Bullz-Eye continues its look back at every James Bond film, 007 One by One, as part of our James Bond Fan Hub that we’ve created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film.

You’ve seen “Skyfall,” now how about taking a look at the other best James Bond movie you’ve never seen?

Ask a hardcore Bond aficionado what his favorite 007 entry is, and there’s a very good chance the answer will be “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

We don’t necessarily want to make bold claims as to what the best Bond movie is, as it differs from person to person, but “Majesty’s” should be Top Five material for any die-hard fan of the franchise. The film is littered with all kinds of “firsts” and “onlys” — both in front of and behind the camera — but the most obvious is of course its lead, George Lazenby, and it’s with Lazenby that, for better or worse, most talk of the film begins (but should by no means end).

In the year 2013, we take for granted the changing of the lead actor within the Bond series, as we’ve now had a half a dozen different 007s, but back in the late sixties there was only one James Bond, and his name was Sean Connery. During the production of “You Only Live Twice,” Connery decided to exit the franchise that made him a household name (though as we now know today, he’d return to the character not once, but twice), however, quite understandably, the producers of the series weren’t finished telling their stories, and the public seemed far from tired of 007’s adventures.

So there was really only one option and that was to recast. The search was extensive, but in the end Bond producers decided on a complete unknown – Lazenby – a model with virtually zero acting experience. Regardless, Albert Broccoli was certain he could transform the man into his new James Bond.

The debate has raged for over 40 years as to whether or not the recasting was successful, with many schools of thought on the matter. Having viewed “Majesty’s” numerous times, we feel confident in saying that it’s a shame Lazenby didn’t give it at least one more go in the part (the decision to not return was, amazingly, his own), because as it stands, he cannot help but be somewhat swallowed up by the richness of his surroundings. One thing is for certain: Lazenby in no way ruins it, or keeps “Majesty’s” from being the best film it can be. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” is a fine, fine movie, and one that deserves to stand on its own, away from the greater picture of the whole franchise, and Lazenby – as any lead would be – is at least partly responsible for its artistic success.

The Plot: “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” relies heavily on Ian Fleming’s original text, the last Bond film to really do so until 2006’s “Casino Royale.” The story is two in one: the first is about Bond’s hunting for and eventual finding of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and the second is about Bond falling in love and getting married (yes, you read that right) to an initially suicidal young woman named Tracy. Her father, Draco, runs a crime syndicate, and has info about Blofeld’s whereabouts, which James requires. Turns out Blofeld is posing as a high-profile allergist in Switzerland. Bond tracks him there, and infiltrates his organization by posing as a genealogist. Once the jig is up, all hell breaks loose, and Bond finds himself on the run, and only one person can help him…

The Girls: Blofeld’s mountaintop Swiss hideaway, Piz Gloria, stockpiles quite the cache of babe-alicious flesh – including a very young Joanna Lumley (“Absolutely Fabulous”) as well as the lovely Catherine Schell (“The Return of the Pink Panther”). Odd then that James zeroes in on the homeliest looking one of the bunch, Ruby Bartlett (Angela Scoular). But then again, this is also that unique Bond flick wherein James falls in love, and perhaps going for runt of the litter was the only way for him to rationalize cheating on his beloved Tracy.

Bullz-Eye is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film with look back at every Bond movie, 007 One by One, along with a series of features about the Bond franchise, all laid out in our James Bond Fan Hub.

As the worldwide spy craze peaks, the James Bond series settles in for the long, tongue-in-cheek haul with this often maligned but very enjoyable entry, introducing the world to both ninjas and the original Dr. Evil. It also might have been the final appearance of Sean Connery as 007, except that it wasn’t.

“You Only Live Twice” (1967)

The Plot

A United States space capsule is hijacked, killing one astronaut. Naturally, the Americans assume the Soviets are at fault and world war seems a real possibility. There’s only one thing for the level-headed English to do: Stage James Bond’s death and send him on an undercover mission to Japan to expose SPECTRE head Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s plot to dominate the world by partially destroying it.

The Backstory

With enormous success comes enormous pressures and change was very definitely in the air as “You Only Live Twice” began production. Now one of the world’s most bankable stars after the mega-success of “Thunderball,” Sean Connery was contractually on board for only one more film and starting to be seriously fed up with all the 007 insanity.

Behind the camera, original Bond director Terrence Young had had his fill and “Goldfinger” helmer Guy Hamilton was unavailable. Editor and second unit director Peter Hunt, who had been instrumental in the series’ creative success, badly wanted to helm the project, but producers Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman apparently weren’t ready for a first timer for Bond #5. Therefore, a new recruit was sought out to join the small fraternity of James Bond directors.

An old hand at period pieces and war films, Lewis Gilbert was hot off an Oscar nomination for a classic-to-be about a compulsive womanizer who could give Bond a run for his money. “Alfie” starred Connery’s good friend, fellow movie spy, and now award-winning box office rival, Michael Caine.

Lewis Gilbert also brought along one of the very few directors of photography who could have reasonably stepped into the very big shoes of series regular Ted Moore. Freddie Young had won the first of his four Oscars a couple of years prior for David Lean’s visually stunning 1963 70mm masterpiece, “Lawrence of Arabia.” For the sake of keeping things consistent, all the other key collaborators, were back on board in their regular roles, i.e., composer John Barry, credit designer Maurice Binder, and production designer Ken Adam. For once, they’d all have a nice budget to play with, too.

The script, however, was an issue. The novel “You Only Live Twice,” was the last Bond book published in Ian Fleming’s lifetime and the story was problematic for more than one reason. For starters, it was actually the third and final installment in what literary Bond fans call “the Blofeld Trilogy.” EON’s original intent had been to film the books in their original order. That way Blofeld, who had been teased as a character starting in “Dr. No,” would get his long-delayed onscreen introduction in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and finally suffer James Bond’s revenge in the follow-up, “You Only Live Twice.” Unfortunately, logistics made the ski chalet setting of “Majesty” impractical for the summer release EON and United Artists had their hearts set on.

The other problem was that the plot of Ian Fleming’s novel, which involved Blofeld setting up a lavish sanitarium for wealthy suicides, just didn’t seem to be the stuff of a James Bond movie. It also ended with Bond fathering a child with Kissy Suzuki. Only a few elements from the book would remain in the finished movie, most notably the Japanese setting, love interest Kissy, and friendly spy boss Tiger Tanaka.

There was also a problem with finding a writer. Richard Maibum, who had worked on every Bond up to this point, was deemed unavailable. A rumored screenplay by renowned author Kingsley Amis had been reportedly dismissed. Another script was commissioned by writer Harold Jack Bloom, but little of his work would remain in the finished film.

The final choice of screenwriter turned out to be an interesting one. Decades after his death, Roald Dahl remains one of the world’s most popular children’s writers with such film-friendly classics as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “The Witches,” “Matilda,” and “James and the Giant Peach” all too his credit. He might have seemed a far likelier choice for writing an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s children’s book, “Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang,” the gig that was apparently keeping Richard Maibum busy. Nevertheless, Dahl had written his share of adult thrillers and had actually performed wartime espionage and been friends with Fleming. Scads of 007-inspired spy spoofs were upping the humor ante and this would be a somewhat more tongue-in-cheek Bond. Dahl’s dark sense of humor would be a plus.

