Goldfinger

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Bond	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 3 (TV trailers)
Year Released	1964	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 2 #1: Guy Hamilton (Director) #2: Cast & Crew
Running Time	105:29 minutes	Other Extras	Menu Audio & Animation Featurette - The Making Of Goldfinger Featurette - The Goldfinger Phenomenon Featurette - Original Publicity Featurette Radio Ads (34) Radio Interview with Sean Connery The Goldfinger Gallery (Production Notes, Gallery, Posters) 8-Page collectors booklet
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (41:38)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region	2,4	Director	Guy Hamilton
Studio Distributor	Fox Home Entertainment	Starring	Sean Connery Gert Fröbe Honor Blackman Shirley Eaton Desmond Llewelyn
RPI	$34.95	Music	John Barry

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	2.0 mono
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary #1 (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary #2 (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.66:1 (Europe) 1.85:1 (USA)	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English For The Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles	English English For The Hearing Impaired	Action In or After Credits	No

Plot Synopsis

Those who have been reading my reviews of Bond DVDs will be aware of my gradual enlightenment regarding Bond, and will be aware that I am now somewhat of a fan. It is with some vigour, then, that I put Goldfinger through its paces, both as a singular Bond film, and as a highlight in the franchise. Certainly, it is the best I have seen yet, including the three most recent ones, with The World Is Not Enough leaving me quite disappointed. The charm of the old films is just not there. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, and on with the review.

This movie has the lot as far as Bond films are concerned, beginning with the now-standard pre-credit action piece in the form of some devilishly smooth sabotage from agent 007. In a scene which immediately made me chuckle as I remembered the much more recent True Lies, Sean Connery swims to shore in a wetsuit, complete with rubber duck on top, sneaks around an evil installation planting a bomb, does over a few henchmen, and then unzips to reveal a non-crinkled white tailored suit. He then makes his way, unnoticed, to a crowded bar, casually glances at his wristwatch as he checks the time, and smirks as the said installation blows up, right on time. Then, we go straight to Shirley Bassey's wonderfully overstated rendition of the Goldfinger theme song, one which has always been a favourite of mine, and the start of the "opening credits" phenomenon, with each movie trying to better the last, each being more imaginative than the last.

As for evil villains, we have a madman called "Goldfinger", who has a penchant for gold and is intent on exploding a nuclear device inside Fort Knox, rendering a great deal of the world's gold radioactive, and increasing the worth of Goldfinger's substantial gold stash many-fold. Stories any sillier just don't come along like this anymore, yet in the Bond setting, the more ridiculous, the better. Truly, truly mad, Goldfinger even gives Bond a near-death experience in the form of a laser slowly making its way up a table, with Bond strapped to it with his legs spread apart, "Johnson-first" so to speak. Naturally, it all ends moments before grief, but we come to know the real horror of modern torture devices, as well as special effects of that time. Let's not forget "Odd Job", the well-dressed ex-wrestler who's skill lies in his ability to decapitate someone with the fling of his bowler hat. A wonderful scene has him knock Bond unconscious on the back of the neck, and as he exits, pausing at the door to leave a shadow of himself on the wall, complete with bowler hat. I think I have now seen all the evil masterminds and henchman necessary to make a good Austin Powers film, and there is certainly no shortage of material for more sequels!

Sean Connery is here in his element, lending the gentleman agent character James Bond complete believability. Throw in some lovely ladies, including the wonderfully named "Pussy Galore" (Honor Blackman), a shiny new Astin Martin complete with passenger ejector-seat, and an evil villain unable to speak a word of English (his entire dialogue was dubbed), mix it all up with a proven formula and the result is a thoroughly entertaining whilst at the same time ridiculous movie.

Transfer Quality

Video

This is another excellent transfer for such an old film, and while still not without its age-related problems, this is still a very satisfying film-like image.

An early scene involving a long shot of the resort which Goldfinger and Bond are staying at which slowly creeps in for a close-up (and which in itself is a brilliantly executed shot by cinematographer Ted Moore) reveals an extraordinary amount of detail, so much so that I watched it a number of times just for the sheer sake of it, irrespective of the movie's vintage. There is much to be impressed about in this transfer, and only a handful of times did the transfer falter. Shadow detail was excellent. The opening scene, for instance, takes place in almost complete darkness, yet everything is still completely visible. There was a minor amount of film grain present, and only very minor edge enhancement. A number of shots, especially long shots, exhibited low-level noise, but on the whole the transfer was quite clean.

