Shaken but not Stirred:
Or
Blended Bonds
How the James Bond films
fit into the WNU

By Dennis E. Power

 

Goldfinger

May-June 1958

 

THE NOVEL: A Summary of the Novel

THE FILM: A Summary of the Film

THE BLENDED BOND: A recreation of the true events

POST MISSION DEBRIEFING

 

NOVEL SUMMARY

The novel Goldfinger begins with Bond in the Miami airport after having just finished a job in Mexico. He had been assigned to stop a Mexican source of illegal opium and heroin that had been entering Britain, a mission he carried out successfully. While at the airport he was approached by Junius Du Pont whom he had briefly met in the Casino Royale during his game against Le Chiffre.[1] Knowing that Bond was a whiz at cards and a sort of investigator he asked him if he would look into something for him. He would put him up free at a the best suite in the exclusive Floridania hotel Over a dinner of crab and champagne Du Pont explained that the had lost twenty-five thousand dollars in five days at two handed canasta, a card game where usually the odds favor both players coming out even. Du Pont said that he was a very good card player and could usually spot how someone was cheating. He had gone into the hole because he kept playing the man to see how he cheated.

They had always played outdoors but never at night. Auric Goldfinger claimed he could not sleep at night if he played cards. Goldfinger was a British Citizen domiciled at Nassau, age 42 but was evasive about his business other than being a broker. Du Pont did know however that Goldfinger was rich and did not need to cheat at cards. Du Pont offers Bond ten thousand dollars to discover how Goldfinger cheated at cards. Bond agrees to help him out for 48 hours but by then has to go to New York.

Du Pont introduced Bond to Goldfinger. Goldfinger was a short stocky, densely compacted man with and ugly face. He carroty red hair and golden tan and was hard of hearing, having a large hearing aid. During their introductions Bond learned that he and Goldfinger had the same golf handicap. He said they must play a game at the Royal St. Marks golf course sometime. Bond watched Goldfinger and Du Pont play cards for a few hands. During a break he told Du Pont he thought he had figured out how Goldfinger cheated. Bond went to his room which was directly above Goldfinger’s and retrieved his gun and a camera. Using a passkey he broke into Goldfinger’s room and found a girl on the balcony. A beautiful blonde dressed in black brassiere and panties who sunned her self and painted her nails as she watched the card game with binoculars and gave Goldfinger information about Du Pont’s cards over a radio. Bond took a picture of the set up and then sat down by the girl.

She did not want Bond to expose Goldfinger since she would lose her job. However Bond was getting paid to do it. He took the microphone and told Goldfinger that he had pictures of the set up that he could send to the FBI and Scotland Yard. However if paid wrote a check for cash for fifty thousand dollars Bond would. Call it even. He also wanted Goldfinger to book him a compartment on the Silver Meteor to New York and to have champagne and caviar in the room. He also said he would be taking Jill Masterson as a hostage to New York, so to be certain she was on the train.

On the way to New York Bond and Jill Masterson had made love several times. She said the Goldfinger seemed indifferent to his loss and told her to tell Bond he would be in England in a week and that they should have a game at Royal St. Marks. He also wanted to make certain Jill would return to him. She told Bond she would since she had no reason to fear Goldfinger. Bond gave her his ten thousand dollar fee.

When Bond returned to London, M assigned him to night duty manning the radio and monitoring dispatches for trouble. Bond used the down time to work on his book, Stay Alive, a treatise on unarmed combat. He also had records look up a man named Goldfinger. They did not find anything so he used an identicast to make up a picture of Goldfinger’s likeness and have it sent around. M called him into his office one morning before Bond went off duty. He told Bond had an appointment with a Colonel Smithers of the Bank of England. They were interested in gold smuggling. By a rather large coincidence Goldfinger was the man that the Bank of England was after.

Colonel Smithers filled Bond in on gold smuggling and on Goldfinger’s background. He was an immigrant from Latvia and had started out as a goldsmith and jeweler. He still maintained that position although a large scale. He had also invested in other ventures. One of his ships which was carrying fertilizer to India ran aground. Some of the sacks of fertilizer were tested and it was discovered that the fertilizer was really gold. Gold can be made to dissolve and the resulting precipitate is a brown powder. This powder can be reconstituted into gold ingots by melting at around a thousand degrees Centigrade. It was then that the Bank of England realized the Goldfinger was smuggling gold out of England. India was the most lucrative market for gold. However examination of his records and his businesses in England showed no unaccounted or hidden stocks of gold. Diligent research discovered that Goldfinger had gold deposits in Zurich, in Nassau, in Panama, in New York, he has twenty million pounds' worth of gold bars on safe deposit. The Bank of England wanted Goldfinger because he was depleting the stocks of Gold in England. When Bond returned to M, M gave him a piece of news that the Bank of England did not know about. Over the past fifteen years several of Goldfinger’s personal bars had turned up in various of MI6 operations, one in particular from a vault in Tangier belong to SMERSH. M suspected Goldfinger of being the banker or treasurer of SMERSH.

 

Bond drives up to Royals St. Marks to see if he can get a game with Goldfnger. Bond used to play there all the time when he was a teenager and knew the professional very well. Goldfinger drove up in a golden Rolls Royce Ghost.

 

After some convincing on Goldfinger’s part Bond agrees to play golf with him. During the course of the game Goldfinger informed Bond that Jill Masterston was no longer in his employ. Bond’s caddy catches Goldfinger’s caddy switching balls on one hole so Bond switched Goldfinger’s ball with a different brand on the last hole. This caused Goldfinger to lose the hole and the match. Bond has his check made out to cash. When Bond returned to his hotel room for a bath, he received a message from Goldfinger inviting him to his estate for dinner. Bond accepted. When Bond arrived Goldfinger excused himself stating he had been called away but would return presently. Bond took the opportunity to snoop. Traveling through the well-lit house he found nothing out of the ordinary except in a cabinet he heard an odd whirring. He saw that a 16 millimeter camera was running. Bond realized that Goldfinger had filmed his every move. Bond exposed the film. When Goldfinger returned he showed Bond a demonstration of his Korean Chauffeur’s martial arts. The tall chunky man was lighting quick in his movements. He demonstrated his strength by punching through an oaken stair railing. Bond was nearly hit by one of Oddjob’s blows. Oddjob also demonstrated the use of his bowler hat, tossing it at a door. It’s brim dug into the wood, hanging there until Oddjob retrieved it.

 

During dinner Goldfinger discussed karate and also told Bond why he had chosen Koreans as his servants. “They are the cruelest, most ruthless people in the world”

 

Bond hinted around that he was looking for a financial opportunity and to demonstrate he was not above delving into criminal activities pretended to have been part of the Mexican heroin racket he had just broken up. Although Bond was not certain he thought he had intrigued Goldfinger.

 

When Bond made his report, he was told that an anonymous tip to Scotland Yard disclosed the Bond had a large amount of undeclared dollars about that time Bond’s secretary had gotten an envelope filled with ten thousand dollars. They had also received word that Goldfinger had arranged for a special plane to take his car out of the country. Bond made arrangements to go to the airport and examine the car while it went through customs. He placed a homing device in its toolbox.

 

Bond used the homing device to trail Goldfinger through France. While in France Bond also saw a Triumph driven by a young woman, he had seen the same Triumph at the Ferryman airport. He was not certain if the Triumph was trailing him or Goldfinger. Near Lyons Goldfinger stopped for a picnic lunch on a small bridge. Bond saw him plant something under the Bridge. It made sense since Lyons had a strong communist cell. After Goldfinger had left Bond examined the bridge and found a hidden gold bar, which he took. He once again took up the trail of Goldfinger who he believed was heading into Switzerland. Noticing that the girl in the Triumph was right behind him, Bond deliberately reversed into her car. He damaged her fan to the point it had to be replaced. Bond agreed to pay for all damages. He told her that he wished he could stay and see that she was set up all right but he had to get to Geneva. The girl who said her name was Tilly Soames, said she also needed to be in Geneva and asked Bond to give her a ride.

 

During the short ride Bond discovered that Tilly Soames was a golfer who planned to play Swiss Women's Open Championship at Divonne. Bond thought it was a plausible story but was not certain if it were true. At Geneva Bond had to drop the girl off and continue after Goldfinger. The yellow Rolls Royce traveled to Coppet where a small business named Enterprises Auric. Bond saw a crew disassemble the Rolls Royce.

 

In Geneva he made inquiries about Enterprises Auric with a Universal Exports branch office. He discovered that Enterprises Auric was a firm that manufactured metal furniture for railroads and airlines. Their biggest client was Mecca airlines, a privately owned charter airline to India. Bond pieced together what Goldfinger was up to. He smuggled the gold out of England disguised as the armor plating of his Rolls Royce, it was then melted down by Enterprises Auric into metal furniture for Mecca Airlines and was thus smuggled into India.

 

Bond decided that he had enough information on Goldfinger to accomplish his mission and decided to return to England after one last look at Enterprises Auric. As he approached the woods above the factory however he saw Tilly Soames with a rifle. He hurried over to stop her before she made a muck of his mission. After wresting the gun away from her she revealed that she wanted to kill Goldfinger for what he did to her sister. Her sister was Jill Masterston and after she had returned to Goldfinger he had painted her body gold and she died of skin suffocation. Goldfinger had a woman a month, always painted gold but always allowed for a patch of skin to remain free to that there would not be any ill effects. Realizing she was dying Jill had called Tilly and told her about James Bond. She also gave Tilly a ring that Bond recognized. As Bond examined the ring it was shot out of his hand by arrow. Oddjob stood behind them with a drawn bow. Bond hid the rifle as they stood up to follow Oddjob.

 

They were taken to Goldfinger’s office and Bond went on the offensive. He told Goldfinger he had trailed him because of his dirty trick of getting the police after him for winning their bet. Goldfinger did not buy that explanation. He said “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Miami, Sandwich and now Geneva. I propose to wring the truth out of you.”

 

Bond lunged at Goldfinger across his desk and managed to get his hands around his throat before Oddjob knocked him out. When Bond came to he was strapped to a table inside the metal works. A bright hot lamp shone directly into his face. Tilly Masterston was strapped to a chair. Goldfinger explained that Bond could either tell him why he was hounding him and suffer an easy quick death or be silent and suffer a prolonged agonizing death.

 

Bond claimed that many people knew where they were but Goldfinger said that did not matter since when he was done he could dispose of their bodies in the ovens.

 

Oddjob started to massage Bond, a massage that caused excruciating pain. Goldfinger started a saw that slowly crept toward Bond at the speed of an inch a minute, starting at his feet. Bond protested that they were innocent people and could tell him nothing more. Bond said that he and the girl would work for Goldfinger, a notion Goldfinger found amusing. Bond caused himself to black out to prevent from being forced to talk.

 

When Bond awoke he was in a hospital room being treated for a nervous breakdown, his bills being paid by Goldfinger. Bond tried to convince the Doctor that he and the girl were prisoners of Goldfinger not employees. Goldfinger explained to the Doctor that part of the breakdown manifested in a persecution mania. Bond was given a sedative and placed into a private ambulance. He awoke in a windowless room with a bed and a table and a chair. The bed was a bunk with drawers in it. His clothing was inside. He quickly dressed. There were two doors, one of which had a handle. He opened it and found that it lead into a lavatory with another door on the opposite side. Opening it he discovered that the girl had a room similar to his.