The main thrust of the film’s new plot was apparently invented by Cubby Broccoli, however. Upon seeing a dormant volcano while scouting locations, he came up with the idea of using it as a giant villain’s lair. With the U.S.-Soviet space race at full swing, the Russian-Chinese split a topical news item, and terrorism on the rise, the idea of SPECTRE hijacking spacecrafts in order to start a world war on behalf of Red Chinese clients seemed like a natural.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 + 1)

Once again, 007 does the espionage nasty with three beautiful women on his Japan adventure. Shockingly, however, the movie’s main love interest is not one of them.

Ling (Tsai Chow) — This lovely lady of Hong Kong engages in mildly racist pillow talk with Bond and then reveals herself to be an accomplice in the spy’s elaborately faked death. Though her part is small, actress Tsai Chow was already a recording artists and a major star of the London stage in “South Pacific” and “The World of Suzie Wong.” Her very long film career would include parts in “The Joy Luck Club,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and the 2006 Bond reboot, “Casino Royale.”

Helga Brandt (Karen Dor) — The latest Bond villainess with preying mantis-like tendencies, the dangerous Ms. Brandt is the secretary/in-house assassin of the wealthy SPECTRE operative, Mr. Osato. She has her way with Bond, then fails at killing him. It’s only natural that she winds up a victim of SPECTRE’s signature approach to personnel management, which in her case means being fed to the CEO’s pet piranhas. Actress Karen Dor has enjoyed a very long career in German films and television that continues to this day. She also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s unsuccessful spy thriller, “Topaz,” and the modestly titled horror flick, “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism.”

Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) — The lovely Aki at first appears to be an enemy agent, but quickly turns out to be an able helper and a willing Bond sex partner, until her untimely end. Actress Akiko Wakabayashi is known to genre geeks around the world and not just for “You Only Live Twice.” Monster mavens know her for appearances in two films by “Godzilla” co-creator Ishirō Honda: “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster” and “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” The name of the lead character was changed from Suki to Aki at her request.

Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) — Unusually virtuous by Bond girl standards, Kissy never actually gets to home plate with Bond, at least not during the actual movie. Nevertheless, this student of Japanese spy chief Tiger Tanaka proves an able aid to Bond, assisting in his not-so-believable transformation into a Japanese peasant and in foiling SPECTRE’s evil plans.

Actress Mie Hama was originally assigned to play Aki/Suki and was nearly let go from the project because of her difficulties learning English. As the story goes, Hama suggested the shame of being fired might force her to commit ritual suicide and the producers buckled. Her part, like that of nearly every other foreign player in an early Bond film, was eventually dubbed by another performer. Other roles include appearing alongside Akiko Wakabayashi in “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” She also made waves by promoting “You Only Live Twice” via a nude appearance in Playboy.

Friends and colleagues

Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray) — The avuncular, kimono-clad representative of MI6 in Japan only lives long enough to get Bond’s most famous cocktail preference wrong. The late actor, Charles Gray, was a wonderfully distinctive presence in well over 120 films and television productions. Today he is mainly remembered as the narrating “no neck” Criminologist who taught the world to dance the Time Warp in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — a film musical he claimed to have never seen. Gray would also have the rare distinction of being killed by SPECTRE and later heading it. He would return to the Bond series as none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld in “Diamonds are Forever.”

Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba) — Bond makes a new friend who, for a change, survives the film. It makes sense as the bold but crafty head of Japanese intelligence has a personal subway train and routinely forces guests to arrive via trap door as a precaution. Actor Tetsurō Tamba was a venerable presence in sixties Japanese cinema and had also worked in England, making him a natural leader among the Japanese cast. With 242 credits listed on IMDb, he has appeared in a number of films well known to Western cinephiles and cultists including “Pigs and Battleships,” “Harakiri,” and the notoriously gory and campy 1991 midnight-show staple, “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.” Also noted for his work as a spiritual teacher, Tamba passed on in 2006.

Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) and M (Bernard Lee) — Bond’s unimpressed boss and his partner in flirtatious byplay return, this time dressed in full UK navel regalia. The comic business aboard one of her majesty’s atomic submarines is spry but brief, though they make an unusual appearance in the film’s final scene. Moneypenny/Lois Maxwell, we should say, looks adorable in uniform. We understand, however, that her hairstyle was thoroughly non-regulation for the English navy. Shocking.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) — With gadgetry now a major part of the series, an appearance by the irascible armorer is now mandatory. This time, the perpetually annoyed Q finds himself forced to trudge to Japan to deliver “Little Nellie” — a thoroughly souped-up and tricked out autogyro. If Desmond Llewelyn’s irritation seems believable, it might have helped that the actor disagreed with director Lewis Gilbert’s costuming choices. Japan might be a warm country, but Llewelyn wasn’t thrilled with the military-style shirt and shorts he was given to wear. He didn’t think the very proper Q would permit himself to wear anything other than his standard business attire

The Nemesis

Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) — After being teased for years, the face of Bond’s most intractable enemy finally appears onscreen in “You Only Live Twice.” He is, of course, as diabolical and likely to feed an underperforming employee to carnivorous pets as ever. Sporting Blofeld’s trademark white Persian cat and a nasty scar on his right eye, the great character actor Donald Pleasence was already familiar to movie fans for hits like “The Great Escape” and “Fantastic Voyage.” He went on to even greater recognizability to horror fans for his portrayal of the heroic Dr. Sam Loomis in the “Halloween” series of slasher films. By the time of his death in 1996, Pleasence had racked up well over 200 film and television credits.

Lesser Bond Baddies

Assuming they aren’t personally killed by Mr. Bond, the hench people in “You Only Live Twice” have somewhat greater longevity than they did in “Thunderball.” Still, SPECTRE’s personnel practices remain below industry standard.

Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada) — Helga Brandt’s industrialist SPECTRE employer tries to have James Bond killed innumerable times, with predictable results. He manages to avoid the pet piranas that finally get Miss Brandt, but he still winds up getting a surprise bullet in the chest from Blofeld. Japanese-American actor Teru Shimada had recently appeared in 1966′s “Walk Don’t Run” with Cary Grant, but was actually nearing the end of a decades long career that began in the early 1930s.

Hans (Ronald Rich) — Blofeld’s gigantic body guard is repaid for his loyalty and diligence by being allowed to live long enough to get killed during the final battle. English actor Rich’s career appears to be a short one, but TV geeks should note that he did appear as the giant alien Trantis in the 1965 season of “Dr. Who” and in various roles in the 1968 run of “Benny Hill.”

SPECTRE #3 and #4 (Burt Kwouk and Michael Chow) – It would be easy to ignore these two very minor characters if it weren’t for the interesting guys playing them. You may remember that Burt Kwouk, the very talented performer who brilliantly portrayed manservant Kato opposite Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, also appeared in a similar, slightly larger, role in “Goldfinger.” As for Shanghai-born character actor and citizen of the world Michael Chow, he is best known in the West as a classy restaurateur. The first Mr. Chow location opened in London in 1968, followed by editions in Beverly Hills, New York City and, eventually, Miami and Las Vegas.

License to kill

Bond’s career in extra-judicial killings of often disarmed enemies began with the unlucky Prof. Dent in “Dr. No,” but it reaches a new high here. Admittedly, there are several moments where the morality of the situation might be vague — or where we’re not sure whether Bond has actually killed an assailant or merely subdued him. Bond very definitely instantly slays the killer of his MI6 contact, Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray), however. True, the man’s act was cowardly but, morals and legality aside, it might have made more sense to keep the assassin alive and find out what was up. He also immediately dispatches both Aki’s poisoner — before he even knows what the intruder is up to — as well as the quickly disarmed would-be assassin who assaults him with a bo (a Japanese quarterstaff) in the ninja dojo.

