Bond’s first advantage over Goldfinger isn’t his brawn or his gadgets, but by playing Goldfinger at his own game. He first scuppers Goldfinger’s card game scam, and later switches Goldfinger’s ball during a game of golf. The golf scenes – filmed at Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire – would begin Connery’s love of golf (as Hollywood legend goes, various future film schedules were at the mercy of his golfing).
It’s also part of the Bond formula: 007 besting his rival in a gentlemanly contest. Bond has competed against villains at pheasant shooting, horse racing, fencing, witty banter, a whole manner of casino games, and even bidding on a Fabergé egg.
In Connery’s last Bond, the unofficial Never Say Never Again, Bond plays the villain at a Space Invaders-style game. Indeed, even Never Say Never Again – a rogue, alternative Bond made by different producers – is a Goldfinger knockoff. It’s little wonder: most Bond films are modelled on Goldfinger, particularly the remainder of Connery’s films, and both the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan eras.
Many of Goldfinger’s influential elements come from Fleming’s book – Oddjob, Pussy Galore, the Aston Martin (a DB Mark III in the novel) – but it’s their specific arrangement in the film, and the power of cinema to punch deep into the cultural psyche and create recognisable touchstones, that set the mould for future Bond films. Even the Bonds that aren’t modelled by Goldfinger are still defined by it – by deliberately deviating away from it. In fact, some of the best Bonds are the ones that have dared to stray from or subvert that gold-tinted blueprint.
