Auric Goldfinger
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Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character in the James Bond film and novel Goldfinger. His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning of gold. Ian Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger who had built his home in Hampstead next door to Fleming's; Fleming disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. In 2003, the American Film Institute declared Auric Goldfinger the 49th greatest villain in the past 100 years of film.
Auric Goldfinger was played by Gert Fröbe. Goldfinger was banned in Israel after it was revealed that Fröbe had been a member of the Nazi party during the Second World War. The ban, however, was lifted many years later when a Jewish family publicly thanked Fröbe for protecting them from persecution during World War II.
Gert Fröbe, who did not speak English well, was dubbed in the film by Michael Collins, an English actor. However, Fröbe is speaking (presumably heavily-accented) English in all his scenes, so this dubbing is not noticeable. [Exception: some of the long-distance A.G. Swiss factory scene where Goldfinger explains smuggling to Ling, in which the actor's mouth isn't moving].
Of his role as Goldfinger, Fröbe later remarked: "I am a big man, and I have a laugh to match my size. The ridiculous thing is that since I played Goldfinger in the James Bond film there are some people who still insist on seeing me as a cold, ruthless villain - a man without laughs."
Novel biography
In the novel, Auric Goldfinger is a 42 year-old expatriate who emigrated at age 20 in 1937 from Riga, Latvia. He is 5 foot-tall, has blue-eyes, red hair, and has a passion for his tan.Now a UK commonwealth citizen naturalised to Nassau, he has become the richest man in England, though his wealth is not in English banks and he hasn't paid taxes on it. Rather, it is spread as bullion in many countries. Goldfinger is the treasurer of SMERSH, Bond's nemesis.
Goldfinger is obsessed with gold, going so far as to have yellow-bound erotic photographs, and have his women painted head to toe in gold so that he can make love to gold. (He leaves an area near the spine unpainted, but painting this area also is what kills Jill Masterton, as in the film). He is also a jeweller, a metallurgist, and a smuggler.
When Goldfinger first meets Bond in Miami, he claims that he is agoraphobic; a ploy to allow him to cheat a previous acquaintance of Bond's at a game of two-handed Canasta. Bond figures out how Goldfinger is managing this, and blackmails him by forcing him to admit his deception. Goldfinger is also an avid golfer, but is known at his club for being a smooth cheater there, also. When Bond contrives to play a match with Goldfinger, he again cheats the cheater by switching Goldfinger's Dunlop One with a Dunlop Seven he had found while playing.
Goldfinger is the owner of "Enterprises Auric A.G." in Switzerland, maker of metal furniture, which is purchased by many airlines including Air India. Twice a year, Goldfinger drives his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost car from England to Enterprises Auric. Bond learns that Goldfinger makes dead drops of gold bars for SMERSH along the way, and that his car's bodywork is 18 carat (75%), solid white gold under the ploy that the added weight is armour plating. Once at Enterprises Auric, his car is stripped down, melted and made into seating for an airline company that Enterprises Auric is heavily invested in. The plane(s) are then flown to India where the seats are melted down again into gold bars and sold for a much higher premium rate; 100 to 200% profit.
Operation Grand Slam
Operation Grand Slam is Goldfinger's codename for his scheme that involves "knocking off" the U.S. bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Through the use of a nerve agent (GB, also known as sarin), Goldfinger plans to poison the water supply at Fort Knox, thus rendering everyone on the base (60,000) dead. From there, Goldfinger would use an atomic warhead designed for a Corporal Intermediate Range Guided Missile that he had purchased for one million USD in Germany, to blow open Fort Knox's impregnable vault. With the help of American gangsters, Goldfinger would then remove roughly 15 billion dollars in gold bullion by truck and train, and escape to the Soviet Union on a cargo boat.After publication of the novel the details of Operation Grand Slam were criticised, noting it would have taken hours if not days to remove 15 billion dollars from Fort Knox without a reprisal from the U.S. Army. Also the issue of getting every soldier on the base to drink the poisoned water without an alarm were raised. A final problem that was the "clean" atomic bomb, tactical or not, in all likelihood would not have only annihilated the door vault, but would also have taken all the gold behind with it (careful placement would be needed). Consequently, the film uses a different plan where the bomb is dirty, and the destruction/contamination of the gold is the objective, and at one point even going so far as to point out a couple of these flaws from the novel in a confrontation between Goldfinger and Bond.
James Bond foils Goldfinger's plan by getting word to Felix Leiter of the impending operation, by means of a message taped inside an airliner toilet. With the help of The Pentagon Leiter is able to stop Goldfinger, and foil the operation. But Goldfinger escapes.
Later, Goldfinger and his henchman learn from SMERSH who Bond is, and determine to take him with them in defecting to the Soviet Union. They pose as doctors to incapacitate crew and passengers (including Bond) with drugged inocculations. Then they hijack the BOAC Stratocruiser, carrying Goldfinger's total savings of gold. In the novel, Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob meets his end by being sucked through an airliner window after Bond pierces it with a knife. The hijacked plane is headed for Soviet Union airspace. Goldfinger is then strangled by James Bond in a fight for Goldfinger's pistol. The airplane is then forced to ditch in the ocean and Bond and Pussy Galore are the only survivors.
Henchmen
Associates
In addition to Henchmen, Goldfinger enlisted the help of several American gangsters:- Helmut M. Springer — The Purple Gange (Detroit)
- Mr. Springer backed out of the deal and did not participate in Goldfinger's Operation Grand Slam. Moments later, Mr. Springer had an "accident", falling down the staircase as he was leaving. In fact, he was killed by Oddjob.