Colours were somewhat variable in saturation, with skin tones suffering the most for it. The colour palette is identical to that of both Dr. No and From Russia With Love, being the video's main distinguishing characteristic. You only have to glance at it to know that this is a sixties movie. Whether this is a good thing or not is up to the viewer, but this is not the fault of the transfer itself, which I believe to be faithful to the original negative.

There were no significant MPEG artefacts, save for some minor blocking in straight runs of colour, which was barely noticeable. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some extremely trivial aliasing on some suits and the front grille of the Astin Martin. Film artefacts were somewhat rampant throughout the film, although subdued in size. There were times when the image was as clean as a whistle, and others which suffered relatively badly. On the whole, though, film artefacts were non-intrusive, and just made the image look that more film-like. See, there is always a good side to everything.

The disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change occurring between chapters 16 and 17, at 41:38 minutes. The change occurs during a night scene, and is of minimal intrusion.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

There is one English film soundtrack on this disc along with two English commentary tracks, all of which are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono at 192 Kilobits per second.

Dialogue was slightly better integrated into the mix than in previous films, with obviously less looping used. The scenes involving German actor Gert Fröbe (Auric Goldfinger) are fairly obviously re-recorded by another actor (Michael Collins), which is never ideal, but is done quite well. Lip-synching was quite good throughout, although vocal looping did introduce some oddities now and then. Whilst not coming anywhere near contemporary dialogue tracks quality-wise, it was nevertheless clear and easily understood.

There is a small audio glitch, occuring at 62:50 during Chapter 24. It consists of a digital "pop", and sounds like a manufacturing problem.

Another area which has seen improvement from earlier Bond films is the quality of the music both in terms of style and fidelity. This soundtrack is more sophisticated, tending to deviate much more from the standard "let's play the Bond theme during any action scene" mentality of the earlier films to a more unique Goldfinger style. Certainly the opening theme music is quite stunning, being quite memorable, stylish and also lending itself to reuse during the film with good effect. Fidelity has also improved, with a fuller and richer sound, though some foley effects were a tad harsh at times.

The packaging claims a Dolby Surround soundtrack. Unfortunately, this is not the case, with it being most definitely monaural, though two-channel encoded.

The subwoofer was used quite a bit, especially during on-screen explosions, and during the opening title music. It is in this regard that the soundtrack impressed me, as much-needed weight is added to the low frequencies, which tends to temper any harshness elsewhere in the soundtrack.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

I am thrilled to find as much special edition material on this disc as that found on Dr. No and From Russia With Love, presented with the same amount of care. This is a shining example of how Special Edition discs can be presented. One minor criticism that I have is that the menu shots on the back cover are not the same as on the disc itself, although they are similar. I suspect that they are shots from the R1 disc. Also, the packaging states Dolby Surround audio which is in fact mono. With the rest of the package being so great, these errors should have been corrected before release.

Menu (16x9 enhanced)

With a definite gold motif playing throughout the fully animated menu structure, this is a joy to navigate. Like the others before, you are forced to press the "activate" button to enter the menu, whereupon the golden girl herself flies across the screen, revealing the now-standard main menu with snippets of the film playing to audio accompaniment. Great stuff, and one that sets the scene for all that is a Bond experience.

Featurette - The Making Of Goldfinger (25:00)

Stuffed to the brim with interesting insights, this feature (which was made in 1995) reveals that Goldfinger had a whopping $3 million budget, which was big bikkies then to say the least. Whilst narrated by Patrick Macnee, who so far has done all of the first three Bond featurettes presented on DVD, the predominant speaker is none other than the director Guy Hamilton, who seems very relaxed and quite pleased to be able to recount stories from the production. You also get to see all the modifications done to the now famous Astin Martin DP2161, which was in fact a prototype of the DP5 and was something of a sensation in its time, and still looks very sexy today. The featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, non 16x9 enhanced, and in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

Featurette - The Goldfinger Phenomenon (28:00)

This is presented in 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. This is essentially part 2 of a longer documentary, of which the previous featurette is part 1. The difference is in a slight shift in focus, and the inclusion of a lot of extras found elsewhere, such as trailers and radio spots. There is also a little gem to be found inside, which is an old 1964 television ad for Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup, featuring the stocky Odd Job smashing his neighbourhood to bits as he walks home with a bad cough, to be greeted by his wife at the door with a bottle of Vicks. Absolutely hilarious, this would not look out of place amongst today's ads. It also notes that Goldfinger holds the record for the fastest grossing film of all time, something which I haven't verified. It earned back its $3 million production cost in under two weeks, and true to its name was the first Bond goldmine, quite literally.