The gadgets

Production designer Ken Adam, efx man John Stears, and the whole EON team attempt to create an airborne companion to Bond’s Aston-Martin with “Little Nellie,” a tricked up autogyro that’s a sort of cross between a helicopter and a toy plane. The film version is equipped with enough armory to take out a banana republic with machine guns, flamethrowers, and missiles. Minus the fancy weaponry, it was the very real and serious creation of designer Ken Wallis, a retired RAF pilot.

Many other gadgets are so casually integrated into the “You Only Live Twice” storyline you might almost miss them. Below are some of our favorites.

* Ninja cigarettes that eject bullet-like projectiles.

* The water-proof sarcophagus used to stage Bond’s “burial” at sea

* The “Bird 1″ ship, with a front opening used to capture U.S. and Soviet spacecraft.

* Trap doors that both Blofeld and Tiger Tanaka use to create unwelcome surprises for coworkers.

* A giant magnet on a helicopter deployed by the Japanese to pick up a car filled with SPECTRE henchman and drop it in the nearby Pacific. (Since it seems unlikely the occupants could have lived, we wonder if Japanese secret services also have something like Double-O authority.)

* Mr. Osato’s spiffy X-ray desk for spotting concealed weapons.

* A pocket safecracking doodad which would come in handy if Bond ever decided to go full time to the wrong side of the law.

Note: Both the Murphy bed used in Bond’s fake assassination and Tiger Tanaka’s personal subway are sometimes considered Bond gadgets. However, since both were examples of what was very common mid-sixties technology, we don’t think they qualify as Bondian gadgetry any more than would a blender or an electric can opener.

The exotic locales

With the exception of the opening, just about all of “You Only Live Twice” takes place in Japan and the film’s exteriors were shot largely in the then-emerging economic powerhouse. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, director Lewis Gilbert, and cinematographer Freddie Young spent considerable time scouting Japanese locations. Their work paid off both in terms of visuals and, at least in the aforementioned case of the dormant volcano which became Blofeld’s lair, story ideas.

The outrageous villains’ lairs and good guy haunts

With the Bond films established as a series of reliable blockbusters, resident production design genius Ken Adam was allowed to go to town with a series of extraordinary sets, which meant more work and frayed nerves than ever. Adam has said that he and his staff were all but “living on valium” during the production of the film.

The most overtly spectacular set was obviously SPECTRE’s volcano-based super-bunker. Featuring a crater lake on top as camouflage, a rocket launch pad, and an internal light rail system, the Pinewood Studios set was very possibly the largest interior built for a film up to that point and one of the most expensive at $1 million. Ken Adam reportedly bragged that more steel was used in the set’s construction than in the London Hilton.

A more modest Adam classic is the lattice-work dome in which hot-headed U.S. and Soviets are persuaded to put off worldwide thermonuclear war while the intelligence boys at MI6 do their work. The design seems to have been influenced by R. Bunkminster Fuller’s then trendy geodesic domes.

Moving on, we’re also impressed by the apartment of the short-lived MI6 contact, Henderson. It’s a cheerful mix of British and Japanese design cliches. Tiger Tanaka’s underground office is, however, more up to the minute. Clearly, the EON team had noticed Japan’s increasing fascination with futuristic technology which was fueling the nation’s post-war economic renaissance. Similarly, the offices of bad guy Mr. Osato are an angular, half-insane variation on an ultra-modern mid-sixties interior.

The Opening

The “You Only Live Twice” pre-credit sequence is a departure from the “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” openings in that it is not actually a Bond mini-adventure. Instead, it’s a more complicated variation on the opening of “From Russia with Love”; it’s primarily a prologue designed to set up the story and tease us with another fake Bond death. Bond doesn’t even try to kill anyone. (He’ll make up for that later.)

We begin in outer space as a mysterious vehicle snatches an American space capsule, murdering an astronaut in the process. Next, we are in some kind of super-high level diplomatic meeting room in which the calm, thoughtful British must mediate between jingoistic Americans and nasty Soviets to avoid a rush to global thermonuclear war. Finally, we are in a garish Hong Kong boudoir as Bond has finished making love with the seemingly treacherous Ling (Tsai Chow). She traps Bond in a Murphy bed, where he meets an apparent quick end at the hands of machine gun wielding thugs. Afterwards, a police officer who appears to have known Bond philosophizes that, at least, Bond met his demise “on the job.”

A close-up of a shot of (presumably fake) blood fades out into an animated design reminiscent of a Japanese umbrella and we’re off for another striking credit sequence by Maurice Binder. As the lyrical title song plays, we are given Japanese-inspired abstract designs, shots of lava flowing inside a volcano, and the usual female silhouettes. Once again, we are being promised adventure, a bit of tasteless exoticism, violence and, naturally, sex, sex, sex.

The Music

By now, it was a foregone conclusion that composer John Barry would provide both the score and the title song. Barry’s “Goldfinger” lyrical collaborator, show tune specialist Leslie Bricusse, returns for one of the better songs in the Bond cannon. Barry seems to have decided to abandon the brassiness of “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” for a more romantic tune along the lines of “From Russia with Love,” only better.

Nancy Sinatra and her famous father, Frank, were friends of the EON team. So, it was only natural that she was brought on to perform the song, even though an earlier version had already been recorded by English singer Shirley Rodgers. The only difficulty was that the younger Sinatra, whose recent recording of “These Boots Were Made for Walking” had been a monster hit, was much more a rock and roll singer than a polished classic pop chanteuse. As Nancy Sinatra herself tells it, it took countless takes and a lot of editing to produce the sexy and charmingly wistful “You Only Live Twice” title track.

As for the instrumental score, composer Barry adds a bit of Japanese beauty to the mix, but it was the cosmos that inspired the most influential work. The haunting and majestic “Capsules in Space” is a definite influence on John Williams’ music for “Star Wars.”

Action Highlights

“You Only Live Twice” was instrumental in popularizing Asian martial arts in Western films and also for establishing ninjas as go-to pop culture badasses. The final battle, in which hundreds of ninjutsu-trained operatives invade Blofeld’s mega-lair, is certainly among the most spectacular fight scenes in the 007 cannon. It’s also probably responsible for a number of increasingly elaborate, you might even say overblown, Bond finales to follow.

An arguably even more thrilling set-piece, however comes much earlier in the film as Bond and Aki are pursued at the Kobe docks by a number of local SPECTRE henchmen. In a bold move, director Lewis Gilbert and camera-great Freddie Francis film part of the fight via a thrilling aerial shot of the ongoing action. Speaking of aerial shots, the airborne battle in which Bond and Little Nellie fend off “improper advances” from four machine-gun equipped aerial helicopters is an enjoyable blend of exciting aerial footage and back projection close-ups.

For those who enjoy a bit more hand-to-hand combat, we’re somewhat fond of a relatively brief but delightfully brutal fight between Bond and a sword wielding opponent, portrayed by uncredited Samoan-American pro-wrestler and fight choreographer Peter Fanene Mavia. Mavia, who unfortunately passed on at age 45, is today best remembered as the grandfather of wrestler-turned-action star Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.

The ninja camp training sequence is also an enjoyable spin on the “Spartacus”-inspired SPECTRE training camp in “From Russia With Love.” It was probably the first time a truly gigantic Western audience was exposed to Asian martial arts in a major motion picture. It also contains a surprisingly faithful homage to the fight scenes in the Japanese samurai films that were then being discovered in art houses throughout America and Europe.

The one-liners

James Bond (Prior to making love to the evil Helga Brandt): The things I do for England!