 

When Oddjob looked in the room Bond told him he wanted some food and he wanted to see Goldfinger. After Bond finished eating, Goldfinger came into the room holding a gun and told Bond that ordinarily he would have eliminated Bond and Tilly Masterston but as it happened he was in an enterprise that could use some extra help. If Bond would agree to help his payment would be one million pounds in gold. If he did not he would be killed. Having no real choice Bond agreed to work for Goldfinger. He was told that their rooms were in the warehouse of the Hi-speed Trucking Corporation. They would be confined there until the operation was underway. Goldfinger told Bond he planned to rob Fort Knox. When Bond began to protest how insane that was Goldfinger told him that there would be a meeting at which Bond’s concerns could be answered.

 

Bond went into the girl’s room to convince her to play along. He told her he was from Scotland Yard and the best way to scotch Goldfinger’s plans was to go along. Reluctantly she agreed but also added that if Bond touched her she would kill him.

 

Their first assignment came when a typist’s desk was brought in. Bond was to type out ten copies of the meeting’s agenda. The guest list was made up of mobsters from across America, including from the Spangled Mob that Bond had run up against before. Bond and Tilly were fetched twenty minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. They were led into a large meeting room with a round table with comfortable armchairs. Off to the side was buffet with champagne and caviar.

 

Tilly was told to take notes.  Bond was told to size up the various members of the meeting for anyone who might not be totally committed to the enterprise. Bond asked who Pussy Galore of Harlem was. She was a leader of a gang of lesbian criminals, called the Cement Mixers. Formerly they had been an acrobatic team but they had branched out into crime becoming cat burglars and jewel thieves.

 

Goldfinger established his criminal credentials. He had founded and subsequently disposed of the "Golden Poppy Distributors" who operated out of Hongkong as well as 'The "Happy Landings Travel Agency". He then laid out his plan to rob Fort Knox to the initially dubious gangsters. First the armed forces around the Fort would be taken care by doping the water supply with a narcotic that will render everyone senseless for three days. They will hijack a train that runs up to Fort Knox and carry all of the necessary manpower inside who will be dressed as Red Cross workers and nurses. To open the Bullion Vault Goldfinger had obtained a “clean” nuclear warhead with minimal radioactive yield. After which the gold bullion would be loaded onto one hundred ten-ton trucks or some twenty six-wheel heavy industry road transporters.

 

All of the mobsters save one went for the audacious plan. The one who refused Helmut Springer left the room followed by Oddjob. It was later announced by Goldfinger that Springer and his bodyguard had both broken their necks by falling down the stairs.

 

To Bond’s amusement Tilly Masterson was quite taken with Pussy Galore, which explained why she had been so stand offish to Bond.

 

After the meeting broke up Bond and Goldfinger went over some of the logistics for the plan. One of Bond’s duties was to figure out the timetable for how long it would take to disseminate the narcotic in the water supply. Goldfinger revealed that the narcotic was actually GB, one of the most potent nerve gases in the world. It would kill 60,000 people. Bond also pointed out that it would be impossible for the gold be carried off. Goldfinger replied that he would use the train to Norfolk Virginia where a Soviet cruiser would be docked on a goodwill mission. His gold would be loaded on out of the country before the day had passed. As to what happened to the other gold and the other participants, he did not care. They were necessary for manpower and necessary for a diversion.

 

Bond realized that this was a SMERSH operation with Goldfinger at its head. Bond and Masterston worked diligently for Goldfinger, Bond wracking his brains on how to get free and Tilly putting her trust in Pussy Galore. Goldfinger had Bond come along with him on a chartered flight that surveyed the area around Fort Knox. Bond took this opportunity to post a note to Felix Leiter by taping it to the underside of the toilet seat of the airplane.

 

On the appointed day, Goldfinger, his associates and their crews all assembled dressed as Red Cross workers heading for Fort Knox. The Superintendent of the Station told Dr. Gold that the news out of Fort Knox was not good and that no trains were running past Louisville. However he would make certain their train got through.

 

As the train rolled through the area near Fort Knox they saw people lying on the ground as if they had just fallen over. There were car wrecks and mothers laying next to the carriages of their crying infants. A pink froth cover the lips of several of the victims. Bond used the bathroom and took out a knife that was hidden in the heel of his shoe. He told Tilly to stay clear of him because there might be some shooting. Tilly said she would go to be near Pussy.

 

At Fort Knox once the bomb was brought out of the train all of the dead solider’s sprang to life. Bond grabbed the girl and jumped off of the train running away from Goldfinger and Oddjob. Tilly fought with Bond wanted to find Pussy. Oddjob threw his hat and hit Tilly in the nape of the neck, dropping her.

 

Felix Leiter and a group of Marines showed up at that point and Goldfinger and his cronies fled. The army began mopping up operations.

 

Two days later Felix Leiter drove James Bond to Idlewild Airport to catch the evening BOAC Monarch to London. Someone had found Bond’s letter and contacted Felix. Felix had used his contacts with the CIA to get in touch with the FBI and the President. The CIA had also gotten in touch with M. Goldfinger’s telegram to Universal Exports about Bond’s leaving their service to work for him was a flag. MI6 had gone over Bond’s trail and uncovered enough evidence to shut down Goldfinger’s gold smuggling operation. Goldfinger, Pussy nor any of the major hoods had been captured

 

While waiting for his plane Bond heard an announcement for him to report to the BOAC ticket counter. When he reported he was told that he had to receive a shot against typhoid. He went with a Doctor to a side room to get an injection and almost immediately fell unconscious. He awoke on a plane sitting in a chair with his arms bound to the chair staring at the face of Pussy Galore in a stewardess outfit.

 

Goldfinger showed up in the uniform of a BOAC captain. He asked Bond how he did it, how did he ruin his plans. Bond told him he would talk but only if his arms were untied and he was allowed to have a drink and cigarettes. Goldfinger agreed and told Oddjob if Bond made one move towards the cabin door to kill him immediately. When Bond got his bourbon and cigarettes there was a note from Pussy that said I am with you.

 

When asked where they were headed Goldfinger told Bond that he had managed to get his personal hoard of gold away from Fort Knox. He had made arrangement to go to Moscow with his hoard of gold.

 

After Bond told him a censored story of how he had gotten onto Goldfinger, he decided to make his move before it was too late. As soon as Oddjob was distracted Bond broke the window above Oddjob’s head. Oddjob was sucked out of the plane by the decompressive force. As the plane tumbled from the explosive decompression Goldfinger fired his gun at Bond. Bond grappled with him and choked Goldfinger to death.

 

After Bond informed the two pilots that Goldfinger was dead and they were to land as soon as possible. They had to make a landing in the ocean. Bond made arrangements to be picked up as soon as they crash landed. The plane cracked as it landed spilling Goldfinger’s gold in the ocean. The novel closes with Pussy Galore making romantic overtures towards Bond.

 

FILM SUMMARY

The film Goldfinger opens up with James Bond making an underwater swim in a wet suit, which had a duck decoy on top of it. He emerges from the water near a complex of large liquid storage tanks. After disabling a guard he enters one of the tankers and sets a timed bomb near several tubes of nitroglycerine. Bond swims back and unzips his wetsuit revealing a white Tuxedo underneath. Entering a cantina he is given the eye by one of the dancing girls. A great explosion occurs outside the cantina and everyone rushes to see what has happened. A man at the bar congratulates Bond. He tells him that it is too dangerous for him to return to his room. There was a flight leaving for Miami in two hours and he should be on it. Bond says at least Senor Gonzales will not be using his banana oil refinery as a cover for his opium any longer.

Before going to the airport Bond says he has some unfinished business. He goes to the small apartment of the cantina dancer who is just finishing a bath and is wrapped in a towel. As Bond embraces her she complains about his shoulder holster, he hangs it on the wall. As he kisses her he notices, reflected in her eye, that a man is sneaking up behind him with a truncheon. Bond swings the girl around so that it she who gets hit with the truncheon. He grapples with the man and tosses him in the bathtub. The man grabs Bond’s gun out of the holster and aims it at Bond. Bond sweeps an electric fan into the tub, electrocuting his attacker.

In Miami, Bond is contacted by Felix Leiter while in the process of getting a massage by a girl named Dink. Leiter tells Bond that Bond is to watch Auric Goldfinger. Goldfinger has been taking a man named Zimmer for thousands of dollars at gin. As Bond watches Zimmer doubles his stakes, feeling that he has to win sometime. Goldfinger takes his usual seat facing the hotel, needing to be in sun for his tan. As Bond watches Goldfinger play he looks around and figures out the line of sight between the hotel and Goldfinger’s chair.

He walks over to the hotel and counts room doors. Reaching the one he is seeking Bond grabs a passing maid and uses her passkey. She tells him that this is Mr. Goldfinger’s room. He tells her he has a surprise for him. Inside the room Bond sees a beautiful girl sitting on the balcony looking down at the pool with binoculars. She speaks into a radio, describing a hand of cards. Bond reaches over and switches the radio off. After charming the girl, he uses the radio to tell Goldfinger that unless Goldfinger wants to involve the Miami police he will lose fifty grand to Mr. Zimmer. Goldfinger agrees reluctantly. Since Goldfinger will be occupied for sometime, Bond invites the girl, Jill Masterson to dinner in his room.

After a romantic tryst, Bond goes to his suite kitchen to get another bottle of champagne. He is knocked unconscious by a karate chop wielded by a short but muscular Asian.[2]

When Bond awakens he founds Jill on the bed her skin completely covered by gold paint. She has died from skin suffocation. Bond calls Leiter who squares things with the Miami police.

In London Bond is reprimanded by M. He was only to watch Goldfinger not steal his girl. Bond affirms that he wants to stay on the case but M says that unless Bond can do it coldly and rationally, then it might be better if 008 replaced him. Bond says he will stay on the case as M suggests if he knows what it is about. M tells Bond to meet him for a black tie dinner with the Directors of The Bank of England. They explain that Goldfinger has deposits of gold in various countries of the world, he moves them from country to country manipulating the gold market. Although the Bank of England cannot prove it, they believe he is smuggling gold illegally, and removing gold reserves from England. They want the Secret Service to provide this proof if possible.

As bait they provide Bond with a gold bar taken from a Nazi gold found in Lake Toplitz. M tells Bond he can check the gold bar out from Q branch along with the rest of his equipment. At Q branch Bond is given an Aston Martin tricked out with machine guns, smoke, oil, saws and a passenger ejection seat.

Bond arranges to play Goldfinger a round of golf at his club (how does he know where Goldfinger golfs?). Goldfinger had driven up to the golf course in a yellow Roll Royce. His chauffeur and caddy was a burly Asian in a suit and bowler hat. During the match Goldfinger asks Bond what his game was, why he had arranged to gold with him. Bond drops the gold bar at Goldfinger’s feet. Goldfinger immediately knows about the gold bar and asks if Bond can get more. Bond says yes. Goldfinger insists that Bond put up the gold bar as a wager. Goldfinger will put up the cash equivalent.  Bond agrees however Goldfinger begins to cheat. When his ball is shot into the rough and cannot be found, rather than take a stroke, his caddy drops another ball and claims that it was the one that Goldfinger had shot. Bond knows this is a lie because he was standing on Goldfinger’s ball. Bond had found a similar ball to Goldfinger’s and put it in his pocket. At the last hole Bond switched Goldfinger’s ball with the similar one. Although Bond lost the hole, he won the match when he pointed out that Goldfinger had been playing with the wrong ball, probably he had picked up when his ball was lost in the rough. Goldfinger angrily pays Bond his money. He tells Bond it would be best for him if their paths did not cross again. He had Oddjob show him what happened to people who bothered Goldfinger. Oddjob took off his bowler had and tossed it at a stone statue. The bowler’s brim sliced through the statue’s neck.

