Goldfinger

• Cert:
• Cat.no: 16178 DVD
• Running time: 106 minutes
• Year: 1964
• Pressing: 2000
• Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
• Chapters: 32 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0 (Mono)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English (and hard of hearing)
• Widescreen: 1.77:1
• 16:9-enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: No
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Booklet, Documentaries: “The Making of Goldfinger” & “The Goldfinger Phenomenon”,Trailer, Publicity Featurette, 3 TV Spots, Radio Spots, Original RadioInterviews with Sean Connery, The Goldfinger Gallery, 2 Audio Commentaries:director Guy Hamilton and Cast & Crew
  

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  Director:

  Guy Hamilton

  (Battle of Britain, The Colditz Story, Diamonds Are Forever, Force 10 From Navarone, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Mirror Crack’d)

Producers:

Screenplay:

Music:

Cast:

James Bond: Sean Connery (The Anderson Tapes, The Avengers, Diamonds Are Forever, Dr. No, Dragonheart, Entrapment, First Knight, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Highlander 1 & 2, The Hunt For Red October,Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Just Cause, The Longest Day, The Man with the Deadly Lens, Marnie, Murder on the Orient Express, The Name of the Rose, The Presidio, Ransom, Rising Sun, The Rock, The Russia House, Thunderball,Time Bandits, The Untouchables, You Only Live Twice)
Pussy Galore: Honor Blackman (Goldfinger, A Night To Remember, To The Devil a Daughter, Voice of the Heart, TV: The Avengers, The Upper Hand)
Auric Goldfinger: Gert Fröbe (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Goldfinger)
Oddjob: Harold Sakata (Goldfinger)
M: Bernard Lee (The Battle of the River Plate, The Blue Lamp, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, The Man Upstairs, Moonraker, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,The Spy Who Loved Me, Thunderball, Whistle Down the Wind, You Only Live Twice)

Goldfingeris the villian who makes King Midas look like a Silverware expert andBond is briefed about the practice of buying gold bullion, melting it down soas to make it untraceable and then transporting it overseas to make a killingon the market.

The Bank of England are sure Goldfinger’s not on the level so they want Bondto investigate and arrest him, with the bank reclaiming the money – a total of£20million.

Apart from indulging in illegal monetary activities, the bad guy likes tokill people by covering them in gold paint, starting with his own girlfriend,Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), after Bond ‘intervenes’.

Of some of the film’s notable notables, this one marks the first appearancefor 007’s famed classic car, the Aston Martin DB5, complete with a millionand one accessories to triumph over the evil underworld. Also, the scorecontains the exact same memorable notes of Sneaker Pimps‘ “6Underground”, first heard when Bond finds Jill dead on the bed. I haven’tseen this film before so didn’t realise they’d ripped it off… I mean,paid homage to it.

Q makes his second of seventeen cameos in this Bond film and seems tallerthan in later films and is certainly made to look more official. CecLinder replaces Jack Lord as Felix Leiter, but was there any reason why?Finally, this is the one where Honor Blackman appears as Pussy Galore,but she’s not quite my cup of tea and they should’ve swapped her over withShirley Eaton.

Once again, the film was shot an intended for cinematic presentation at 1.66:1in Europe, while being matted to 1.85:1 for the USA. Here we have ananamorphic 16:9 version which just appears to crop a little of the top andbottom that would normally have been seen in European cinemas – but that’sfine since I would have zoomed in the picture to fill my widescreen TV.

The print is looks very good for it’s age, but like the first two filmsit isn’t perfect. The average bitrate is a fine 5.94Mb/s, often peaking justunder 8Mb/s.

The sound is mono again – the way it was created. Some dialogue occasionallyfeels like it’s been re-recorded inside a tank, but it’s usually okay.Again the Bond theme does its stuff and the soft lilting tones of the score,as per the above Sneaker Pimps mention, come across very clearly.

• Featurette: The Making of Goldfinger (25 mins): Split into six chapters,this does exactly what it says on the tin and features interviews with Desmond Llewelyn,Lois Maxwell, Guy Hamilton, Sean Connery, Honor Blackman and Shirley Eaton, whoseinterview was recorded in 1992 and boy, has she aged badly. Once again it’s narrated byPatrick Macnee and features clips from the film and production photos to pin-pointthe comments.

• Featurette: The Goldfinger Phenomenon (28 mins): Another behind-the-scenes’rwith more interview clips, film clips production photos and samples of the merchandisingsuch as cars and books.

• Trailer (3 mins) for the film.

• Publicity Featurette (3 mins) all in black and white. Not great quality,but fascinating nontheless.

• TV spot (3 mins) for the film.

• TV spot (20 seconds) combining Goldfinger and Dr. No

• TV spot (60 seconds) combining Goldfinger and Dr. No

• Radio spots (21 mins): a staggering 32 of them to play for your delectation.

• Original Radio Interviews with Sean Connery: (12 mins) Snippets of chat fromSean Connery which was supplied to radio stations so they could appear to have anexclusive interview with the man. Sneaky 🙂

• The Goldfinger Gallery: Scores of photos from several different pointsin the film

• 2 Audio Commentaries: one featuring director Guy Hamilton and theother featuring various members of the cast and crew.

Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, aren’t exactly first-ratein terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic qualityand all the interviews are clear and easy to hear. Menu :Once again, MGM have done us proud here, with everything draped in gold.The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene,choose a language or watch the extras.

This is third Bond film to feature Connery and another one I haven’t seenbefore.The film contains much more action than the first two and plenty of classicone-liners such as the time when Bond electrocutes a bad-guy in the bath witha heater and declares “Shocking”; and when Bond’s tied to a table with alaser coming between his legs he asks, “Do you expect me to talk?”, Goldfingerreplies, “No, Meester Bond, I expect you to die!”.

Again, we have plenty of extras and thus reasons to buy this disc.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


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