Goldfinger/Headscratchers

• Goldfinger explains his whole heist scheme to his gangster suppliers under the pretense of paying those who still want in 10 times the agreed amount. One of the gangsters refuses to participate and leaves with his one million. Of course he's then killed off. But then it turns out Goldfinger kills off the rest of the gangsters anyway, which makes the whole car-crushing business wholly unnecessary, not to mention the 10-million offer and the entire exposition scene. Especially when it's later revealed that holding up Fort Knox was never even the plan to begin with, which means that Goldfinger had an entire elaborate exposition room built and disguised as a pool hall so he could sell his fake plans to people he was never going to pay only to immediately kill all of them. The closest thing to making sense this could possibly be would be that he originally did plan for things to go as he explains and then had the room built, only to change his mind later and figuring hey, the room's built anyway, might as well give it a spin just for giggles.
  • Roger Ebert drew the same conclusion in his review.
  • One possible explanation is that Goldfinger is just vain enough to rub his criminal genius faces in his rivals' faces before he kills them.
  • His speech to the gangsters is an excuse to get them all together, let them drop their guards with promises of riches, and then kill them all to tie up loose ends that could be traced back to him. Chances are he was probably planning on killing Pussy and her pilots after they outlived their usefulness for the same reason.
  • There's always the possibility that Goldfinger actually was NOT planning on killing the gangsters until one of them gangster refused to wait. After that, they all became expendable. Since his plan -if it succeeded- would've left him with riches beyond anybody's imagination, pay wasn't really an issue: he could've easily paid what he said he was going to.
• Movie Bond rattles off a list of statistics to Goldfinger regarding how moving the gold from Fort Knox would be logistically impossible. This is actually fan criticism of Fleming's original, where that was exactly what Goldfinger was trying to do.
• Why do the soldiers fall down? Couldn't they just attack Goldfinger as he approaches, rather than allowing him to bring a nuclear device into Fort Knox?
  • Explained in the movie. Goldfinger specifically told Bond that, if his plan was thwarted, he would take his bomb and set it off in a major city. They had to trap both Goldfinger and the bomb with no hope of escape.
• There's a scene where Bond attaches a magnetic tracking device to Goldfinger's car. Later, it's shown that the car body is made out of gold. But gold isn't magnetic.
  • Well, gold is soft. The car must have steel to strengthen it, otherwise the whole body would start to bend hither and thither.
• After Oddjob kills the gangster, why doesn't he take the gold out of the trunk of the car before crushing it? Wouldn't that be easier than extracting it later?
  • Plot-wise, the tracker had to be disabled before Felix spotted Oddjob. Also, Oddjob had to dispose of the body and bring the gold, which the movie shows is very heavy, back to Goldfinger. Two birds with one stone I suppose.
• This has long bugged me. Goldfinger's plan is to irradiate the US's gold supply, thereby affecting its value and destabilizing our economy. This would require the U.S. Government to acknowledge that their gold had been contaminated. But the gold in Fort Knox is never handled or even seen by outside entities. Wouldn't this effect be neutralized by the Army and the Treasury Department denying this or covering it up?
  • It is * RARELY* handled, but it is occasionally handled. The ruse would only work until some creditor comes knocking demanding bullion or the Treasury decides to release gold to the public but there is no gold to release.
  • How was it supposed to work, anyway? Gold repels radiation.
    • By coating it in radioactive fallout from the nuclear explosion, or blowing it to smithereens. There's also the part where any attempted cover-up would face the problem of explaining why a tactical nuke went off on the grounds of Fort Knox.
  • The real problem with the plan is that it effectively accomplishes nothing for Goldfinger. So his gold is worth 10x as much. That's just due to inflation. Everything would cost 10x as much. Not only that, but ruining the U.S. economy would severely damage most of Europe as well (acknowledged in the film). That means Goldfinger's other businesses would probably be harmed as well.
    • Oddly, the plan might have worked better if it would have caused slightly less catastrophic damage to the economy - gold tends to increase in cost somewhat faster than the average level of the economy (that was, as it happened, one reason why the Bretton Woods system became harder and harder to maintain as its end approached - the US gold reserve was being steadily drained to keep the price of gold in terms of dollars steady, as the 'natural' price kept rising and more and more gold had to be sold to keep the supply/demand ratio steady), so if his plan had somehow 'just' broken Bretton Woods and removed the gold in Fort Knox from the equation (thus bringing the potential supply down), the price of gold might very well have gone up relative to the rest of economy. Of course, his plan *wouldn't* just have done that, it'd have caused a global severe economic crisis... which would heavily depress demand for non-essentials, like gold.
  • Nobody ever said that Goldfinger's plan would have actually worked; he IS stated by Bond to be completely mad, after all.
• If Pussy Galore was really bisexual (and not a lesbian as the book stated and the movie implied) why didn't they have at least one scene where she is shown being attracted to Bond prior to him "turning her.?" As it was, it looks like Bond raped her and THEN she "turned straight." I know that 60's weren't about subtlety...but come on...
  • And this is really what keeps me from considering Goldfinger one of the best Bond movies. Bond saves Fort Knox by sexually assaulting Pussy Galore into submission.
• Why exactly did Bond interfere with Goldfinger's game at the start of the movie? It got him nothing, alerted Goldfinger to his existence and (indirectly) led to the deaths of two women.
  • Bond doesn't like cheaters. Plus he (and, seemingly, Jill) seriously underestimated just how much of a sore loser Goldfinger was. He probably knew he'd be pissed but he didn't know he'd be that pissed.
    • In the novel version Bond has an additional reason for taking the job of proving that Mr. DuPont's regular opponent is cheating him at cards; Mr. DuPont is paying him to. Bond was essentially moonlighting as a private investigator that day, because his flight had been delayed for 24 hours and he was bored and ran into someone he'd played cards with before and why not, its an easy $10,000.
• How exactly is somebody supposed to suffocate through their skin, I have heard that this was an urban legend but just about anybody who has done something like diving can tell you that is bs unless you are a frog. True you might overheat but that would take a much longer time.
  • It's fictional. It's not an actual medical effect.
• Why is this considered one of the best bond movies, in my opinion it is one of the weaker entries. The villains plot makes no common sense the gold is already of the market so irradiating it will not really affect the price. Bond sleeps with villainesses who turn on their master without reason (in all other movies I have seen bad women he slept with and turned wear either unaware of or were unwilling participants in the big bads schemes) . The science of this world douses not fallow any laws of physics or biology that I have seen in any place even other bond films. And that is just scratching the surface and not getting into things like the possible rape of a lesbian. I am not complaining about this film or trolling I just want to know what other people see in it that I can not which will hopefully clear things up for me
  • FWIW, he doesn't rape her. He's not exactly a paragon of virtue, but she's clearly consenting just a few seconds into the kiss and there is nothing whatsoever to supporting that anything after that was forced on her.
    • And if she had objected, Bond would have known it and so would the audience. Pussy is neither unathletic, unskilled in combat, or easily intimidated -- while Bond could still have won their fight it would clearly have been a fight, not a Slap Slap Kiss.
  • It’s entirely true that James Bond muddle’s through the entire movie and barely influences the outcome. Auric Goldfinger is always one step ahead of our hapless hero – and that’s what makes it awesome. Goldfinger’s plan isn’t particularly less common sense than most Bond Villain plots. . .