Hong Kong Policeman #2: [finding the fake-deceased Bond in Ling's Hong Kong boudoir] At least he died on the job… he would have wanted it that way.

Kissy Suzuki: No honeymoon. This is business.
James Bond: [pushing aside a plate of oysters] Well, I won’t need these.

Mr. Osato: You should give up smoking. Cigarettes are very bad for your chest.
Helga Brandt: Mr. Osato believes in a healthy chest.
James Bond (observing Brandt’s upper torso): Really?

Tiger Tanaka (showing Bond a projectile equipped cigarette): It can save your life, this cigarette.
James Bond: You sound like a commercial.

James Bond: Well, if I’m going to be forced to watch television, may I smoke?
Blofeld: Yes. Give him his cigarettes. It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.

James Bond (having just dispatched an adversary into Blofeld’s piranha-infested indoor pool): Bon appetit!

Tiger Tanaka: You know what it is about you that fascinates them, don’t you? It’s the hair on your chest. Japanese men all have beautiful bare skin.
James Bond: Japanese proverb say, “Bird never make nest in bare tree.”

[About to have his chest hair waxed so he can pass for Japanese]
James Bond: Why don’t you just dye the parts that show?

James Bond (greeting Q, who has brought Little Nellie to Japan): Welcome to Japan, Dad. Is my little girl hot and ready?
Q: Look, 007, I’ve had a long and tiring journey, probably to no purpose, so I’m in no mood for juvenile quips.

Cocktails and other beverages

Bond’s drinking is more under control than usual here, though the super spy gets to show his knowledge of the finer points of Japan’s native beverage, the rice wine known as saki. It’s usually served warm — 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit, he reminds us. Bond seems considerably less enthralled with some Siamese vodka. Most famously, 007 politely endures confusion regarding his cocktail preferences by the soon-to-be-slain Dikko Henderson. The MI6 man offers him a vodka martini “stirred, not shaken,” in an incorrect Tom Collins glass, which Bond accepts without complaint. At another point, he is tempted into some morning drinking by a bottle of Dom Perignon 1959.

Random facts

* There are a number of jokes about cigarettes and cigarette smoking in “You Only Live Twice.” Considering the historic U.S. Surgeon General’s Report definitively naming smoking as a serious health risk had only come out in 1964, the same year heavy smoker and drinker Ian Fleming had died at age 56 of a heart attack, it was a highly topical subject. (To this day, you will find more smokers on film sets than elsewhere.)

* Donald Pleasence was actually a last-minute replacement as the first fully on-screen Blofeld. Czech actor Jan Werich was originally cast in the role and shot a few days worth of scrapped footage. The EON team decided that the bearded thespian’s grandfatherly appearance was too benign for the ultra-ruthless super villain.

* For whatever reason, Ernst Stavro Blofeld would, from this point on, be played by different actors with radically different looks in each film. Future Blofelds would include the relatively hulking “Kojak”-to-be Telly Savalas in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” who at least was as bald as the somewhat diminutive Donald Pleasence had been in the role. Blofeld would miraculously sport a full head of hair, however, when he was played by the aforementioned Charles Gray in 1971′s “Diamonds are Forever.”

* Donald Pleasence’s appearance and manner as Blofeld is pretty obviously the primary inspiration for Mike Myers’s Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers series. (Evil’s speaking voice is just as obviously inspired by “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels.)

* Fans trying to put together a complete biography of Bond have made much of the ever humble 007′s reminder to Moneypenny that, “You forget, I took a first in Oriental languages at Cambridge.” This is a contradiction with the novels, where Bond was ejected from Eton College for an unsurprising infraction with female cleaning personnel and had to finish his education in Scotland.

* “You Only Live Twice” is actually the second time that Sean Connery, as a pre-coital Bond said, “The things I do for England!” The line was also shot during the filming of “Thunderball.” It made it into that film’s promotional material but was cut from the actual movie. Being too good a line to waste, it was re-used and included here.

* Ironically, screenwriter Roald Dahl’s World War II intelligence experiences were in some ways more Bondian than those of Ian Fleming. It was, in fact, his youthful gift for starting affairs with prominent women that seems to have attracted the attention of British spies working in North America trying to draw the United States into the war prior to Pearl Harbor. His most famous conquest in England’s service was playwright and conservative Republican politician Clare Booth Luce, the wife of the founder of Time magazine.

* When Mie Hama was unable to swim for her scenes, she was doubled by Australian actress Diane Cilento, an able swimmer who was married to Sean Connery at the time. Cilento, who passed on in 2011, is probably now best known for her supporting role in the 1974 cult classic, “The Wicker Man.” She also appeared in such notable 1960s features as “Tom Jones,” “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” and “Hombre.”

* Some have mistakenly said that the title, “You Only Live Twice” comes from a poem by Basho, Japan’s most famous poet. It’s actually from a not-quite haiku Bond attempts to compose in Basho’s style in Ian Fleming’s novel.

“You only live twice
Once when you’re born
And once when you look death in the face.”

Leslie Bricusse’s lyrics for the song, “You Only Live Twice,” equate the second life to falling in love. Much more romantic.

* By all accounts, Sean Connery and Diane Cilento had a pretty miserable time making “You Only Live Twice.” Spy mania and an aggressive Japanese press in particular seems to been a huge problem for the star and his bride. By the time “You Only Live Twice” was released, Connery had made it public that he would cease playing Bond. It turned out to be the first of three times that would happen.

The Romantic Ending

“You Only Live Twice” is, we think, the only Bond entry where the main romance seems to have gone not much further than passionate necking. Kissy abandons her resistance to Bond by the end of the film, but they are interrupted by an inopportune submarine and Moneypenny seems only to anxious to cut off any more funny business. All the more tragic as it looks like Bond and Kissy might not be allowed to see each other again.

“James Bond Will Return”

“The end of You Only Live Twice but James Bond will be back On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” read the final titles this time around. A similar credit was originally included at the end of “Thunderball” and later removed. In fact, James Bond did come back, but he would be George Lazenby.

Bullz-Eye continues its look back at every James Bond film, 007 One by One, as part of our James Bond Fan Hub that we’ve created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film.

The third Bond film is more than one of the most enduringly popular movies in the series and the final template for James Bond movies from that point forward. In many respects, it actually set the pattern for actions films in general. It was also perhaps the first modern-day blockbuster in that it was intended as an event as well a movie — complete with mega-bucks generating merchandizing opportunities. Sadly, it’s also the first movie in the series that Bond’s 56 year-old creator, Ian Fleming, didn’t live to see completed. He could not have conceived of how insanely popular his creation would become within months of his passing.

“Goldfinger” (1963)

The Plot

007 locks deadly horns with a mysterious millionaire known for cheating at gin rummy, golf, and the exportation of gold. That naturally turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg as James Bond discovers a diabolical plan aimed at destroying the economy of the free world and making portly Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) the world’s richest man. The aptly named, gold-obsessed supervillain’s target is, of course, Fort Knox.

The Backstory

With the back-to-back success of “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love,” the money conscious EON producing team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli were ready to spend what was actually pretty big money in early 1960′s movie production terms — $3 million! (The 2008 Bond entry, “Quantum of Solace,” had a reported production budget of $200 million.)

Dashing director Terrence Young, who had launched the series so ably with “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love,” smelled the cash and held out for more money. True to form, EON decided to go with a more thrifty option and brought in an accomplished journeyman director who was, nevertheless, a new hand when it came to staging elaborate action scenes, Guy Hamilton.

