4 out of 5

Director: Guy Hamilton
Goldfinger is probably the best balance between campy Bond flick with gadgets, girls and colors, and the thrills and (semi) believable villains of the more grounded ones.  The titular villain – played by Gert Fröbe – while dubbed to cover his poor English – is one of the greats, the actor making him a believably greedy and smarmy presence, carrying his heft from big set to big set with a commanding lumber.  He makes for that great mold of friendly and yet evil villain that some of the other Bond flicks just can’t seem to pitch properly, opting for either more friendly or more aggressive.  Director Hamilton introduces more ejector-seat buttons and tiny radio transmitters than we’d seen in the series at this point, but it’s delivered with an awareness of the silly necessity of it in this heightened version of the spy world, Connery and his compatriots giving each other knowing laughs when spraying oil slicks from the back of the car.  Guy also peels back some of Terrence Young’s over-slickness to Sean’s portrayal of Bond (which I prefer) – we actually see the actor getting involved in fisticuffs at several points and, though quick with a quip and quick to bed the ladies, his decisions seem more logical in the context of the film than just trying to fill the role of the baddest-arsed 00 around.  Everything about it stands right on that cusp, henchman Oddjob interesting and funky but still threatening, bells and whistles on bombs but we still believe it will blow up, ridiculously complicated plans that make a skewed form of sense… the only thing it really lacks, beyond an excellently massive final sequence and set, is more action.  There’s a laidback feel to events as they get rolling, almost as though our filmmakers were testing the waters for how far they should push the insanity of the series.  Still, it’s certainly fun and exciting enough to keep us watching for two hours, and there are so many tidbits that a billion other films would nab and abuse that start to pop up here.