I'm not sure why I'm devoting so much space to trashing a movie that I like as much as Goldfinger. I guess I'm fascinated that I like it so much despite the fact that you could drive the Battlestar Galactica through some of its gaps in logic. Here's a message from Douglas McEwan…
All the stuff about the problems of killing Shirley Eaton by painting her gold are on the nose. The ones from the book you mentioned today bothered me when I first read the novel, back before the movie even came out. (My dad, who was given to monitoring my reading, though unlike Mother, he knew better than to try to censor or restrict my reading, also read it, and got caught up in explaining to me how the logistics of moving the gold out of Fort Knox were beyond impractical, even though Fleming devotes an entire chapter to explaining how to do it in great detail. That plot hole the movie fixed.)
But what got me in the movie was the Hood's Congress and the death of the gangster Solo. ("Hood's Congress" is the title of the first of three chapters covering Goldfinger's explanation of the heist to the hoods.) In the movie, he gives the hoods the most-elaborate show-and-tell explanation of his plan imaginable, with giant movie props and that flipping pool table/control panel, and the huge model that rises from the floor. He's spent thousands on this lecture's props, and then he just kills them afterwards. Why not kill them without the lecture? Also, in the book, he doesn't kill them; they all participate in the heist.
And then there's Solo, who gave his name to Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Literally. Fleming consulted on the series's creation and suggested the name from his book.) He wants his million in gold now! Goldfinger gives it to him, Oddjob drives him and a million dollars in gold (Hope that car had super-duper suspension) off, pulls over, shoots Solo, then has the car smushed into a cube, an oddly non-bloody cube given that a human being has been crushed within. I'd expect it to be running blood. Oddjob drives the cube back in a pick-up truck that appeared by magic, and we hear Goldfinger say: "Excuse me, I must extract my gold from Mr. Solo," which, I would think, would be difficult and bothersome.
Why not just take Solo out of the room and shoot him? What possible point was served by crushing him in the car with the gold? All it did was force Goldfinger into a tiresome chore of extracting the gold from the crushed car. It doesn't even constitute getting Solo's body off Goldfinger's property, since Oddjob just drove him back and his remains will be out again as they extract the gold. All Oddjob has accomplished is to make the gold hard to get to and to destroy gratuitously a very nice car. (In the second unit shots of the car driving about, Oddjob was doubled by Michael Wilson, who now produces the Bond movies.)
In the novel, Solo participates in the robbery of Fort Knox. Another hood refuses and demands immediate payment. Goldfinger sends him out of the room and presses a button to signal Oddjob. A few minutes later Oddjob returns and this scene ensues:
[Goldfinger said:] "I have received bad news. Our friend Mr. Helmut Springer has met with an accident. He fell down the stairs. Death was instantaneous."
"Ho, ho!" Mr. Ring's laugh was not a laugh. It was a hole in the face. "And what does that Slappy Hapgood, his torpedo, have to say about it?"
Goldfinger said gravely, "Alas, Mr. Hapgood also fell down the stairs and has succumbed to his injuries."
Mr. Solo looked at Goldfinger with new respect. He said softly, "Mister, you better get those stairs fixed before me and my friend Guilo come to use them."
Goldfinger said seriously, "The fault has been located. Repairs will be put in hand at once."
Vastly more logical, with no one forced to extract a million dollars worth of gold, in 1964 dollars, from a crushed Caddy. The hoods have a laugh about it. And we didn't get: "I have received bad news. Our friend Mr. Helmut Springer has met with an accident. He fell into a vat of gold paint and his pores suffocated."
All true. But let's get to the biggest leap in logic: How the hell does Goldfinger think he's going to get away with Operation Grand Slam? He and his private army fly in, kill hundreds of U.S. soldiers, detonate a nuclear device that will probably destroy most of a city and also render the gold in Fort Knox radio-active for 58 years, thereby enhancing many times over the value of the gold he owns.
Big question: Would it work like that? I mean, the U.S. still has the gold, almost all of which was probably going to sit in the vault for 58 years untouched, anyway. Would it really become valueless until the year 2022?
Bigger question: So, uh, what happens to Mr. Goldfinger when the combined military forces of the United States of America come after him, bomb the bejeesus out of every damn building he owns, kill him and seize his gold? I mean, what's he going to do? Have Oddjob throw his hat at the First Marine Division?
I mean, it's not like Goldfinger can cover up his involvement in all this just by killing James Bond. The authorities already know where Bond is and besides, Goldfinger has way too many employees to keep his role a secret. If China is involved, he might start World War III in the process but there's no way he's going to get away to enjoy his more-valuable-than-ever gold.
I know, I know. It's not supposed to make sense. I think I'm just impressed that the movie "works" in spite of the fact that so little of it makes sense. And I think I like the fact that when you come right down to it, this whole ghastly plan is not foiled by Bond's cunning or courage or expert spy work. It's foiled because Pussy Galore develops a crush on him…