a DB5 at all. The gadgets were built into a DB4 Vantage which Aston Martin had used as the prototype for the DB5 model, which went into production in 1963. A production DB5 was also supplied, for close-ups. It's easy to tell the two cars apart — the "gadget" car has a chrome trim around the rear number plate, the close-up car doesn't, the close-up car has orange reflectors on the front wings but the gadget car doesn't."

46.

The Aston Martin DB5 would be seen again in the next 007 flick, 1965's Thunderball, GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2005), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). Additionally, future Bond Roger Moore would drive the car in 1981's The Cannonball Run.

47.

To help promote the film, a pair of Aston Martin DB5s were featured at the 1964 World's Fair and Corgi Toys even began manufacturing small toy versions of the vehicle as well.

48.

Over the years, celebrities who have owned their own Aston Martin DB5 include Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones and comedian Peter Sellers.

49.

The irony about all of this Aston Martin talk is the fact that the company did not want to give Eon Productions (the people behind the Bond films) a pair of the cars, meaning that Eon had to pay for them. Of course, given the success of Goldfinger and the ongoing 007 series as a whole, they never had to pay for a car – from any manufacturer — again.

50.

By today's standards this may not mean much, but at the time, the fact that Ms. Galore led Pussy Galore's Flying Circus — a group of female pilots who performed for the public, but also carried out missions for Goldfinger — represented female empowerment.

51.

Ian Fleming had given Pussy Galore a different occupation. Rather than having her Flying Circus, she served as the leader of the Cement Mixers, a female gang of burglars hired by Goldfinger to kill the Marines who were guarding Fort Knox, doing so by placing poison in their water supply.

52.

There was a big difference in the disposing of the villains between the film and the novel. In the former, Odd Job battles Bond in Fort Knox and ends up electrocuted, while Goldfinger fights him on a plane, fires a gun and, in the suddenly depressurizing cabin, finds himself sucked out a window and into the atmosphere. In the latter, Odd Job is the one who takes flight, while Bond strangles Goldfinger, in what was a ... shall we say, less sophisticated means of disposing of an opponent.

53.

Goldfinger won a 1965 Academy Award in the category of Best Sound Effects Editing for Norman Wanstall. This represented the first Oscar win for the series.

54.

John Barry, the film's composer, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture

55.

Production designer Ken Adam was nominated for the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) for Best British Art Direction (Colour).

56.

Goldfinger was singled out no less than four times by AFI (the American Film Institute), ranking it No. 71 for "Most Thrilling Film," No. 53 for "Best Song" ("Goldfinger"), No. 49 for "Best Villain" (Auric Goldfinger) and No. 90 for for "Best Movie Quote" ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred").

57.

The first Bond movie to air on network television was Goldfinger, which premiered on ABC on September 17, 1972, ranking number two for that week (behind an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D.).

58.

Sean Connery had only seen Goldfinger at its premiere, but many years later saw it again at the request of his granddaughter who wanted to share his favorite James Bond film with him.  What a softie Sir Sean could be ... sometimes.

59.

Goldfinger was released to theaters on December 22, 1964 and grossed over $125 million at the global box office, turning out to be the third most successful film of the year behind Disney's Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady.

60.

At the time of its release, it was the fastest grossing movie of all time and due to that fact even became a part of the Guinness Book of World Records.

The end of Goldfinger, but James Bond will return in Thunderball!

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