American writer Richard Maibum was back on board, this time with an assist from British screenwriter Paul Dehn. A very probable inspiration for the dashing English spy played by Michael Fassbender in “Inglourious Basterds,” Dehn was a former film critic and admitted World War II assassin. His next gig was, ironically, helping to adapt John le Carré’s specifically anti-Bondian espionage classic, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

Most importantly to the financial bottom line, Sean Connery had made himself synonymous with 007 and was also on board for another go round, though he wouldn’t appear on set until he finished off his highly dramatic starring role in Alfred Hithcock’s “Marnie.” Connery was starting to worry a little about this whole business of being typecast as a veritable superhero; he would continue to go out of his way to remind the public he could be someone other than Bond.

In any case, everyone working on the film seems to have understood what kind of opportunity “Goldfinger” represented. That bigger budget meant one thing: more — more action, more gadgets, more violence, and an extremely fast pace by the standards of its day. It was just the kind of wretched excess that could lead to a film so enormous it could launch what has to be the longest lasting and most consistently successful franchise in movie history.

The Bond Girls (Rule of 3 + 2)

Bond keeps to his usual score of three sex partners per movie. However, as befits the more lavish “Goldfinger,” we actually have five legitimate “Bond girls” this go-round. It’s just that Bond respectfully keeps his hands off of one and apparently never quite reaches home plate with another. To be specific…

Bonita (Nadia Regan) — She gets kissed while naked at the end of the pre-credit sequence, but it appears that actually doing the deed with Bond was never in the treacherous beauty’s plans, and she ends up with only a nasty bump on the head for her trouble. The adorable, Serbian-born Nadia Regan was actually on her second Bond go-round, having played a very brief kittenish role in the just-prior, “From Russia With Love,” where she was the Turkish secretary/girlfriend of Ali Kerim Bey (Pedro Armendariz.)

Dink (Margaret Nolan) – This lovely bathing beauty and amateur masseuse appears to be Bond’s very temporary girlfriend during his very short vacation at Miami Beach’s ultra-lux Fontainebleau Hotel. In true super-sexist style, he dismisses her with jovial rudeness and a smart smack to the backside when his American colleague shows up. Actress and model Margaret Nolan would go on to appear in a Playboy pictorial and several entries in the “Carry On” series of British sex comedies.

Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) – Bond wastes little time in seducing the bikini clad Masterson, who has unwisely taken a job helping a certain highly suspicious gold broker cheat at gin rummy. The superspy clearly takes a liking to the spunky, frankly sexual Masterson. He is devastated when he wakes up from a clubbing-induced slumber to find her suffocated to death by being painted completely gold from head to foot. It’s a tragic death, but it gave the movie its poster and one of the most creepily memorable and iconic images in the Bond lexicon. Shirley Eaton, already a busy working actress in the British film industry, would go on to star in a number of mostly not-so-distinguished films before retiring in favor of motherhood in 1969. She came out of retirement three decades later with a memoir, Golden Girl.

Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) – When Bond gets his first good look at the vengeance-seeking sister of Jill Masterson, “Discipline, 007!” he reminds himself. Still, though Bond clearly sympathizes with her need for justice, there’s simply no time for romance. In the book, Bond’s chances were even worse as Ian Fleming made it more than explicit that this Masterson sister played for the other team; she was more interested in hooking up with Pussy Galore than any man. The beautiful and sad, but also somewhat remote Tilly was played nicely by model Tania Mallet. That sadness was probably assisted somewhat by the tragic real-life death of her longtime boyfriend prior to filming. After “Goldfinger,” Mallet mostly abandoned acting in favor of her more immediately lucrative career as a model. Her only other significant role of any sort was a 1976 episode of “The New Avengers.”

Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) — The ultimate Bond girl with the ultimate Bond-girl name, Ms. Galore is the closest thing Bond meets to his female equivalent in any of the early Bond films. Goldfinger’s personal pilot also has something going for her in that she’s not immediately attracted to Bond. In fact, careful viewers might notice that she’s not immediately attracted to men in general. Pussy Galore’s name raised enough hackles with censors and the filmmakers weren’t about to risk a total ban with an avowedly lesbian leading lady. The film plays her inclinations — and that of the other beautiful members of her fellow pilots in “Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus” — on the down-low. Ian Fleming’s novel did not play them down, however. In fact, horny homophobe Fleming threw in an overt flirtation between Tilly Masterson and Pussy — in the book the leader of an all-lesbian criminal gang called “The Cement Mixers.”

Honor Blackman was already a fairly big acting name, having preceded Bond-girl-to-be Diana Rigg as the leading lady on the popular English spy series, “The Avengers.” Blackman brought real class and grace to her portrayal of her oddly named character and, while she was typecast as Pussy for much of the rest of her career, she enjoyed success as a singer and a busy working actress of stage and screen. She continues to work both as a performer and a political activist, campaigning to eliminate the British monarchy, a cause of which we are certain 007 would not approve.

Friends and colleagues

Felix Leiter (Cec Linder) — Bond’s CIA opposite number from “Dr. No,” returns, but it sure looks like he’s had a very stressful two years. Cec Linder looked considerably older than the stolid Jack Lord (“Hawaii Five-O”), who originated the role and preferred not to return. The 42 year old Linder was actually slightly younger than Lord, but he played Leiter as a wry, very middle-aged older brother to Bond and something of a subtle comic sidekick. From “Goldfinger” on, Leiter would become a shapeshifter, being played by completely unrelated actors of varying physical types and races from movie to movie.

Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) and M (Bernard Lee) — MI6′s most beloved secretary is back once again to flirt madly with Bond while boss man M once again cuts the flirting short so the plot, and the necessary exposition, can keep barreling forward. M gets more comic business this time around, especially during a dinner with Bond and a bigwig from the Bank of England. However, he has to make way for the first really substantial appearance by another beloved member of the growing Bond movie family.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) — The armorer formerly known as Major Boothroyd had actually appeared in both “Dr. No” and “From Russia With Love,” but he had only been played for the first time by Desmond Llewelyn in Bond #2. Since “Goldfinger” was the first film in the series where the gadgetry took center stage, it was natural that Q branch would also have a lot more to do. So, for the first time, the man known as Q grew a discernible personality. The new film would provide Llewelyn an opportunity to show his comic chops and introduce one of the series most well loved running jokes: Q is permanently annoyed with Bond for breaking all the great toys with which he regularly presents him, and for not being particularly sorry about it. Llewelyn was so good at being irritated by 007′s flippancy that he appeared in every EON-produced Bond film until his death in a car accident in 1999.

The Nemeses

Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) – Goldfinger is, next to Ernst Stavros Blofeld, the most archetypal of Bondian supervillains. Along with his diabolical master plan and his lavish abodes, Goldfinger really knows how to stick to a theme. He keeps a staff of blonde pilots, owns a golden Rolls Royce, and he carries a gold pistol. When it comes time to do away with the lovely Jill Masterson, he has her killed by painting her body completely gold, resulting in “skin suffocation.” In the novel, he wears golden underwear and sleeps only with gold painted prostitutes.

German actor Gert Fröbe was seemingly born to play the role, but he was not yet an English speaker and his voice was provided by actor Michael Collins. Nevertheless, the tall, portly actor’s grim yet oddly humorous presence was crucial to the film’s success. He continued to make sizable contributions to a number of movies, including the epic comedy, “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines” and the big-budget children’s musical, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (loosely based on an Ian Fleming novel and also featuring a gadget-filled car).

