Behind the Scenes with 'Goldfinger'

TWINE Entertainment has done an absolute wonderful job in putting together this documentary! It is one of the best documentaries both educational and entertaining. It took me on a journey behind the scenes of my favorite 007 film, and I say good job Lee Pfeiffer and John Cork!

I totally agree with the first statement made in by narrator Patrick Macnee in this behind-the- scenes feature" that is part of the special-edition "Goldfinger" DVD. Macnee stated, "For many Bond fans and film historians, Goldfinger is the 007 movie that had it all - a high- octane cocktail of action, lust, greed and one of the world's greatest villains."

We get some history about how writer Ian Fleming got the idea for his seventh Bond book in 1959. Goldfinger was the third James Bond movie and had a budget of $3 million, which wouldn't get you even started today, of course.

Other memorable comments, of many, in this feature:

It was noted this was the first of the Bond films in which the pre-opening credits action sequence had nothing to do with the story. That turned out to be something they continued to do, just making outrageous opening scenes that were not connected in any way with the actual story..... but sure were attention-grabbers!

Regarding that opening scene, they had hired a guy who was a cat burglar to play someone who was going to try to kill Bond. However, the guy got arrested the day before the shoot and they had to quickly hire someone else! The man they got, stuntman Alf Joint, got second-degree leg burns on the shot where Bond electrocutes him after the villain gets thrown in the bathtub.

One of the best moves they filmmakers made was choosing the Aston-Martin as Bond's famous car, which became almost a legend thanks to this movie. All of the gadgets on the car seen in the movie were not implemented. The car wouldn't have been able to hold them all, plus special-effects back in the early '60s wasn't advanced enough to show what they could do today. Thus, many of the action scenes with the Aston-Martin were big challenges to pull off and make look realistic. A good five minutes in this "documentary" is devoted to this car and it's all interesting.

They show a screen test by Theodore Bickel for the role of Auric Goldfinger. As fine and actor as he was, Bickel doesn't come across anywhere near as effective as German Gert Frobe did and, of course, the latter got the part. One problem, though: Frobe couldn't speak English! He still got the part. They just dubbed in his voice. A man named Michael Collins voiced Frobe's words for the movie. Amazing.

Honor Blackman, who played the famous "Pussy Galore," got the job because she was "hot property at the time and I knew judo, which the part required." She mentions that Connery "was the sexiest, most virile man I've ever met."

Everyone remembers Goldfinger's bodyguard, "Oddjob," too. Well, Harold Sakata, who played him, was a pro wrestler from Hawaii and a silver medalist in the Olympics. Connery said a karate chop Sakata gave him still hurts him once in awhile today! Sakata, too, was injured in this film, burned on his final scene with he was electrocuted on metal jail-like bars in Fort Knox.

Another memorable person, although only in the film for less than five minutes, was Shirley Eaton as "Jill Masterson" who wound up being painted gold all over her body. To avoid suffocation, a doctor was on the set and they shot the scene as quickly as possible.

There are all kinds of interesting comments about this film, such as the difficulties they had with the "laser shot" in Goldfinger''s "Rumpus Room" where Bond was about to be laser-ed in half; Desmond Llewelyn who played "Q," talks about some of the gadgets, etc.

Connery and Eaton's comments, by the way, came from archival footage. They weren't done recently as the others were, but they fit in seamlessly here.

This was the film that made James Bond movies famous. Sadly, Fleming died a month before this movie was released and never saw how famous his character became.

This is one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes features I've watched so far.