Gobsmacked by "Goldfinger"

My first James Bond was Pierce Brosnan, who assumed the role in 1995. I was around for the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton eras, but their films never really caught my attention - I thought of them as kitschy action films for my parents' generation. The Brosnan films, starting with "Goldeneye," and subsequent ones with Daniel Craig, were the only Bond films I was really familiar with for a very long time. Eventually I got curious about the older ones and watched "Dr. No" and "The Spy Who Loved Me," but wasn't invested enough in the series to seek out more. The rest of the classic Bond films remained on the list of movies that I was meaning to watch, but just never got around to. And then last night I watched "Goldfinger," the 1964 installment with the original Bond, Sean Connery, and was walloped with one of the most severe cases of cultural dissonance I've ever experienced.

There's always a curious sense of what I'll call nostalgia by proxy that happens when watching a much beloved, popular film for the first time. Even though I'd never seen "Goldfinger," I had seen clips of its most famous moments and knew many of the characters already. There was the villain, Auric Goldfinger, famous for saying "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die," his sinister Korean manservant Oddjob, the girl who was murdered by a coating of gold paint, and of course the immortal Pussy Galore. I recognized scenes like Bond facing imminent death by laser beam - a new invention in 1964, Pussy's introduction, and Oddjob decapitating a statue with his deadly bowler hat. There have been so many references to and parodies of "Goldfinger" over the years, it was impossible to go into the film with a clean slate or to engage with the material the way an unwary audience member in 1964 would have. This sort of thing doesn't always adversely affect a film for me, but in this case, it was distracting in the worst way.

And when I wasn't busy mentally disentangling famous scenes and characters from their "Austin Powers" counterparts, I was getting tripped up by the rampant instances of sexism and orientalism. Generally I don't find it difficult to make allowances for older films in this department, because I get that cultural standards and sensitivities change over time. However, with "Goldfinger" it was just one thing after another. Bond goes through women like Kleenex, at least two are killed off in fairly grisly fashion for shock value, and the bulk of the minor villains and henchmen in league with Goldfinger are nameless Asian cannon fodder. The 60s Bond was a hero of the "Mad Men" era, a fantasy masculine ideal that looks woefully out of date from the other side of the generational divide. I keep thinking of Judi Dench as M in "Goldeneye" dismissing Bond as "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War." I like Sean Connery's portrayal in spite of this, but it takes a lot of effort to push past all the baggage, ultimately too much for me to really enjoy the film.

There were plenty of things that I appreciated about "Goldfinger" though. The title sequence with the Shirley Bassey theme song is still spectacular. Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore is easily the most interesting Bond girl I've encountered next to Vesper Lynd of "Casino Royale," and she complements Connery's Bond beautifully. Speaking of Connery, his performance here was a good improvement over "Dr. No," a Bond film that has aged far less gracefully than this one. All the wry humor and double entendres were a lot of fun, as well as the early encounters between Goldfinger and Bond at the hotel and golf course. Then the film moved on to the silliness of laser beams and Fort Knox, and it lost me. There have simply been too many parodies of the more over-the-top elements of the Bond franchise for me to take them at face value. It's no wonder that the series increasingly took a turn for the comedic by the time Roger Moore came to the role.

I'm still curious to see some of the other Connery Bond films, like "From Russia With Love" and "Thunderball." Since I'm not as familiar with their particulars as I was with "Goldfinger," maybe I'll be able to enjoy them more. "You Only Live Twice," however, is going to the back of the line. In addition to a plot that takes Bond to Japan and briefly arranges a sham marriage to a local exotic beauty, this is also the first installment with Blofeld, the villain who I'm afraid I already associate too closely with his parodies - Dr. Claw from "Inspector" Gadget," and Dr. Evil form "Austin Powers." The Bond film I most anticipate seeing, however, doesn't exist yet. Now that MGM may finally be emerging from limbo, hopefully they can move ahead with the third Daniel Craig Bond film and get the series back on track.

Connery was a great James Bond. But he'll never be my Bond.