Oddjob (Harold Sakata) – No Bond villain ever had a more memorable henchmen than Goldfinger’s Korean bodyguard/manservant/paid killer. Oddjob says nothing, but his body language is killer, especially when he is flings his deadly derby hat, a sort of flying Frisbee of death. Along with his imposing presence and martial arts skill, Japanese-American Harold Sakata brought a great deal of ironic humor to the role, making the silent killer as oddly likable as he was deadly.

A former Olympic weightlifting silver medalist, the Hawaii-born Sakata came to the attention of Bond producers as a “bad guy” wrestler named “Tosh Togo.” Not at all a bad guy in real life, his good-natured, easygoing personality and work ethic made him a favorite of the “Goldfinger” cast and crew. Being Asian and more than a little bit gigantic, Sakata wound up being typecast and he was never quite free of Oddjob. At least he was able to star in our pick for the most awesome cold remedy commercial of all time.

(Short-lived) Lesser Bond Baddies

Wantonly doing away with one’s colleagues is a hallmark of any great James Bond villain. Even so, Auric Goldfinger has what has to be considered an itchy trigger finger and ends up knocking off every minor villain in the movie. First, he uses nerve gas to do away with an entire roomful of gangsters gathered at his home, while Oddjob is tasked with shooting the uncooperative Solo (Martin Benson) and having him crushed inside a Lincoln.

While invading Fort Knox, Goldfinger — wearing an U.S. Army uniform — shoots his previously trusted Red Chinese contact, Mr. Ling (Burt Kwouk), in order to blend in as G.I.’s retake the compound. Anglo-Chinese actor Burt Kwouk was, by the way, the gifted performer who portrayed Inspector Clouseau’s long-suffering houseman/sparring partner, Kato, in “The Pink Panther” series.

License to kill

Bond is on some of his best behavior here and never really uses his 00 authority. Every bad guy Bond kills here is in pretty inarguably in self-defense. Even Goldfinger dies not die at Bond’s hands but, in the style of silver age comic book supervillains who weren’t allowed to be killed by superheroes, the movie’s big bad gets conveniently sucked out of an airplane window. Interestingly, while Bond in the books tends to be less violent than in his film incarnation, in the novel Bond loses control of his anger and actually strangles Auric Goldfinger.

The gadgets and the car

No small part of the success of “Goldfinger” was the fact that it was the first film to really bring the gadgetry front and center. In this case, all those gadgets were mostly housed in one place — the world’s coolest automobile. So it was that Bond’s old Bentley was replaced with the more up to date Aston Martin DB5, as customized by production designer Ken Adam and efx genius John Stears.

An early example of the practice we now know as “product placement,” the Aston Martin company supplied a single car (another one was later purchased). As legend would have it, the auto was originally only to have a smoke screen device, but crew members began suggesting so many other nifty devices that James Bond becomes visibly irritated as Q informs him that describing them all won’t take more than an hour.

And what devices they were. Director Guy Hamilton had been plagued by parking tickets, so he was attracted to the revolving license plates that had been mentioned in the novel. Hamilton’s stepson suggested the auto-ejector seat that caused Bond to exclaim, “You’re joking!” There was also the bullet-proof windshields, the oil slick release mechanisms, and, of course, the left and right front-wing machine guns. Not technically built into the car as a practical effect, but created largely through the magic of editor Peter Hunt, the car also came equipped with a wheel-based tire-destroying device. That idea was a more or less direct lift from the killer chariots featured in the hit 1959 biblical epic, “Ben-Hur.”

The car was, of course, a huge hit with audiences and played no small part in the enormous commercial success of the James Bond series throughout the 1960s. Corgi’s model of the Q branch Aston Martin DB5 became the most successful toy of 1964 and one of the most iconic merchandizing opportunities of all time. (It was also maybe the first toy to be aimed at children from a movie containing material thought inappropriate for kids.) The Corgi DB5 was a key part of a worldwide merchandising bonanza that would prefigure films like 1977′s “Star Wars,” financed largely on the back of its built-in merchandising possibilities. David Worrell’s out-of-print 1993 book about the DB5 was aptly entitled The Most Famous Car in the World.

The exotic attractive locales

If “Goldfinger” skimps in any area, it’s the settings. While reasonably spectacular, they really aren’t as exotic as usual. We have the pre-credit sequence set in an unnamed Latin American country, presumably Mexico; a brief sojourn with M, Moneypenny, and the Bank of England official in London; and a memorably tragic visit to Goldfinger’s compound in the relatively mundane nation of Switzerland. The rest of “Goldfinger” takes place mostly in the United States, specifically semi-exotic Miami Beach and not-at-all exotic Kentucky, near Fort Knox. Nevertheless, the film does make use of a truly spectacular post-credits aerial shot of Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel, then the last word in opulent accommodations. It also makes use of the more mundane aspects of Louisville and is probably the first major film to give a plug to a new fast-food franchise called Kentucky Fried Chicken. Felix Leiter, in particular, seems to be a fan of what we now call KFC — though the actual restaurant where the scenes were shot was in Florida.

In reality, the bulk of “Goldfinger” was made back in England at Pinewood Studios outside of London. Sean Connery, in particular, never set foot in the U.S. during the production, leading to a lot of rather obvious process shots during the Fontainebleau sequence. Still, what the film lacked in exteriors it more than made up when it came to its interiors, which leads us to…

The outrageous villain’s lairs

Production designer Ken Adam had taken a break from the Bond films with a spectacular job creating the cavernous White House “war room” and other hugely memorable settings for Stanley Kubrick’s epochal black comedy masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove.” His return to the series on “Goldfinger” turned out to be at least as much of a career high for Adam. Quite apart from his brilliant work tricking out the Aston Martin DB5, these sets rank easily among the most famed in movie history.

Most famous of all the “Goldfinger” sets is the enormous rumpus room located in Auric Goldfinger’s not so old Kentucky home. Looking a little bit like a hunting lodge gone ultra-modern, with a gigantic pool table that turns into a control panel operating a number of devices, it houses equally gigantic models of Fort Knox that literally come out of the woodwork. This was a few decades before PowerPoint, and these models make memorable visual aids as Goldfinger partially explains his evil “Operation Grand Slam” to a group of skeptical crime kingpins.

The room later turns out to also be a giant gas chamber in which the supervillian will kill the criminals he has just worked so hard to sell on his plan. Goldfinger clearly enjoys explaining his diabolical plans to people he plans to kill even more than most Bond villains.

On a serious note, many commentators have noted an especially disturbing side to the gas chamber designed by Adam. A German Jew, Ken Adam had come to England as a young wartime refugee and eventually joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), serving with notable heroism. Though Adam denied any conscious associations, it’s hard not to imagine that the genocidal crimes of the Nazis weren’t on his mind on some level as he designed the room.

Other notable villain-lairs include the Latin American drug silo that Bond blows up in the pre-credit sequence, Goldfinger’s ultra-posh Fontainebleau suite where Bond seduces Jill Masterson in record time, and the laser room where Bond nearly comes to an unpleasant parting of the ways. Finally, though it’s not a villain lair, we have to at least give a shout out to the film’s imaginative and striking depiction of the interior of Fort Knox. Fort Knox is so secure and super secret not even the U.S. president is allowed inside of it, so of course the film makers were not allowed to see its interior. Adam later admitted that he was glad to have no reference, as he was able to make up his own idea of what the place looked like inside.

The Opening

“From Russia With Love” had already used the then-unusual device of a pre-credit “teaser” opening, but “Goldfinger” took the idea one step further. While the opening of the prior film was fairly similar to the “cold open” of a sixties TV drama, in that the action hinted at the main story to come, the opening of “Goldfinger” amounts to a miniature James Bond adventure.