While Goldfinger was writing the check, Bond planted a homing device on the yellow Rolls. Bond tracked Goldfinger to an airport where he and his car boarded a plane for Geneva. Bond was on the next plane out. In Geneva Bond picked up Goldfinger’s trail. A girl in a convertible sped by Bond. When Goldfinger stopped for a picnic lunch along one of the rest spots on the mountain road Bond parked at the stop above him and observed him. A gunshot nearly hit Goldfinger heard it and hurried back to his car. Bond ran back to his car. The girl in the convertible came roaring up the road once more. Bond used the saws on his car to shear through her tires and cause her to have a blow out. He offered to give her a ride to the nearest garage. Among her luggage is a briefcase with the initials T.M. on it. She tells Bond her name is Tilly Soames. Bond leaves Tilly at the garage since it would be twenty-four hours before her car could be repaired.

Bond returns to looking for Goldfinger’s car and finds that the Rolls has been taken to a company named Auric Enterprises. Bond walks around on the hills around the factory and with binoculars scopes out the layout of the complex. At night he sneaks into the factory grounds. In a metal shop he sees them take apart Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce. He hears Goldfinger explain to a young Chinese man that the body of the car was actually two tons of pure 19 karat gold. Goldfinger mentions Operation Grand Slam. Returning to the woods, Bond spots Tilly with a sniper rifle. He stops her from shooting. She tells him she wanted to kill Goldfinger because he killed her sister Jill. Bond and Tilly’s confrontation had set off alarms and there were several men around Bond’s car. They manage to get into the car and are chased. However when they come a dead end Bond tells Tilly to run into the woods, he will hold them off. As Tilly runs into the woods however Oddjob takes off his bowler hat and flings it, breaking her neck. 

Bond is captured a gun man keeping him covered gets into his backseat and forces Bond to drive back to the factory. When the opportunity arises Bond uses the passenger eject button to rid himself of the gunman. He then attempts to elude his pursuers by weaving in and out of the buildings of the factory complex. Taking a wrong turn however Bond smashes his car is knocked senseless.

He awakens strapped to a table made of solid gold. Goldfinger greets him as 007. An industrial laser capable of melting metal starts to cut the metal table in half, starting between Bond’s feet. When it slowly moves upward, Goldfinger intending to slowly burn and bisect Bond. Stalling for time Bond mentions Operation Grandslam. Goldfinger tells him it may be something that he overhead. Bond asks if he can afford to take that chance. Goldfinger hesitates and one of his assistants shoots Bond with a dart gun.

Regaining consciousness once more Bond finds himself gazing into the face of a beautiful woman who says her name is Pussy Galore. They are aboard Mr. Goldfinger’s personal jet headed towards Baltimore. Pussy is Goldfinger’s personal pilot and the plane has an all woman crew. Bond is watched as he freshens up in the lavatory, although he is aware of the fact and manages to activate his homing signal. When Bond returns from the lavatory, Bond holds a gun on him trying to get him to tell her all he knows about Operation Grandslam. Bond tells her that she is bluffing since if a gun went off in the pressurized plane cabinet it would cause explosive depressurization. In Baltimore Bond has a gun held on him as he escorted to a car driven by Oddjob. As they are leaving the airport he sees a group of planes fly and land in formation. Bond remarks on how well they fly. Pussy told him she trained them herself. The car driving Bond takes him to a horse farm owned by Goldfinger. Bond’s car is just one of many arriving. Bond is escorted to a cell built beneath the stables. As Bond is held captive Goldfinger has a meeting with several mob leaders from across America. Goldfinger owes them each one million in gold, he promises to increase that substantially, if they go along with his plan. He tells them of his plan to rob Fort Knox. The guards and support troops will be rendered unconscious by a sleeping gas courtesy of Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus. An industrial laser will cut through the outer door, the vault door would be opened by an atomic bomb.

Bond escaped from his cell by fooling his guard into opening the door. The meeting was being directly above the passage way near his cell and Bond overheard the plan. Bond quickly wrote out a note of what he had heard. However Pussy found him listening and marched him away at gun point.

One of the mob leaders, a Mr. Solo decided not to buy into the Fort Knox job. Goldfinger had him escorted out of the room and had Oddjob load his car with gold bullion and drive him to the airport. Pussy came up to Goldfinger with Bond in tow and told him that Bond had been listening in. Bond slipped his note and the homing device into Mr. Solo’s pocket. Oddjob drove away from the farm followed by Leiter and his partner. Oddjob did not take Solo to the airport but rather to a junkyard where Mr. Solo was killed. The car was compacted into a cube and dropped into a waiting pickup truck, which Oddjob then drove back to the horse farm.

While Oddjob was driving Mr. Solo away, Goldfinger closed off the room where the meeting had been held and gassed all of the mob leaders, killing them.

When Oddjob drove up in the pickup with the crushed car inside Goldfinger told Bond he had to separate his gold from the late Mr. Solo. Goldfinger was told that there were people observing the farm. He believed that they were looking for Bond and so made every effort to make it appear that Bond was there of his own free will. Goldfinger invited Bond to have a drink with him on his patio while Pussy changed into something more alluring. Bond told Goldfinger that he could not depend on an anesthetic to work on all of the people the same way. He had made some calculations that proved it would be impossible for Goldfinger to steal the gold, it would take 28 days to unload the vault and Goldfinger would have perhaps hours before the area was sealed off by the United States Army. Goldfinger informed Bond that the agent that Pussy and her pilots would be spraying was a highly lethal but short lived nerve gas and he had no intention of removing the gold. Bond had recognized the young Chinese Goldfinger had been talking to at Enterprise Auric as Ling, an expert on nuclear fission., he deducted that the Red Chinese had given Goldfinger a bomb which he intended to use to make the gold radioactive. The Red Chinese would get economic chaos in the West and Goldfinger’s gold reserves would jump in value. Goldfinger congratulates Bond on his deductive reasoning. Pussy Galore arrives at their table to show Bond around the farm. Leiter and his partner see this and are convinced that Bond does not need help.

Pussy leads Bond into one of the barns and immediately becomes cold and standoffish, physically rebuffing Bond’s advances. After a short impromptu sparring session of judo, Bond gets the best of Pussy and they have a romantic encounter.

Early in the morning several piper cubs take off from the airfield near Fort Knox and spray gas from underneath their planes. The soldiers and citizens of the fort and nearby towns fall down in their tracks. When the planes land and phase one is completed, Goldfinger’s crew, which consists of Koreans and Chinese, drive up to the electrified gate of Fort Knox and dynamite it open. Goldfinger arrives by helicopter with Pussy flying. They drive around to the loading docks and laser open one of the dock doors using a large industrial laser. Once access has been gained, the bomb is loaded onto a wheeled car and pushed into the complex and into the open vault. Bond is chained to the atomic bomb, which is then set to go off.

Goldfinger and his men leave the vault to find that they are under attack. When the atomic bomb had been pushed into the Fort, all of the dead soldiers rose up and attacked Goldfinger’s men. Goldfinger took off his overcoat revealed that he was dressed in the uniform of a US Army general, he shoots several of his own men including Ling and rushes to the helicopter, yelling he will secure it. It takes off with Goldfinger in it.

At the first sign of trouble Oddjob shut the vault door, locking inside himself, Bond and another of Goldfinger’s men, the one who had triggered the bomb. In a panic the bomb technician tried to disarm the bomb. Oddjob grabbed him and threw him over a railing so that he landed on a floor two stories down. Knowing that this man had the key, Bond hurried over to him and searched his pockets for the key to his handcuffs. Oddjob was still two stories above Bond and hurried down towards him. Bond unlocked the handcuffs but was unable to disarm the bomb before Oddjob reached him. Oddjob threw Bond around the room as if he were a child, shrugging off Bond’s attacks. Bond barely dodged the thrown bowler hat which cut a live electrical cable. Bond grabbed the hat and threw it at Oddjob, missing him but lodging it in a metal gate. When Oddjob pulled it out, Bond touched the electrical cable to the metal gate, electrocuting Oddjob. Bond then hurried over to the atomic bomb but could not fathom its workings, he was going to yank out a handful of cables when a man came rushing over with Felix Leiter pushed Bond aside and hit the off switch.

Bond was taken to the nearby airport where he was to be flown on a jet for a congratulatory meeting with the President. Bond discovered shortly after taking off that Goldfinger had commandeered the plane. Bond told Goldfinger that he would not dare shoot him since that would depressurize the plane, Taken aback by this news Bond grabbed for Goldfinger’s pistol and made it discharge. Goldfinger was sucked out of the plane window. Pussy could not get back control of the plane and she and Bond had to parachute to safety. Hidden by the parachute, they had a romantic encounter, oblivious to the search parties looking for them.

THE BLENDED BOND: A recreation of the true events

The film version of Goldfinger began the trend of Bond films where the film would differ substantially from the original novel. In most cases this was because the later films were actually depicting an entirely different Bond adventure while using names from the novel. Although Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service did adhere more closely to the book than some of the later films there were variances from the novel to the film. In the case of Goldfinger, Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, these differences were a combination of correcting some of the mistruths that Fleming had added into the film, while also making changes for the sakes of dramatic license.

One of the major changes from reality that Ian Fleming had to make when writing the novel of Goldfinger was in portraying Operation Grandslam. It is a testament to his abilities that makes Goldfinger’s scheme seem plausible when in reality it was not. Close examination reveals that Goldfinger’s plot to steal the gold out of Fort Knox was impossible. There was simply not enough time or manpower that would have allowed Goldfinger to steal Fort Knox’s gold. Fleming had to concoct a scheme that was seemingly plausible yet really impossible for the simple reason that when Fleming wrote the book the United States was still making preparations to safeguard Fort Knox against the method that Goldfinger and his associates actually used.

By the time that the film was released, these security measures were in place. It was also believed depicting the actual plot in a work of “fiction” would make Operation Grandslam seem fantastical. Thus any lingering “rumors” about the gold supply actually having been threatened would be dismissed as the work of an active imagination and so make it unlikely that anyone would try to recreate this scenario.

Still to further the illusion that Operation Grandslam was entirely fictitious, although the film corrected some of the implausibilities of Fleming’s depiction, the film deliberately added in elements that made little sense so far as the execution of the plan went.

Neither the film nor novel correctly addressed the relationship between James Bond and Pussy Galore so we will endeavor to do so in this piece.