Goldfingerisms from the novel
- Money is an effective winding sheet.
- The safest way to double your money is to fold it twice and put it in your pocket.
- Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action. (Attributed as a saying in Chicago).
- I have had many enemies in my time. I am very successful and immensely rich, and riches, if I may inflict another of my aphorisms upon you, may not make you friends but they greatly increase the class and variety of your enemies.
Novel trivia
- Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of the novel is particularly appropriate for a personal armoured car with white-gold armour, as some of this model was converted to the Rolls-Royce Armoured Car during W.W. I, and after it.
- In the novel, Bond snoops in Goldfinger's house and find himself being filmed. He exposes the film and frames Goldfinger's ginger cat for the deed (even Goldfinger's pets are yellow). Goldfinger returns and punishes Bond by openly giving Oddjob the cat to eat for dinner (commenting later that "curiosity killed the cat.") Oddjob demonstates his lethal metal rimmed Bowler hat for Bond on a piece of wood, while holding the hapless cat under the other arm.
- The airplane which undergoes explosive decompression in the novel is a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser with a service ceiling of 32,000 ft.
- Bond finds four different cures for constipation in Goldfinger's bathroom and concludes his villain is chronically constipated. This may be a reference to his being anal-retentive.
- A metal-cutting buzzsaw replaces the laser in the famous scene in the novel. Bond is also put to torture at the same time, as Oddjob works his pressure points. Notable dialog:
- Bond: (politely) "Then you can go and --- yourself."
- Goldfinger: "Even I am not capable of that, Mr. Bond."
Film biography
Arguably the most famous James Bond villain in any film, Goldfinger's obsession was gold. In fact, Goldfinger was a gold smuggler accomplishing this feat by having a workable car built out of gold and transporting it via airplane. Once the car arrived at its destination, Goldfinger would have it melted down. Goldfinger is also an avid golfer who plays with a Slazenger 1 golf ball. He is defeated by Bond, however, when he is tricked by Bond after attempting to cheat.Auric Goldfinger owned many properties throughout the world including "Auric Enterprises, AG", which was the headquarters for most of his smuggling operations. Located in Switzerland, it is where Bond nearly gets cut in half by an industrial laser when Goldfinger has him strapped to a table. "Choose your next witicism carefully, Mr. Bond; it may be your last."
- Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
- Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
Goldfinger was killed when he was blown out of a depressurising airplane, midflight, while attempting to assassinate Bond.
Scheme
Goldfinger's scheme, codenamed "Operation Grand Slam", involved breaking into the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, penetrating the main storage building with the high power laser and detonating a nuclear weapon thus contaminating the United States gold reserve and thereby dramatically increasing the value of his gold holdings.Henchmen
- Oddjob
- Pussy Galore and Pussy Galore's Flying Circus
Trivia
- In the film Goldfinger's automobile has the license plate "AU 1". Au is the chemical symbol for the element gold.
- The voice of Goldfinger was dubbed because of Gert Fröbe's inability to speak understandable English. However, the film retains the description of Goldfinger: "He's a Brit, but doesn't sound like it." In the dubbed film this is no longer true.
- Fleming's architect neighbor Ernő Goldfinger was not pleased to find the character sharing his name and contacted his lawyers; he eventually settled for, among other things, the promise that the character's first name Auric would always be used.
- Parodied in name by the Austin Powers villain "Goldmember" whose trademark was to paint his enemies' genitalia gold, for he himself lost his genitalia in an "unfortunate smelting incident";
- In the films, Goldfinger is the first major Bond villain without ties to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (and the only one until Live and Let Die).
- Goldfinger and Oddjob are referenced in the story that appears in the back of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book.
Goldfinger's golden motifs
- In the novel Goldfinger has a yellow-jacketed pornographic book and gold-painted prostitutes, a yellow-painted car, a blonde secretary, and ginger-colored cat (which is eaten by Oddjob). He employs Korean servants who are repeatedly referred to as "yellow-faced." The film keeps the color of auto and secretary’s hair, but not the other insensitive material. In compensation, the film adds many similar motifs by making Goldfinger's female henchmen (henchwomen?) in the film (save his stewardess) red-blonde or blonde, including Pussy and all of her crew (both Tilly and Pussy have black hair in the novel). Goldfinger also sports yellow or golden items of clothing in every film scene, including a golden pistol when disguised as a Major General. Goldfinger's factory henchmen in the film wear yellow sashes, Pussy wears a gold vest, and Pussy's crew wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms. A bit of Goldfinger's homage to gold ("I love its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness.") is one of few dialogue lines from the novel to be kept relatively intact in the film.
- In the novel, Goldfinger may even eat and drink gold. At his house, Goldfinger and Bond dine on cheese soufflé, and curry (which in pre-1970 Britain referred to a dish colored yellow with turmeric; see British section in curry), and they drink Piesporter Goldtröpfchen wine (named for town and vineyard, but like all white wines, gold in color).
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
Auric Goldfinger was brought back to life in the 2004 Electronic Arts video game . In the game Goldfinger recruits the player character, a former secret agent ousted by MI6. Goldfinger is also an ally of Francisco Scaramanga, the villain of The Man with the Golden Gun. In this game, Goldfinger's scientists develop what is considered to be the deadliest weapon known to mankind: the O.M.E.N. (Organic Mass Energy Neutralizer), and plans to use it against Dr. No's forces. He's also allied with the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. organization.He is eventually killed when Goldeneye and Scaramanga understand his betrayal and use the O.M.E.N against him.
See also
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