Though completely unrelated to the main story in terms of plot, it brilliantly sets up the more overtly tongue-in-cheek nature of this film right away: Our hero snorkels his way into a heroin processing compound, camouflaged by a drenched stuffed duck attached to his head. Almost without breaking a sweat, Bond places some plastic explosives in a silo housing a drug lab. In perhaps the sequences most famous shot, he removes his wet suit, revealing an immaculate tuxedo. The ever meticulous Bond even has a small rose ready to use as a boutonniere. Entering a nearby cantina to greet his contact, he is the only person not to react to the gigantic explosion he has set off — an early version of the “cool guys don’t look at explosions” phenomenon. Later, an intimate encounter with Bonita, a dancer in the bar, comes to a deadly end as a reflection’s in her eyes (have you ever seen a reflection in an eyeball?) reveals her true purpose. For the first — but definitely not the last — time, Bond uses a treacherous woman as a human shield to survive an encounter with a would-be killer, whom Bond then dispatches with the first of his famously groan-inducing post-mortem quips.

The overall message of the opening is clear and simple: prepare for big fun and, whatever you do, do not take any of this too seriously.

The Credits

Designer Robert Brownjohn returns for his second and final Bond credit-sequence outing, using the same process as he used in the “From Russia With Love” credits. As the title song plays, scenes from the film are projected on a scantily clad female body, but this time it’s a golden painted one. As strong as Brownjown’s visuals are, however, what really makes those credits is the greatest of all Bond theme songs…

The Music

John Barry had proven himself far more than able in various musical capacities on the first two Bond films. So, even though he had never before written a pop hit, he was finally allowed to write the music for the opening song, and what a song it was.

The brassy opening bars of “Goldfinger” announce melodramatically that we are in for an adventure of vast proportion and the music is jazzy yet almost operatic in scale. The lyrics, from the theatrical songwriting team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, were inspired by Bobby Darin’s unlikely hit version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil’s “Mack the Knife,” (the only megahit we know about a thief, murderer, and rapist). As Barry had no problem admitting, the astonishing, hell-bent-for-leather vocals of singer Shirley Bassey were crucial to selling the outrageous lyrics, a warning that gold-obsessed millionaires may not be good boyfriend material. The song was, of course, a tremendous hit. It remains easily the greatest Bond theme and, for all its near-camp excess, one of the greatest movie theme songs of all time. The rest of the film’s score isn’t so bad, either.

Action Highlights

Though it might feel a bit leisurely next to frenetic modern day action flicks, “Goldfinger” has the most action of any Bond film up to that point. That action is underlined by the ace work of editor Peter Hunt, whose “crash cutting” style propels the film ever forward and even makes a golf game exciting and fun to watch.

Easily the most famous action sequence in “Goldfinger” is the final face-off between Bond and Oddjob inside Fort Knox. Harold Sakata, Sean Connery, and stunt double/stunt coordinator Bob Simmons performed some of the most bruising action of the entire series during a fight which very nearly one-ups the spectacular fight sequence with Robert Shaw in “From Russia with Love.” Connery apparently sustained some kind of back injury during the Fort Knox fight, which Connery’s representatives are supposed to have used as a bargaining tool when negotiating his salary for the upcoming “Thunderball.”

Harold Sakata reportedly sustained a more serious injury during the moment when he is “electrocuted.” Apparently, something went wrong and Sakata’s hand made direct contact with burning pyrotechnic material. Such was Sakata’s commitment, he held on to the bar tenaciously until director Guy Hamilton yelled “cut!”

Another battered “Goldfinger” star was, of course, the Aston Martin DB5 which received plenty of “wear and tear in the field” during the Switzerland sequence. First, there is the encounter between Bond and the mysterious armed woman who turns out to be the revenge-seeking Tilly Masterson, in which Bond gets the upper hand via the “Ben-Hur”-inspired tire destroyer. Most of the car’s other devices get used during a later chase through Goldfinger’s home offices as he evades scores of North Korean and/or Chinese henchmen as well as a little old lady armed with a machine gun — a touch none other than Alfred Hithcock openly envied for its black humor.

Finally, Bond and Pussy Galore’s final confrontation with Goldfinger on board his private jet deserves some mention for visual bravado and questionable physics as a gun shot causes the plane to depressurize and plummet. While uberbaddie Goldfinger meets an undignified end, somehow Bond and Galore manage to escape with parachutes…how?

Speaking of physical action and Pussy Galore, the two have a famous/infamous tussle in the hay in one of Goldfinger’s horse barns, which naturally ends in romance. It was something of a cliché in fifties and sixties movies for the man to force a kiss on an initially resisting woman who, after a token struggle, passionately returns the hero’s affections. Today, of course, this kind of behavior is deemed sexual harassment at best and rape at worst. Intriguingly, Goldfinger’s seduction scene actually comes across more playful and a lot less offensive than most scenes of this type, perhaps because Pussy is arguably Bond’s equal in many respects. When she kisses Bond back, we’re pretty sure it’s not her weakness or fear, but her suddenly awakened feelings that are driving her. Pussy is nobody’s doormat.

The one-liners

Though the early Bond films certainly didn’t lack for a sense of humor, “Goldfinger” is the movie that really embedded funny and/or groan-inducing one-liners and quips into the Bond canon. Some are witty, some are dopey, some are snobby and intriguingly dated, but they are all a huge part of the fun of “Goldfinger.”

Bonita (annoyed by Bond’s gun): “Why do you always wear that thing?”
Bond: “I have a slight inferiority complex.”

Bond (surveying the freshly electrocuted corpse of his would-be killer): “Shocking, positively shocking!”

Goldfinger: “Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond, it may be your last.”

Bond (watching a deadly laser beam get ever closer to his crotch): “Do you expect me to talk?”
Goldfinger: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

Radio: “At the White House today, the president said that he was entirely satisfied…”
Bond (postcoitally canoodling with Jill Masterson): “That makes two of us.”

Bond (noticing his champagne has lost its chill:) “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.”

Pussy: “My name is Pussy Galore”
Bond: “I must be dreaming.”

Bond: “You’re a woman of many parts, Pussy.”

Cocktails and alcoholic beverages

Just as it ups the ante on action and sexiness, “Goldfinger” keeps the drinks coming. Not long after the tragic aftermath of that insufficiently chilled champagne, Bond gets into a colloquy on a “disappointing” Cognac with Colonel Smothers of the Bank of England. Bond offers a prompt diagnosis: “I’d say it was a 30 year old finé, indifferently blended, sir,……..with an overdose of Bon Bois.” Neither 99.9% of the audience, nor M understands what the hell Bond is talking about and Bond’s boss is clearly not pleased. (Bon Bois, it turns out, is a portion of the Cognac region of France whose grapes are considered slightly less fitting for a truly superior brandy than some others.)

Later, for the first time in any movie, it’s Bond himself who makes the most famous drink order in movie history. You’d think Bond would request a very strong coffee after awakening from a tranquilizer dart-induced sleep, Instead, he requests strong drink from one of Goldfinger’s prettier minions. “A martini, shaken, not stirred.” Without going into an extended colloquy on the debate among mixologists and cocktail connoisseurs, it’s interesting to note that the movie Bond usually orders a vodka martini with this suggestion, a somewhat less controversial choice than ordering a gin martini shaken, which he also does. Apparently Bond, like Ian Fleming, liked all his martinis to be shaken whether they were gin or vodka based.