In Mexico after James Bond made an underwater swim in a black wet suit, he emerged from the water near a complex of large liquid storage tanks. After disabling a guard he entered one of the tankers and set a timed bomb near several tubes of nitroglycerine. Swimming back to where he started from Bond unzipped his wetsuit revealing a white tuxedo underneath. Entering a cantina he was given the eye by one of the dancing girls. A great explosion from outside shook the cantina and everyone rushed to see what had happened. One of the MI5’s men from station M met Bond at the bar and congratulated him but also told him that it was too dangerous for him to return to his room. There was a flight leaving for Miami in two hours and he should be on it. Bond commented that at least Senor Gonzales would not be using his banana oil refinery as a cover for his opium trafficking any longer.

As he left the cantina, Bond said he had some unfinished business to complete before going to the airport. Bond entered the small apartment of the cantina dancer who had previously given him the eye. She had had just finished a bath and stood wrapped in a towel. As Bond embraced her she complained that his shoulder holster was hurting her. Bond hung it on a clothes hook on the wall. As he kissed her he noticed, reflected in her eye, was a man sneaking up behind him with a truncheon. Bond swung the girl around so that it she who was hit with the truncheon. He grappled with the man and tossed him in the filled bathtub. The man grabbed Bond’s gun out of the hanging shoulder holster and aimed it at Bond. Bond swept an electric fan into the tub, electrocuting his attacker.

While at the airport he was approached by Junius Du Pont whom he had briefly met in the Casino Royale during his game against Le Chiffre. Knowing that Bond was a whiz at cards and a sort of investigator Du Pont asked Bond if he would look into something for him. Du Pont would put Bond up free at a the best suite in the exclusive Floridania hotel. Over a dinner of crab and champagne Du Pont explained that the had lost twenty-five thousand dollars in five days at two handed canasta, a card game where usually the odds favor both players coming out even. Du Pont said that he was a very good card player and could usually spot how someone was cheating. He had gone into the hole because he kept playing the man to see how he cheated.

They had always played outdoors but never at night. Auric Goldfinger claimed he could not sleep at night if he played cards. Goldfinger was a British Citizen domiciled at Nassau, age 42 but was evasive about his business other than being a broker. Du Pont did know however that Goldfnger was rich and did not need to cheat at cards. Du Pont offers Bond ten thousand dollars to discover how Goldfinger cheated at cards. Bond agrees to help him out for 48 hours but by then had to go to New York.

Du Pont introduced Bond to Goldfinger. Goldfinger was a short stocky, densely compacted man with an ugly face. He had carroty red hair and golden tan and was hard of hearing, having a large hearing aid. During their introductions Bond learned that he and Goldfinger had the same golf handicap. Goldfinger said they must play a game at the Royal St. Marks golf course sometime. Bond watched Goldfinger and Du Pont play cards for a few hands. During a break he told Du Pont he thought he had figured out how Goldfinger cheated. Bond went to his room, which was directly above Goldfinger’s and retrieved his gun and a camera. Using a passkey he broke into Goldfinger’s room and found a girl on the balcony sunning herself on a deck chair as she watched the card game through binoculars and gave Goldfinger information about Du Pont’s cards over a radio. Bond took a picture of the set up and then sat down by the beautiful blonde dressed in black brassiere and panties.

She did not want Bond to expose Goldfinger since she would lose her job. However Bond was getting paid to do it. He took the microphone and told Goldfinger that he had pictures of the set up that he could send to the FBI and Scotland Yard. However if Goldfinger wrote a check for cash for fifty thousand dollars Bond would. Call it even. He also wanted Goldfinger to book him a compartment on the Silver Meteor to New York and to have champagne and caviar sent to the compartment. He also said he would be taking Jill Masterson as a hostage to New York, so to be certain she was on the train.

On the way to New York Bond and Jill Masterson had made love several times. She said Goldfnger seemed indifferent to his loss and told her to tell Bond he would be in England in a week and that they should have a game at Royal St. Marks. Goldfinger also wanted to make certain Jill would return to him. She told Bond she would since she had no reason to fear Goldfinger. Bond gave her his ten thousand dollar fee.

On the eve before they were both to return to London, Bond and Jill Masterston spent a romantic evening at his hotel.  After a romantic tryst, Bond went to his suite kitchen to get another bottle of champagne. He was knocked unconscious by a karate chop wielded by a short but muscular Asian.

When Bond awakened he found Jill on the bed. Her skin was completely covered by gold paint.[3] She died from skin suffocation.[4] Bond called M who squared things with the New York police.

Angry at Bond’s carelessness when Bond returned to London M assigned him to night duty manning the radio and monitoring dispatches for trouble. Bond used the down time to work on his book, Stay Alive, a treatise on unarmed combat. He also had records look up a man named Goldfinger. They did not find anything so he used an identicast to make up a picture of Goldfinger’s likeness and have it sent around. M called him into his office one morning before Bond went off duty. He told Bond had an appointment with a Colonel Smithers of the Bank of England. They were interested in gold smuggling. By a rather large coincidence Goldfinger was the man that the Bank of England was after.[5]

Colonel Smithers filled Bond in on gold smuggling and on Goldfinger’s background. He was an immigrant from Latvia and had started out as a goldsmith and jeweler. He still maintained that position although a large scale. He had also invested in other ventures. One of his ships carrying fertilizer to India ran aground. Some of the sacks of fertilizer were tested and it was discovered that the fertilizer was really gold. Gold could be dissolved with the resulting precipitate being a brown powder. This powder could be reconstituted into gold ingots by melting at around a thousand degrees Centigrade. It was then that the Bank of England realized the Goldfinger was smuggling gold out of England. India was the most lucrative market for gold. However examination of his records and his businesses in England showed no unaccounted or hidden stocks of gold. Diligent research discovered that Goldfinger had gold deposits in Zurich, in Nassau, in Panama, in New York, he has twenty million pounds' worth of gold bars on safe deposit. The Bank of England wanted Goldfinger because he was depleting the stocks of gold in England. When Bond and M returned to MI5, M gave him a piece of news that the Bank of England did not know about. Over the past fifteen years several of Goldfinger’s personal bars had turned up in several of MI6 operations, one in particular from a vault in Tangier belonged to SMERSH. M suspected Goldfinger of being the banker or treasurer of SMERSH.[6]

As bait the Bank of England provided Bond with a gold bar taken from a Nazi gold treasure found in Lake Toplitz. M told Bond he could check the gold bar out from Q branch along with the rest of his equipment. At Q branch Bond was given an Aston Martin tricked out with machine guns, smoke, oil, saws and a passenger ejection seat.

Bond drove up to Royals St. Marks to see if he could get a game with Goldfnger. Bond used to play there all the time when he was a teenager and knew the professional very well. Goldfinger drove up in a golden Rolls Royce Ghost.

 

After some convincing on Goldfinger’s part Bond agreed to play golf with him. Goldfinger’s chauffeur and caddy was a burly Asian in a suit and bowler hat.

During the match Goldfinger asked Bond what his game was, why he had arranged to golf with him. Bond dropped the gold bar at Goldfinger’s feet. Goldfinger immediately recognized the gold bar and knew its history. He asked if Bond could get more. Bond said yes. Goldfinger insisted that Bond put up the gold bar as a wager. Goldfinger would put up the cash equivalent. 

 

During the course of the game Goldfinger informed Bond that Jill Masterston was no longer in his employ. Goldfinger taunted Bond, attempting to throw him off his game.

 

When this ploy failed, Goldfinger began cheating. His ball was shot into the rough and could be found, rather than take a stroke, his caddy dropped another ball and claimed that it was the one that Goldfinger had shot. Bond knew this was a lie because he was standing on Goldfinger’s ball. Bond had found a similar ball to Goldfinger’s and put it in his pocket. At the last hole Bond switched Goldfinger’s ball with the similar one. Although Bond lost the hole, he won the match when he pointed out that Goldfinger had been playing with the wrong ball, probably he had picked up when his ball was lost in the rough. Goldfinger angrily paid Bond his money.

 

When Bond returned to his hotel room for a bath, he received a message from Goldfinger inviting him to his estate for dinner. Bond accepted believing that Goldfinger’s greed for the Toplitz gold had overcome his anger at Bond. When Bond arrived Goldfinger excused himself stating he had been called away but would return presently. Bond took the opportunity to snoop. Traveling through the well-lit house he found nothing out of the ordinary except in a cabinet where he heard an odd whirring. He saw that a 16 millimeter camera was running. Bond realized that Goldfinger had filmed his every move. Bond exposed the film. When Goldfinger returned he showed Bond a demonstration of his Korean Chauffeur’s martial arts. The tall chunky man was lighting quick in his movements. He demonstrated his strength by punching through an oaken stair railing. Bond was nearly hit by one of Oddjob’s blows. Oddjob also demonstrated the use of his bowler hat, tossing it at a door. It’s brim dug into the wood, hanging there until Oddjob retrieved it.

 

During dinner Goldfinger discussed karate and also told Bond why he had chosen Koreans as his servants. “They are the cruelest, most ruthless people in the world”

 

Bond hinted around that he was looking for a financial opportunity and to demonstrate he was not above delving into criminal activities pretended to have been part of the Mexican heroin racket he had just broken up. Although Bond was not certain he thought he had intrigued Goldfinger. As he was leaving Goldfinger’s estate, he planted a homing device on Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce.

 

When Bond made to M report, he was told that an anonymous tip to Scotland Yard disclosed the Bond had a large amount of undeclared dollars. About that time Bond’s secretary had gotten an envelope filled with ten thousand dollars. Goldfinger had tried to get Bond in trouble with the law.

 

The homing device showed that the Rolls was being taken out of the country via the channel ferry.[7]

 

Bond used the homing device to trail Goldfinger through France. While in France Bond also saw a Triumph driven by a young woman, he had seen the same Triumph at the Ferry. He was not certain if the Triumph was trailing him or Goldfinger. Near Lyons Goldfinger stopped for a picnic lunch on a small bridge. Bond saw him plant something under the Bridge. It made sense that Goldfinger would stop here to drop off a gold bar since Lyons had a strong communist cell that could act as the middle man for their Soviet masters. After Goldfinger had left the area Bond examined the bridge and found a hidden gold bar, which he took. He once again took up the trail of Goldfinger who he believed was heading into Switzerland. When Goldfinger stopped for a picnic lunch along one of the rest spots on the mountain road Bond parked at the stop on the mountain road above where Goldfinger had stopped and observed him. A gunshot nearly hit Goldfinger and he hurried back to his car. Bond ran back to his own car. The girl in the convertible came roaring up the road behind Bond. Bond deliberately reversed into her car. He damaged her fan to the point it had to be replaced. Bond agreed to pay for all damages. He told her that he wished he could stay and see that she was set up all right but he had to get to Geneva. The girl who said her name was Tilly Soames, said she also needed to be in Geneva and asked Bond to give her a ride.

During the short ride Bond discovered that Tilly Soames was a golfer who planned to play Swiss Women's Open Championship at Divonne. Bond thought it was a plausible story but was not certain if it were true. Especially since among her luggage was a briefcase with the initials T.M. on it. At Geneva Bond dropped off the girl off and continued after Goldfinger. The yellow Rolls Royce traveled to Coppet to a small metal works factory named Enterprises Auric.

Bond walked around on the hills around the factory and with binoculars scoped out the layout of the complex. At night he sneaked onto the factory grounds. In a metal shop he saw them take apart Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce. He heard Goldfinger explain to a young Chinese man that the body of the car was actually two tons of pure 19 karat gold. Goldfinger mentioned Operation Grand Slam.