Featurette - Original Publicity Featurette (3:05) B&W

Present in 1.33:1 and not 16x9 enhanced, this is the same as is shown in The Goldfinger Phenomenon featurette. It is of very poor quality, with film artefacts of all kind running rife throughout.

Trailers

All trailers are in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

Theatrical Trailers

Original Theatrical (3:00) - 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced. As with other trailers of this era, the entire movie is just about played out in snippets, unlike today where the theatrical trailer might have nothing in common with the actual movie itself. This is of unusually good quality visually, though the audio is quite poor.

TV Trailers

        Goldfinger (2:59) - 1.33:1 non 16x9, and in colour. Essentially the theatrical trailer, and in fairly good nick.
        Goldfinger (0:20) - Quite poor in quality, with only a hint of colour, and loaded with film artefacts.
        Goldfinger (0:58) - Very similar to the above trailer, only longer.

Radio Spots (22:00)

Okay, this is what you might call overkill. A few might be considered interesting, but 34 radio spots is just a smidgen over the top, and quite tedious. Still, they are there for completeness' sake I suppose.

Radio Interview with Sean Connery (11:42)

Back in the good old days, the studio handed out a rather long pre-recorded tape to radio stations of Sean Connery answering a load of mock questions. Any given radio station could then pick and choose which ones to ask, and pretend to hold an interview. In this case, all questions are asked, and the answers are quite revealing and interesting, especially Sean Connery's statement that he would continue to make Bond films for as long as he thought it would hold his interest.

The Goldfinger Gallery

As with previous instalments in this special edition series, we are blessed with a tonne of still photographs, all of excellent quality and 16x9 enhanced. Presented for your select-button pressing pleasure are a total of 189 black and white and 78 colour stills of production, merchandising and world-wide advertising. I quite enjoyed wading through these, though be warned that the mean-time-before-failure of your remote's select button will be severely brought forward.

Audio Commentary #1 - Guy Hamilton (Director)

Narrated by Lee Pfeiffer of T.W.I.N.E. Entertainment and featuring pre-recorded commentary by Director Guy Hamilton, who discusses all manner of things from technical aspects of production to choices in casting.

Audio Commentary #2 - Cast & Crew

This commentary track was produced by the Ian Fleming Foundation and is narrated by John Cork, who introduces each speaker before they talk, and who himself provides a wealth of interesting information. Pre-recorded interviews with cast and crew are spliced together into an informative and worthwhile commentary track.

Collectors Booklet (8 page)

R4 vs R1

Both versions are identically specified. There is no compelling reason to prefer one over the other, although the increased resolution and general superiority of PAL vs NTSC makes our version the one of choice, unless the slight increase in the pitch of Sean Connery's voice makes you wonder if his underpants are slightly tighter in our version.

Summary

The third one's the charm as far as many are concerned, and with all gadgets and players (not to mention Astin Martins) now set in stone, it's easy to understand the love Bond fanatics have for Goldfinger. I am not one to argue, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and the disc.

The video transfer is excellent.

The soundtrack is quite good, though still monaural.

An essentially perfectly presented DVD.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Panasonic A360 (S-Video output)
Display	Rear-Projection Pioneer SD-T43W1 125cm Widescreen 16x9
Audio Decoder	d t s 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1 (DVD Player internal decoder)
Amplification	Sony STRDE-525 5x100 watts Dolby Pro-Logic / 5.1 Ready Receiver; 4 x Optimus 10-band Graphic EQ
Speakers	Centre: Sony SS-CN35 100 watt; Main & Surrounds: Pioneer CS-R390-K 150-watt floorstanders; Subwoofer: Optimus 100-watt passive