Speaking of Fleming, in the books, Bond imbibed at least as much good old American bourbon as anything else and “Goldfinger,” with its rural American setting, gives Bond a chance to quaff what might be his actual favorite spirit. Indeed, he specifically mentions to Pussy that he understands the “bourbon and branch water is rather splendid here in Kentucky.” (“Branch water” is water from a stream, ideally the same stream where the bourbon manufacturer gets its water.) Later, Goldfinger offers Bond a “traditional, but satisfying” mint julep and Bond politely requests his be “sour mash, but not too sweet, please.” (Sour mash is a process using previously fermented material that is thought to result in somewhat sweeter tasting whiskey.) Later, Goldfinger checks to ask if Bond’s beverage is tart enough for his taste. The politeness between Bond and his supervillainous hosts can be quite touching.

Random facts

* It sounds modest by modern standards, but “Goldfinger” generated over $51 million at the U.S. box office. (Adjusted for inflation, it’s the 41st top grossing U.S. release of all time.) “Goldfinger” was, however, a worldwide box office bonanza by any definition. It escalated the already growing worldwide vogue for espionage films into the highest end of the movie stratosphere, generating endless knock-offs and spy spoofs made all over the world. The next film, “Thunderball,” generated even more cash, though “Goldfinger” may remain the most widely seen of the early Bond films.

* “Goldfinger” was one of only two Bond movies to win an Oscar. It went to sound effects editor Norman Wanstall. It received no other nominations.

* The most obvious plot change from Ian Fleming’s novel in the film version resulted from a point raised by many critics. Goldfinger’s original plan of simply robbing Fort Knox was physically impossible. As screenwriters Richard Maibum and Paul Dehn have Bond point out himself in the movie version, it would take weeks for even a large team of robbers to remove most of the gold from the Kentucky compound. Therefore, the diabolical plan in the film is to explode a relatively small but “very dirty” atomic bomb inside Fort Knox, making the gold deadly for nearly a century and therefore drastically raising the value of Goldfinger’s gelt.

* One of the most widely noted flubs in movie history occurs when Bond needs the help of an expert to disable Goldfinger’s atomic bomb at the end of the Fort Knox sequence. Bond says “Three more ticks and Mr. Goldfinger would’ve hit the jackpot.” However, an insert shot of the bomb indicates that exactly “007″ seconds were left on the counter before Bond and company would have been blown to nuclear bits. The visual joke with the timer was a last minute addition, and apparently nobody bothered to have Connery re-loop the dialogue.

* The name “Goldfinger” might sound made up, but Ian Fleming seems to have largely modeled his bad guy after the very real Erno Goldfinger, an infamously humorless avant garde architect with pro-Soviet sympathies whom Fleming despised. The real Mr. Goldfinger was, naturally, none too happy at the prospect of receiving endless prank calls and was ready to sue prior to the publication of the book, but pop-cultural disaster was averted with an out-of-court settlement. Ian Fleming had threatened to use an alternative title: “Goldprick.”

* Speaking of names and genitalia, the monicker “Pussy Galore” was just as problematic in 1963 as you might expect. “Dirty words” with double meanings were less commonly used and understood in the early sixties, but the non-feline meaning of “pussy” was the same then as today. TV promotions routinely failed to mention the name.

* “Goldfinger” was reportedly banned in Israel for a few months because Gert Fröbe had admitted in an interview to having been a member of the Nazi party before World War II. The ban is supposed to have been lifted after a Jewish family publicly thanked the actor for helping them to escape from Hitler’s Germany; it was possible that the actor had used his party membership to help smuggle a number of Jews out of the country. Fröbe, also a lifelong violin virtuoso died in 1988. In 2000, his image appeared on a German postage stamp.

* Other actors considered for the role of Auric Goldfinger included Orson Welles and actor and singer Theodore Bikel. The legendary Welles was rejected for asking for too much money, and his literally and figuratively outsize presence might have thrown the film off-balance. Screen tests reveal, however, that the relatively trim Bikel would have been a very reasonable choice.

* At the time of filming, Jill Masterson’s death-by-paint was believed to be a feasible method of murder. Indeed, just as described by Bond in the film, a small area of Shirley Eaton’s body was left unpainted to keep her safe. (A doctor was also on call.) Today, we know that any deaths caused by being painted head to toe are caused by heat exhaustion and certainly wouldn’t kill a person quickly enough to suit Goldfinger and Oddjob. Nevertheless, an obviously false urban legend arose that Eaton had died during the filming.

* The money conscious EON Team was forced to pay for one of the two Aston Martin DB5′s featured in the film. After the massive success of film and the notoriety of the car that resulted, it appears that Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman never had to budget for a car again.

* “Solo” is the name of the go-it-alone gangster who winds up compressed inside a compacted Lincoln. It’s no coincidence that the superspy played by Robert Vaughn on the hit American spy series, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is named Napoleon Solo. Ian Fleming suggested the name to the producers.

* “Goldfinger” was not only a free advertising bonanza for car manufacturer Aston Martin, the Ford Mustang driven by Tilly Masterson was also one of the legendary American car’s first film appearances. Apparently, Ford was more product-placement savvy and also supplied other cars, including the aforementioned Lincoln.

* Though he claims to have seen the movie only twice — at the premiere and many years later at the urging of his daughter — Sean Connery owes his lifelong love of golf to the film’s lengthy golf game sequence.

* “Goldfinger” plays down the part-time lesbianism of the “man-hating” Pussy Galore and her all-female flying circus, and makes a complete mystery of the proclivities of Tilly Masterson. In the book, however, the same-sex proclivities of Pussy and Tilly provide Fleming a chance to editorialize as Bond mediates on what he perceives as a growing and dangerous energy-sapping breakdown in traditional gender roles. (Bond seems to trace it all back to women being given the vote.) Similarly, Oddjob in the novel is not just a bad guy who happens to come from Korea, but is seen as being somehow typical of the Korean people. Fleming was not considered an enormous bigot by the standards of his time and place, but modern readers need to be prepared for some pretty outrageous sexism, racism, and homophobia.

The Romantic Ending

If “Goldfinger” is the model for modern action films, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic espionage thriller-comedy, “North by Northwest,” is the model for “Goldfinger.” If you’ve seen it, you know the ending essentially finesses it’s climactic literal cliffhanger with a bit of editing panache; Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are transported by the magic of cinema from the side of Mount Rushmore to a cozy train compartment.

In terms of sheer editorial bravado, the ending of “Goldfinger” one-ups Hitchcock as we move from Bond and Pussy in a rapidly plummeting airplane with no apparent hope of escape, to the two of them on what appears to be the nicest, safest looking island in the Atlantic with a couple of spent parachutes nearby. How the two were able to get into those parachutes and out of Goldfinger’s now-exploded plane in time to escape safely remains an eternal cinematic mystery. Clearly, Bond and Pussy owe their safety entirely to the skill of editor Peter Hunt.

When Pussy tries to signal to a search plane above, a perfectly relaxed Bond dissuades her. “Oh, no you don’t. This is no time to be rescued.” Ever mindful of his privacy nevertheless, Bond pulls one of the parachutes over the two of them as they consummate their relationship in the magic land of off-screen sex.

“James Bond Will Return”

“Goldfinger” continues the practice, begun in “From Russia With Love,” of teasing the title of the next film in the series. This time, the title card reads: “The end of ‘Goldfinger’ but James Bond will be back in ‘Thunderball.’” It appears that, probably owing to the ongoing legal dispute over “Thunderball,” the original UK title card, however, actually teased another Bond novel title, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” It would eventually be filmed without Sean Connery in the lead in 1969.