In Geneva he made inquiries about Enterprises Auric with a Universal Exports branch office. He discovered that Enterprises Auric was a firm that manufactured metal furniture for railroads and airlines. Their biggest client was Mecca Airlines, a privately owned charter airline to India. Bond pieced together what Goldfinger was up to. He smuggled the gold out of England disguised as the armor plating of his Rolls Royce, it was then melted down by Enterprises Auric into metal furniture for Mecca Airlines and was thus smuggled into India.

Bond decided that he had enough information on Goldfinger to accomplish his mission and decided to return to England after one last look at Enterprises Auric

Returning to the woods, Bond spotted Tilly Soames with a sniper rifle. He stopped her from shooting. She told him she wanted to kill Goldfinger because he had killed her sister Jill. Her sister had told Tilly that Goldfinger had a woman a month, always painted gold but always allowed for a patch of skin to remain free to that there would not be any ill effects from the paint. Seeing that Jill had been painted gold, Tilly knew who had killed her. Tilly had also known about James Bond because after Bond’s and Jill’s train trip, Jill had called Tilly to tell her about the romantic tryst.[8]

Bond and Tilly’s confrontation had set off alarms and when they returned to Bond’s car there were several men around it. Bond distracted them enough so that Tilly and he were able to get into the car. They were chased by several vehicles down dark unlit roads. Their escape came a dead end when the road ended. Bond told Tilly to run into the woods, he would hold them off. However they were captured by Oddjob stood behind them with a drawn bow.

They were taken to Goldfinger’s office and Bond went on the offensive. He told Goldfinger he had trailed him because of his dirty trick of getting the police after him for winning their bet. Goldfinger did not buy that explanation. He said “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Miami, Sandwich and now Geneva. I propose to wring the truth out of you.”

 

Bond lunged at Goldfinger across his desk and managed to get his hands around his throat before Oddjob knocked him out. When Bond awakened he was strapped to a metal table inside the metal works. A bright hot lamp shone directly into his face. Tilly Masterston was strapped to a chair. Goldfinger explained that Bond could either tell him why he was hounding him and suffer an easy quick death or be silent and suffer a prolonged agonizing death.

 

Bond claimed that many people knew where they were but Goldfinger said that did not matter since when he was done he could dispose of their bodies in the forge ovens.

 

Oddjob started to massage Bond, a massage that caused excruciating pain. Goldfinger started an industrial laser that began slowly began cutting through the metal table. Starting at his feet, the laser slowly crept toward Bond at the speed of an inch a minute. Goldfinger watched intently intending to see the laser slowly burn and bisect Bond. Bond protested that he and Jill were innocent people and could tell him nothing more. Bond said that he and the girl wanted to work for Goldfinger, a notion Goldfinger found amusing.

 

Stalling for time Bond mentions Operation Grandslam. Goldfinger tells him it might have been something that he overhead. Bond asked if he could afford to take that chance. Goldfinger hesitated and one of his assistants shoots Bond with a dart gun.

 

When Bond awoke he was in a hospital room being treated for a nervous breakdown, his bills being paid by Goldfinger. Bond tried to convince the Doctor that he and the girl were prisoners of Goldfinger not employees. Goldfinger explained to the Doctor that part of the breakdown manifested in a persecution mania. Bond was given a sedative and placed into a private ambulance. He awoke in a windowless room with a bed and a table and a chair. The bed was a bunk with drawers in it. His clothing was inside. He quickly dressed. There were two doors, one of which had a handle. He opened it and found that it lead into a lavatory with another door on the opposite side. Opening it he discovered that Tilly Masterston had a room similar to his.

 

When Oddjob looked in the room Bond told him he wanted some food and he wanted to see Goldfinger. After Bond finished eating, Goldfinger came into the room holding a gun and told Bond that ordinarily he would have eliminated Bond and Tilly Masterston but as it happened he was in an enterprise that could use some extra help. If Bond would agree to help his payment would be one million pounds in gold. If he did not he would be killed. Having no real choice Bond agreed to work for Goldfinger. He was told that their rooms were in the warehouse of the Hi-speed Trucking Corporation.[9] They would be confined there until the operation was underway. Goldfinger told Bond he planned to rob Fort Knox. When Bond began to protest how insane that was Goldfinger told him that there would be a meeting at which Bond’s concerns could be answered.

 

Bond went into the Tilly’s room to convince her to play along. He told her he was from Scotland Yard and the best way to scotch Goldfinger’s plans was to go along with it. Reluctantly she agreed but also added that if Bond touched her she would kill him.

 

Their first assignment came when a typist’s desk was brought in. Bond was to type out ten copies of the meeting’s agenda. The guest list was made up of mobsters from across America, including from the Spangled Mob that Bond had run up against before.[10] Bond and Tilly were fetched twenty minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. They were led into a large meeting room with a round table with comfortable armchairs. Off to the side was buffet with champagne and caviar.

 

Tilly was told to take notes.  Bond was told to size up the various members of the meeting for anyone who might not be totally committed to the enterprise. Bond asked who was Pussy Galore of Harlem. She was a leader of a gang of lesbian criminals, called the Cement Mixers. Formerly they had been an acrobatic team but they had branched out into crime becoming cat burglars and jewel thieves. New York was only a base of operation, Pussy had realized that to be effective and evade the authorities her gang would have to be mobile so Pussy trained as a pilot and then trainer her girls. With funds from their various robberies they bought a small fleet of airplanes and became a flying circus. This was both a cover for their activities and gave them the mobility to quickly leave a town if needed.

Goldfinger established his criminal credentials. He had founded and subsequently disposed of the "Golden Poppy Distributors" which operated out of Hongkong as well as 'The "Happy Landings Travel Agency". He then laid out his plan to rob Fort Knox to the initially dubious gangsters. The guards and support troops will be rendered unconscious by a sleeping gas courtesy of Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus. An industrial laser will cut through the outer door, the vault door would be opened by an atomic bomb with minimal radioactive yield.[11]. After which the gold bullion would be loaded onto one hundred ten-ton trucks or some twenty six-wheel heavy industry road transporters. The organized crime groups would be supplying security and truck drivers.

All of the mobsters save one went for the audacious plan. The one who refused Helmut Springer left the room followed by Oddjob. Goldfinger announced later that Springer and his bodyguard had both broken their necks by falling down the stairs.

One of the more puzzling aspects of the film version is Goldfinger’s relationship with the mob leaders. Once Goldfinger informed the mob heads as to the robbery’s target he asked if anyone wished to back out. When one of them, Mr. Solo, declined to participate he had Oddjob drive him to airport. However Oddjob actually drove the limousine to a junkyard and crushed the car with Mr. Solo inside.  After Mr. Solo departed Goldfinger laid out his plan in detail to the various heads of the mobs. After Goldfinger’s explanation he excused himself from the room. He then released a poison gas into the meeting room, killing all of the mob bosses with whom he had been meeting. This scene rendered the incident of killing off Mr. Solo and the entire meeting with the mob bosses to be unnecessary and pointless.

 Did Goldfinger in fact kill these mob bosses?  If not, why was the scene included in the film?

Mr. Solo was a creation of the screenwriters. Goldfinger met with the mob leaders as depicted in the novel. He also had Helmut Springer killed as explained in the novel. The scene of Goldfinger killing all the mob bosses prior to actually carrying out the robbery was included as foreshadowing because Goldfinger did in fact intend to double cross these gangsters in a manner that would have resulted in their deaths.

Goldfinger purposely concealed the fact that the “tranquilizer” gas that would be sprayed over the area was a highly toxic nerve gas because he realized that even ruthless career criminals might balk at mass murder on such a grand scale. He also concealed that the atomic bomb used to open the vault was a high yield “dirty bomb” that would irradiate the gold and anyone who handled it.[12] The true purpose of involving American criminals, as far as Goldfinger was concerned, was not to provide manpower or transportation but to provide a diversion for Goldfinger so that he could get away unscathed.

 

To Bond’s amusement Tilly Masterson was quite taken with Pussy Galore, which explained why she had been so stand offish to Bond. Bond made a play for Pussy but she would have none of it. Noticing Tilly’s jealousy, which was not focused on Bond but rather on Pussy Bond encouraged Tilly to make friends with Pussy, in this manner making Pussy his inside “man”.

 

After the meeting broke up Bond and Goldfinger went over some of the logistics for the plan. One of Bond’s duties was to figure out the timetable for how long it would take to disseminate the narcotic in the air. In order for Bond’s calculations to be accurate Goldfinger had to revealed that the narcotic was actually GB, one of the most potent nerve gases in the world. It would kill 60,000 people. Bond also pointed out that it would be impossible for the gold be carried off, it would take 28 days to unload the vault and Goldfinger would have perhaps hours before the area was sealed off by the United States Army. Goldfinger replied that he would use the train to Norfolk Virginia where a Soviet cruiser would be docked on a goodwill mission. His gold would be loaded on out of the country before the day had passed. As to what happened to the other gold and the other participants, he did not care. They were necessary for manpower and necessary for a diversion.

 

Bond believed that this was a SMERSH operation with Goldfinger at its head. Bond and Tilly worked diligently for Goldfinger, Bond encouraged Tilly’s relationship with Pussy.

 

A couple of days before the robbery was to take place Goldfinger and his crew went to his horse farm in Kentucky which was not too far from Fort Knox.[13] Goldfinger had Bond come along with him on a chartered flight that surveyed the area around Fort Knox. At the airport Bond saw a group of planes fly and land in formation. Bond remarked on how well they fly. Pussy told him she trained them herself.

While on the horse ranch Bond saw a young Asian man and suddenly recognized him as Ling, a Red Chinese expert on nuclear fission. Bond had not paid much attention to him earlier believing that he had merely been one of Goldfinger’s Korean servants. Bond deducted that the Red Chinese had given Goldfinger a bomb, which he intended to use to make the gold radioactive. The Red Chinese would get economic chaos in the West and Goldfinger’s gold reserves would jump in value. Bond apprised Pussy Galore through Tilly of Goldfinger’s true plans. Pussy was horrified at the thought of mass murder and angry at Goldfinger’s betrayal. However Bond convinced her that unless the atomic bomb was also captured Goldfinger could use that as a means of extortion.

Early in the morning of the robbery several piper cubs took off from the airfield near Fort Knox and sprayed gas from underneath their planes. The soldiers and citizens of the fort and nearby towns fell down in their tracks. When the planes land and phase one is completed, the robbery crew, which consisted of various mobsters with a large convoy of trucks, drove through the gassed town. They saw people lying on the ground as if they had just fallen over. There were car wrecks and mothers lying next to the carriages of their crying infants. A pink froth covered the lips of several of the victims. The electrified gate of Fort Knox was dynamited open. Goldfinger arrived in helicopter piloted by Pussy. A large personal security force consisting of Koreans and Chinese quickly surrounded him. The trucks drove around to the loading docks and lasered open one of the dock doors using a large industrial laser. Bond told Tilly to get as far away from the action as she could since there was going to be a lot of gunfire. Tilly said she would go to be near Pussy.

Goldfinger and his men left the vault and found that they were under attack. When the atomic bomb had been pushed into the Fort, all of the dead soldiers rose up and attacked Goldfinger’s men. Goldfinger took off his overcoat revealing that he was dressed in the uniform of a US Army general. He shot several of his own men, including Ling, and rushed to the helicopter, yelling he would secure it. It took off with Goldfinger in it. Tilly ran towards the helicopter, not to stop it, but to be with Pussy. However Oddjob perceived this as a threat and threw his hat. The hard edge of the bowler hit Tilly in the nape of the neck, snapping it and dropping her.

Once Goldfinger had taken off Oddjob hurried into the vault and shut the vault door. Oddjob locked himself, Bond, a technician and the triggered bomb inside the vault. Panicking the bomb technician tried to disarm the bomb. Oddjob grabbed him and threw him over a railing. The technician landed on a floor two stories down but near Bond. Knowing that this man had the key, Bond hurried over to him and searched his pockets for the key to his handcuffs. Oddjob was still two stories above Bond and hurried down towards him. Bond unlocked the handcuffs but was unable to disarm the bomb before Oddjob reached him. Oddjob threw Bond around the room as if he were a child and shrugging off Bond’s attacks. Bond barely dodged the thrown bowler hat, which cut a live electrical cable. Bond grabbed the hat and threw it at Oddjob, missing him but lodging it in a metal gate. When Oddjob pulled it out, Bond touched the electrical cable to the metal gate, electrocuting Oddjob. Bond then hurried over to the atomic bomb but could not fathom its workings, he was going to yank out a handful of cables when a man came rushing over with Felix Leiter pushed Bond aside and hit the off switch.

Pussy Galore had contacted Leiter as Bond had requested. Felix had used his contacts with the CIA to get in touch with the FBI and the President of the United States. The CIA had also gotten in touch with M. Goldfinger’s telegram to Universal Exports about Bond’s leaving their service to work for him was a flag. MI5 had gone over Bond’s trail and uncovered enough evidence to shut down Goldfinger’s gold smuggling operation. Two days after the robbery Felix Leiter drove James Bond to Idlewild Airport to catch the evening BOAC Monarch to London. Neither Goldfinger or Pussy had been captured but the most of the gangsters participating in the robbery had been.

 

Bond was taken to the nearby airport where he was to be flown on a private jet for a congratulatory meeting with the President. Shortly after the plane had taken off Pussy Galore greet Bond. She was outfitted in a stewardess’ uniform. Goldfinger had commandeered the plane.[14] Bond was none too pleased to also see Oddjob aboard. Although Oddjob had been shocked unconscious he had eluded capture and made his way to a secure rallying point.

 

Goldfinger showed up in the uniform of a flight captain. He asked Bond how he did it, how did he ruin his plans. Bond told him he would talk but only if his arms were untied and he was allowed to have a drink and cigarettes. Goldfinger agreed and told Oddjob if Bond made one move towards the cabin door to kill him immediately. When Bond got his bourbon and cigarettes there was a note from Pussy that said I am with you.

 

When asked where they were headed Goldfinger told Bond that he had managed to get his personal hoard of gold away his horse ranch in Kentucky. He had made arrangements to go to a place of safety with his hoard of gold.[15]

 

After Bond told a censored story of how he had gotten onto Goldfinger, he decided to make his move before it was too late. Pulling a knife hidden in his shoe he grappled with Oddjob keeping Oddjob between him and Goldfinger. Bond threw his knife and hit the door’s emergency catch. The door blew open sucking Oddjob out.[16] Oddjob held on to the door jamb for a few moments but was sucked completely out. As the plane tumbled from the explosive decompression Goldfinger fired his gun at Bond. Bond grappled with him and choked Goldfinger unconscious. The explosive decompression coupled with the weight of the gold made the plane crack. An emergency landing had to be made in the ocean. Goldfinger’s gold spilled into the ocean as the plane crashed.

 

Bond and Pussy Galore were the only survivors picked up by a frigate. Pussy Galore makes romantic overtures towards Bond, claiming that she had only liked girls because she had never met a real man before.[17]  

 

POST MISSION BRIEFING:

SUBJECTS: PUSSY GALORE AND LEGACY OFAURIC GOLDFINGER

 

PUSSY GALORE

Bond and Pussy Galore ended their brief relationship once they arrived on shore. Pussy Galore was promptly arrested for her part in the Fort Knox robbery. Although Pussy had been instrumental in ending Goldfinger’s plot and she was commended by the FBI and British Secret Service she could not escape jail completely. She was sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary. One year into her sentence she was offered a parole deal. She could finish out her sentence or be released early and become part of a team of a special team of adventures fighting criminals of the Goldfinger stripe.

 

Pussy Galore became one of the first members of Prince Zarkon’s Omega Crew[18]. Unfortunately Prince Zarkon and the United States government have not yet disclosed these very early cases for public dissemination. Pussy Galore was a member of Prince Zarkon’s organization from 1962 until 1967. However the continual and unwanted advances of Menlo Parker combined with the sudden and tragic death of team mate Jimmy Shannon, whom Pussy had considered like her little brother, convinced Pussy to leave Prince Zarkon’s group.[19]

 

The main reasons that she had left Prince Zarkon’s group however were because she missed the company of women and because she had learned through Zarkon’s resources that some members of her old gang the Cement Mixers had been co-opted by another organization, one run by a man. While Pussy had not been reformed to the extent that she saw no problem with these women carrying out acts of thievery or industrial sabotage, these women were carrying out ruthless acts of assassination and terrorism on the orders of this man. [20] Pussy could not condone that and took steps to work against Carl Peterson’s organization.[21]

 

Peterson had two major operations going on simultaneously, both of which if successful could lead to his dream of world domination. Pussy was, with tacit help from Zarkon, able to identify Peterson’s targets and the members of his organization. So that that their activities would not be compromised Peterson had two teams of his agents working independently, each on one of his projects. One operation was headed by Irma Eckman, the second was by Odile Cazan. Both operations had women as their primary operatives with some back up from male thugs.[22]

 

When Pussy was arrested after the Fort Knox robbery, the main bulk of the Cement Mixers fled the United States to Europe. Irma Eckman and Odile Cazan recruited them. [23]  Because the Cement Mixers had been circus acrobats as well as pilots most ended up working for Odile Cazan. Her agents were known as the Harpies because they arrived at their assignments via bat-winged gliders. The gliders were assisted by small rocket packs, akin to those wore by the Hughes Corporation’s Rocketmen, although of a much more efficient and compact size. Once the former Cement Mixers joined these organizations they were forced to cross the line and become violent, even to the point of committing murder. This was a line that Pussy had always refused to cross.

 

Since most of the former Cement Mixers had gone into the operation headed by Odile Cazan, this operation became Pussy Galore’s primary focus.

 

Odile Cazan had a doctorate in engineering from the University of Paris. She was also an expert gymnast and a former circus aerialist. In her youth she had been part of a group of circus performers who doubled as burglars under the direction of a man named Foussard. Although Odile left the organization when she graduated school she maintained contact with them. With the death of Foussard and the disappearance of his daughter, Danielle, Dr. Cazan took over the organization and used it for industrial sabotage.[24]

 

Dr. Cazan took a position with Nero Enterprises based in Britain. Having researched the company’s founder thoroughly. Simon Nero was a scientific genius but he was also ruthless businessman whose actions often bordered on the unethical. He had the reputation as something of a ladies man and he quickly turned his charm on Odile. With practiced effort she soon gained great influence over Simon Nero but had him believing that he was in control, not only of their relationship but also of his own company. Nero Enterprises soon had a primary staff of women who also doubled as industrial agents for Cazan and Nero. Under Dr. Cazan’s encouragement Dr. Nero’s business practices soon went from the merely nearly unethical to outright criminal acts, including theft, assassination, sabotage and kidnapping.

 

Pussy cultivated a couple of women from both organizations working to undermine and eventually cause them to self-destruct without having her friends jailed or harmed.

 

Mary Corning, Pussy’s agent in the Harpies was killed while attempting to bring evidence to Pussy. Mary Corning was shot while attempting to fly away from her fellow Harpies with jewels from a robbery in New York. She landed on a passing truck and bled to death. She threw her Harpy outfit off the truck and onto the side of the road. Mary Corning’s death along with the sudden kidnapping of Dr. Phineas brought Nero Enterprises to the attention of MI5. Mary Corning had been an employee of Nero Enterprises and Dr. Phineas had been a colleague of Simon Nero until Phineas had married the woman Nero also loved. Nero then became his bitter enemy.

 

Dr. Phineas had invented a device called the Q ray which could sterilize individuals after one exposure, that is render them incapable of producing progeny. This would be a beneficial form of birth control for overpopulated nations. Yet it could also be a terrible weapon that could sterilize the populations of entire nations. Phineas announced that he was uncertain as to what he wanted to do with his discovery, destroy it or give it to Britain. Shortly after his announcement the Harpies, despite high security by MI5, kidnapped him.

 

Once MI5 realized the connection between Nero and the Harpies, they put Pussy’s old friend James Bond on the case. Pussy realized that with some inside help Bond could bring down Nero and Cazan. Pussy met with Mary Corning’s friend, Helen Nero, the daughter of Simon Nero. Pussy knew from Mary Corning that Helen’s initial admiration for Odile Cazan had turned into hatred. Helen Nero disliked the close relationship between her father and Odile Cazan and hated how Cazan ran her father and through him the business. Pussy played upon Helen’s hatred of Odile, pointing out that once Odile Cazan had become Mrs. Nero Helen could be cut off from her father’s fortune.

 

Pussy convinced Helen to help Pussy’s friend, James Bond, take down Odile Cazan, and possibly her father, if only to save Helen’s own fortune.

 

With Helen’s aid, James Bond rescued Dr. Phineas from the clutches of Nero and Odile Cazan. They borrowed some of the Harpy equipment to fly out of Nero Enterprises. Helen however died saving Dr. Phineas when his rocket pack cut out, holding him up and cushioning his impact with her body. The impact and combined weight was too much and she died from internal injuries.

 

Dr. Odile Cazan and Simon Nero were taken into custody but several of the Harpies escaped, surreptitiously aided by Pussy Galore. Those Harpies who were taken into custody were those who had willing done what ever Cazan had required of them.

 

The goal of Peterson’s project under Irma Eckman was to gain control over the production and distribution of the world’s petroleum. To this end his organization took over various Petroleum companies. Peterson obtained a seat on the boards of various Petroleum companies using the fictitious persona of Mr. Westin having his agents seduce and or extort various board members; he eliminated the competition and then arranged for mergers or buyouts finally through a buy out of the company spearheaded. The female agents in this operation were lead by Irma Eckman. The women who had been part of The Order of Our Lady made up the elite hierarchy in the organization. They had contact with Carl Peterson and carried out the most important missions. Those who had been recruited from gangs such as the Cement Mixers made up the second tier in the hierarchy were entrusted with the day-to-day operations. There were also agents who had been “recruited” either through seduction, extortion or a combination of both. These did the scut work of the organization, working as couriers, pleasure girls, patsies and cannon fodder.

 

One of these was Grace whose father was a chemist who had been blackmailed by who tied him into the narcotics business. Irma Eckman’s partner and lover, In addition to being a kleptomaniac, Penelope was a sadist like Irma. She was also a bit of a nymphomaniac; she used threats against Grace’s father to seduce Grace. After Irma learned of this she forced Grace to become one of the organization’s pawns. This was to keep Grace’s father in check and also out of some jealous pique.

 

When Pussy Galore visited Castallamare where Carl Peterson had a base of operations in a castle, Irma and Penelope recognized her. Irma was curious as to what Pussy Galore was doing in the area and if the rumors were true that she had left the Omega men and returned to a life of crime. If the latter was true then she thought Pussy might be useful for a job that she and Carl had planned. Knowing of Pussy’s sexual inclination she told Grace to become friendly with Pussy and get as much information as she could from her. She knew that Grace would hate every minute of being Pussy’s “friend”

 

Ultimately it was Irma’s sadistic sense of humor, the bloodlust of Irma Eckman and Penelope combined with Carl Peterson’s arrogance and greed that would foil their plot. Pussy realized that Grace’s clumsy advances were not genuine and so knew there was an underlying reason for the attempt. She skillfully charmed and drew the young girl out, getting all the sad details of Grace’s situation. Pussy urged Grace not to despair but rather to find an inner strength to destroy her enemies. She convinced Grace to go along with Peterson until she could be assured of way to destroy his organization.

 

The snippets of information Grace was able to obtain from Pussy Galore proved to be very helpful for Peterson and so he began having her trained as one of his agents. That this irritated Irma and Penelope was only more enticing.

 

When Peterson purposely set things up so he could match wits with the son of his father’s rival, he also set the stage for the ruination of his scheme. Irma Eckmann murdered Robert Keller the head of Keller Oil with a trick cigar while posing as a stewardess aboard his corporate jet. She covered up the crime by planting a bomb on the plane and then parachuted to safety. It appeared that the jet had been destroyed by a terrorist bomb or mechanical malfunction. However Peterson, with Irma acting as his envoy, insisted that Phoenix Oil honor a one million pound deal. Irma’s principle had made a deal with Phoenix Oil that with in six months, one way or another Robert Keller would stop blocking the merger between Phoenix Petroleum and Keller Oil. Irma Eckmann’s insistence that the million dollars be paid made Keller’s death seem suspicious. The insurance agency that had held the policy on Keller’s plane had their Hugh Drummond, one of their top investigators look into the matter.

 

A friend of Drummonds, Wyngarde worked for Phoenix Oil as a geologist. He had gotten wind of the plot to kill Keller and had tried to warn him through his superiors at Phoenix Oil. Reportedly Keller could not be reached in time. Wyndgarde also discovered Peterson’s plot to kill the King of “Akbar”, a Middle Eastern country with vast oil reserves that vowed to do its own refining, manufacturing and distribution. Akbar’s king had just come into his majority and was making sweeping changes.[25] Wyndgarde died suddenly in a fishing accident, impaled by a harpoon gun. Drummond thought this was extremely suspicious since Wyngarde could not swim. Wyngarde’s servant, Caroggio made a trip to London to deliver a message to Drummond. He also brought a snippet of a recording tape that had been left in the recorder when the reels had been snatched out. After Caraggio delivered the message Irma and Penelope shot him down in the street.

 

Irma and Penelope also killed Reginald, a board member of Phoenix Oil who led the vote against giving Irma Eckmann the money Phoenix had promised to her.

While pretending to seduce him Irma stabbed him with a paralytic and  they shoved him off the ledge of his penthouse apartment. This convenient death was doubly suspicious. Peterson began investigating. His nephew was nearly killed by a trick cigar sent to Drummond’s flat. Drummond’s nephew was seduced by and the tortured by Penelope. Irma and Penelope left a trail so that Drummond could find his nephew and set a timebomb to explode shortly after Drummond entered the room.

 

After he seeing that one of the board members of Phoenix Petroleum named Westin in the company of Irma Eckman, he decided to look into the matter. He found that Westin was also on the boards of Keller Oil and several other oil companies which had suddenly changed hands, Drummond visited him only to once again nearly escape death when Westin’s office exploded, apparently killing Westin.

 

Penelope had tortured Robert Drummond with a lit cigarette and a small knife, his wounds although painful were not life threatening. However he did have enough of London for a while. He decided to accept his friend Fedra’s invitation to cruise the Mediterranean in his yacht. Robert’s friend was King of Akbar a small Middle Eastern country rich in Petroleum. His yacht was docked near the house Wyngarde had been renting. Hugh Drummond had a suspicion that these were related but was not certain as to how. He accompanied Robert to Castallamare and rented the same house that Wyngarde had rented. The interior had been destroyed in a frantic search for the snippet of tape.

 

Hugh Drummond accepted a dinner invitation from Carl Peterson who lived in the castle across the cove from Wyngarde’s house. Carl Peterson proved to be Westin who had faked his own death in the explosion, substituting the body of Carloggio for his.

 

Peterson revealed that Castallamare was the main headquarters for his operation. The facility was almost exclusively run by women. The only other man besides Peterson was a combination manservant, bodyguard and martial arts instructor named Chang. Chang was mute and it is a fair bet that he was also a eunuch.

 

In addition to having state of the art laboratories and high tech devices in the Castle, it also had remote controlled mechanical chessboard with each piece being over six feet in height. Drummond was not permitted to leave and spent the next night and day, foiling or avoiding the various games and traps Peterson set forth for him. Penelope and Irma got into a lover’s spat over who would get to seduce Hugh Drummond. Irma was chosen to do the deed but returned to Peterson’s office in a rage when Drummond rejected her. Peterson and Penelope had watched the failed seduction on the close circuit television in Drummond’s room.As Irma and Penelope went into one their catty arguments; Peterson was amused to see Grace enter Drummond’s room. Grace told Drummond how she had been forced to work for Peterson and promised the help him escape. They watched Grace and Drummond on a close circuit television.. Peterson decided to make Grace the unwitting instrument of his assassination of King Fedra of Akbar.[26]  Peterson had Penelope send gas into Drummond’s room to knock him out. However she sent just enough to make him groggy and used his disorientation to visit his room and seduce him.

 

When Drummond awoke he was escorted to Peterson’s game room where Peterson challenged Drummond to a game of chess while they waited. The chessboard was an entire ballroom with life sized computer driven pieces. During the course of the game Peterson told Drummond that he planned to blow up King Fedra’s yacht using Grace as his unwitting pawn.

 

Irma and Penelope escorted Grace to the waterfront where they had Grace watch the yacht while they went to arrange for the explosives. As soon as Irma and Penelope were out of site, Grace ran to the yacht. This was all according to Peterson’s plan since the explosive was hidden on Grace’s person. Grace warned King Fedra and Robert Drummond of the assassination plot. As Fedra made his way out to sea Robert left the yacht and went to the castle to try and rescue Hugh Drummond.

 

Drummond however had ducked into the life sized chess pieces. He killed the guard Chang who had been sent to kill him and then began to stalk Peterson. Although Peterson had a gun and eventually took up the sword impaling Chang, he failed to kill Drummond. Drummond used the life sized chess pieces to trap and apparently crush Peterson to death.

 

Robert Drummond fought his way into the castle and aided Hugh Drummond against two machine gun wielding female guards. Hugh and Robert Drummond found Irma and Penelope arriving at the castle in a speedboat. At gunpoint they made they return to King Fedra’s yacht however they refused to tell where the bomb was hidden so Grace had to be stripped. As everyone watched Grace stripping Irma and Penelope stole away to their boat and fled from the yacht before it exploded.

 

As they raced away Irma revealed that the plastic explosive had been hidden in Grace’s chignon. Penelope began clawing at her hair revealing that she had stolen Grace’s hairpiece because it seemed nicer than hers. Hugh Drummond and the others watched as the speedboat exploded apparently killing Irma Eckmann and Penelope.  Drummond remarked, “That’s what comes from letting success go to your head” This is an interesting remark in that Drummond could not have overheard the conversation between Penelope and Irma Eckmann, yet he somehow knew where the bomb had been hidden.  

 

The question is how did he know. The answer is that Grace told him, she knew all along that the chignon Peterson insisted she wear was booby trapped. Grace had wondered how to get rid of when, she saw Penelope steal her chignon and replace it with her own. At first Grace wondered what Penelope had been up too, that perhaps she had given Grace the one with the explosives. However she knew that Peterson did not trust the flighty Penelope with all of his crucial plans so realized that Penelope did not know that the explosive was in the hairpiece. Penelope’s kleptomania had led to her to commit a fatal blunder. Knowing that Penelope had the explosive led Grace to run to the yacht and urge King Fedra to put to sea and get safely away from Penelope.

 

When Hugh Drummond brought Penelope and Irma on board the yacht Grace’s heart sank. Drummond quickly began searching through Grace’s things for the bomb. Grace quickly whispered that Penelope had it. Drummond had to come up with a stratagem that would allow the women to escape without raising suspicion. As Grace stripped naked and the sailors holding the girls watched, Irma and Penelope made what they thought was their escape.[27]

 

After Grace successfully thwarted Carl Peterson’s plot to assassinate “King Fedra” she spend a nice vacation with Hugh Drummond, Roger Drummond and King Fedra. She was contacted by Pussy Galore and told that her life was in danger since Peterson and Irma Eckmann were still very much alive. Pussy offered Grace protection as part of a organization of women with many of the same skills and abilities that Grace had received from her training under Peterson. This organization was run by a woman named Octavia Smythe. In a sense this was one of the offshoot organizations of The Order of Our Lady although its existence predated that of The Order of Our Lady. The Madonna had induced the female only cult of The Blue Ringed Octopus to join forces with her. After her disappearance in 1955, the Order of Our Lady splintered into several smaller organizations. The Cult of the Blue Ringed Octopus had become essentially the smuggling and piracy branch of the Order and so became self contained criminal organization. Octavia Smythe joined it in 1960 and eventually became its leader. Pussy Galore was invited to join in 1967 and became a close advisor to Octavia Smythe[28]. She retired from the organization in 1980 and her present whereabouts are unknown.

 

 

LEGACY OF AURIC GOLDFINGER

Auric Goldfinger had nearly been choked into death by James Bond, it was only his thick neck which had saved him from death. However he truly died when the plane cracked in half as it hit the ocean and all of his precious gold spilled into the ocean. The ocean poured into the broken plane and revived Auric Goldfinger seconds before he tumbled along with the wreckage into the ocean depths. While underwater he saw the thousands of gold bars that represented the majority of his wealth rapidly sink through the murky waters. Without thinking he dove among them attempting to grab as many as he could. Bombarded by the heavy bars he felt several of his bones break. When a bar struck him in the head he was once more knocked unconscious.

 

The surge of water displacement as the rest of the airplane sank buoyed him to the surface along with a seat cushion. Two days later he was found on the shores of Newfoundland suffering from exposure, various other injuries to which he soon succumbed. Without his gold and his guiding intellect the British Secret Service and Central Intelligence Agency believed that they no longer needed to be concerned about Auric Goldfinger. Unfortunately that did not turn out to be the case. Goldfinger had a legacy.

 

When it was determined that Auric Goldfinger was indeed dead, his staff of lawyers examined his papers. There was a public will, which quickly disseminated the remnants of his fortune and holdings to various charities and foundations. There however was another will which disseminated the illegal businesses and hidden assets to one individual, Auric Goldfinger’s son, Mordecai Madras. Mordecai Madras was the son of one of the first women that Auric Goldfinger had a romantic liaison with while she was painted gold. Mordecai’s mother was a Cypriot who worked at a London brothel, after becoming pregnant she returned back to Cyprus, claiming that she was the widow of a British soldier. Mordecai inherited swarthy dark good looks from his mother. From his father he inherited intelligence, avarice and corpulence. Auric Goldfinger initially dismissed Lydia Madras claim that her bastard whelp was his offspring however he kept tabs on young Mordecai. Mordecai was smart enough to discern that he was being watched and had his watchers followed. Mordecai Madras traced them to a local business the Golden Poppy Distributors. Mordecai Madras managed to gain a position in the distribution warehouse. He was then able to steal portions of each shipment and sell them on the blackmarket. When the thefts became known, Mordecai Madras proved that the shipping manager had stolen the merchandise. His honesty gained him that position. Mordecai Madras used his new situation to steal product, embezzle funds and even more audaciously to use the knowledge he garnered to attempt to extort the true owner of Golden Poppy Distributors, Auric Goldfinger by threatening to expose his business practices.

 

Auric Goldfinger became convinced that Moredcai Madras was indeed his son. However Goldfinger’s paternal instincts did not stop from meting out a suitable punishment for betrayal. Mordecai Madras was beaten, his back was broken and he was jailed for embezzlement in a Turkish prison. Upon his death however, Goldfinger expressed a paternal responsibility that he avoided in life. Suitable bribes were issued to the Turkish prison where Mordecai had been imprisoned and his release was obtained. Mordecai had been paralyzed from his broken back and his ill treatment. The once stout young man had become a thin and broken rag doll.

 

Releasing his son from prison was not the end of Goldfinger’s largesse, he gave Mordecai the chance to purchase some of Auric Enterprises from the various foundations that purportedly owned. Although the purchase price was lower than the market value, Mordecai still had to come up with a large amount of capital. Mordecai was given instructions to go to a certain bank in Athens; there at a safety deposit box was a golden mask and a bar of gold. There was also a note that said if Mordecai had wits about him, he could make a fortune. Although Mordecai was not a scholar he recognized the golden mask, it was a Mycenaean mask, undoubtedly a reproduction of the ones found by Heinrich Schliemann. Mordecai Madras had the mask looked at by an expert only to discover that it was authentic. Mordecai asked how that could be determined, wondering how they could date gold. He was told that they dated golden artifacts contextually, that is by the objects found with them or the chemical make up of the gold was tested to see if it contained the same impurities as the other artifacts. Mordecai realized Goldfinger’’s scheme, he manufactured fake Mycenaean artifacts by smelting the gold with the same impurities as the ancient gold and sold them as authentic through the blackmarket to interested parties. Morecai Madras was able to manufacture ten such items. This brought him a fortune which he used to buy Goldfinger’s business empire. Working with the gold, Mordecai Madras had conceived a lust for it that rivaled his fathers. Hating the Turkish part of his Cypriot heritage after his stay in their prison, he gravitated towards the Greek part of his heritage, becoming an avid Helleneophile, to the extent of changing his last name from Madras to Midas. As his wealth grew so did Mordecai’s appetites. Often starved to the point of death Mordecai became a glutton once he was released from prison and grew grossly corpulent. His paralyzed body was held in special wheelchairs until he grew so wealthy he could afford a minute amount of the world’s Cavorite. He used this to create a hover chair. His appetite for more gold and for more wealth and power consumed his life.

 

With Goldfinger’s organization safely in hand he set his sights on becoming the richest man in the world. To do this, he had to become wealthier than Howard Hughes. He attempted to buy Hughes out and was rebuffed. He was determined to acquire Hughes International one way or another. Fortune seemed to smile on him when a beautiful woman fell out of the sky and landed near one of his tankers. The woman was Erica Giulietta Le Portenza, the daughter of Camorra leader, Count Luchino Le Portenza, a man so notorious and so evil, he was called Count Nefarious. Erica had been entrusted to lead a raid against Hughes International and steal as much of this technology as her men could carry. Erica and her men made it into the Hughes Long Island complex and loaded their planes with material but the planes were shot down by the East Cost Rocketmen led by Commander Barr. Her plane was damaged and crashed over the Atlantic crashed and Erica was horrifically injured.

 

She was found by one of the ships of Golden Shipping Lines, owned by Mordecai Midas. Midas learned of her background and arranged for her medical treatment. Her face was horrifically scarred so Midas gave her a golden mask to wear over the injury. Midas hired her as a criminal operative; planning and carrying out operations that would net him gold. One of Midas’ personal plans was to have her meet Howard Hughes get him alone and then kidnap him, without implicating Midas. Although Hughes was a recluse he could sometimes be induced to attend certain charitable functions for appearances sake. Midas arranged for both Hughes and Erica to be invited to a masquerade ball. At the ball, Erica maneuvered Hughes into an unused room. Since Hughes was a well known lothario this was a relatively simple task. Once there however Erica allowed herself to be seduced by Hughes.

 

During their tryst she drugged and captured Hughes. Hughes was then replaced by a LMD[29] who had been conditioned to turn Hughes International over to Midas. However Erica fell in love with Hughes and could not be a party to destroy him. She helped his escape and the LMD was exposed as a fraud. During the course of Hughes and Madam Masque’s escape, Mordecai’s hover chair was destroyed and his prize yacht was severely damaged.[30]

 

Mordecai’ Midas’ spine had been further damaged and he was paralyzed from the shoulders down. He turned all his resources towards making himself mobile again using technology stolen from Hughes. Scientists in his employ eventually created a large exoskeleton based on Hughes power armor designs which he insisted on being plated with gold.  Along with guns his armor was equipped with a unique offensive weapon, his Midas touch, a paint spray containing a powerful paralytic toxin. Sprayed with the golden paint, people froze in their tracks as if they had become golden statues.

 

Although James Bond did not have any known encounters with Mordecai Midas, his nephew James did. James Bond’s nephew also named James Bond was called James Bond Junior by his schoolmates and the name stuck. Although this was a bit of humor as they kidded him about being related to the famous “fictional” secret agent, his true relationship was unknown. After graduating from public school, James Bond Junior and a couple of his schoolmates and their girlfriends decided to go on around the world trek. As often happens with members of the Wold Newton family, adventures fell into James Bond Junior’s lap. They happened the scene to stop three of Mordecai Midas’s schemes to steal gold, one from an Olmec city, another time from a sunken ship in the Caribbean and the last time to stop him from looting an ancient gold mine in Africa.[31] They also twice encountered Dr. No under his the alias of Han and ran afoul of the assassin Jaws. A children’s cartoon series was made based upon their adventures although the final product bore faint resemblance to the actual events.[32]

 

In the mid seventies in the wake of Howard Hughes death, Mordecai Midas attempted to take over Hughes International. This brought him in direct conflict with Alexis Luther and his old friend, Erica Le Portenza, who was Alexis Luther’s partner and wife. Through financial skullduggery, Mordecai Midas managed to take over a portion of the Hughes’ estate, however Alexis Luther refused to give up residency so Mordecai Midas seized them by force. A battle royal took place between Luthor’s Iron Men, the so called Team Luthor and the mercenary forces of Mordeca Midas. During the fight Mida’s exoskeleton took a great deal of damage, eventually collapsing and crushing Mordecai Midas. When it did Mordecai Midas suffered severe brain damage and he ended his days as a jaundiced, near vegetable in a Lexcare facility.[33]

 

 

SECRET HISTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS

© 2007 Dennis Power



[1] This was depicted in the novel, Casino Royale

[2] One has to wonder how does Goldfinger know where Jill went or who Bond was?

[3] In the novel, Jill and Bond spend the weekend together and then both return to England, going their separate ways. Bond returned to MI5 and Jill returned to Goldfinger’s employ. It was shortly after this that Jill was painted gold and died of suffocation. Bond however did not know that she was dead until meeting up with Tilly Masterton. The novel portrayed Jill’s death off camera because MI5 was not prepared at that time to let it be known that one her agents had been found at the scene of a bizarre sex murder, especially while the case was still officially under investigation. When it was decided to let the public at large know the fuller details of the Goldfinger case, the true circumstances of Jill Masterton’s death were also revealed.

Bond’s personal knowledge of Jill Masterton’s demise helps explain why he remained so interested in Goldfinger after returning to MI5.

[4] Like many of the plot elements in the novels and the films, this seems plausible but actually is not. For someone to become ill enough to die of skin suffocation the exposure would have had to be much longer and would have had to include all of her porous tissue, including her scalp. It is more likely that the gold paint also contain a powerful toxin that caused death within hours.

[5] This was not entirely a coincidence although M disapproved of Bond’s cavalier attitude towards women, he was also outraged at Jill Masterson’s murder and at the brazen nature of Goldfinger of announcing that he had the murder done and had no fear of being brought to justice for it. Making some inquiries about Goldfinger, M discovered that the treasury was also looking into Goldfinger. M believed that this might be one case where their interests could coincide. M also discovered several reports about Goldfinger which had been filed by

[6] Here we have yet another instance of a very wealthy man working for the Soviet Union. Goldfinger is depicted as a ruthless capitalist who supports the cause of Communism. There is a great dichotomy in his depiction in the novel. In the novel he is robbing Fort Knox to give the money to SMERSH; in essence giving vast wealth to a political system that would strip him of his great individual wealth. After tanker containing the gold is seized, Goldfinger’s first thought is to secure his own personal gold supply, thus demonstrating his true allegiance. Also prior to the Fort Knox robbery Goldfinger’s accumulation of gold had not gone directly to the Soviet Union but rather he parceled it out one bar at a time over a number of years. This is a rather parsimonious way for someone who was the “banker” of SMERSH to act.

As discussed in the prior articles on From Russia, With Love and Doctor No, many of Fleming’s villains were ruthless capitalists who worked for the Soviets, Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, Dr. No, Goldfinger and Hugo Drax. More specifically they worked for SMERSH, the assassination Bureau of the Soviet Union. This is an important distinction because it goes a long way to demonstrate that they were not working for the Soviet Union or even SMERSH per se but rather were working for or with, SPECTRE. The film version of From Russia, With Love revealed that top SMERSH agents, Rosa Klebb and Kronsteen had been recruited by SPECTRE. We can speculate that this recruitment was not limited to these two individuals and that SMERSH was, at least for most of SPECTRE’s existence, a satellite organization of SPECTRE.

Fleming’s depiction of Goldfinger as an active agent of the Soviets seems to be based purely on Goldfinger’s tenuous connection to SMERSH. As will be revealed the shipping of the stolen gold to a waiting Soviet cruiser was also a figment of Fleming’s imagination. Goldfinger was not giving gold to SMERSH because of an ideological alliance but rather he was giving money to SPECTRE via SMERSH. Goldfinger was not a member of SPECTRE but rather was one of their clients. These bars of gold were payments to SPECTRE in aiding him in his hijacking, smuggling and gold theft operations. SPECTRE acted as a broker for Goldfinger’s Operation  Grandslam by establishing his bonafides with organized crime figures in the United States as well as putting him in contact with the Red Chinese. SPECTRE was aware of the true nature of Operation Grandslam and expected to have the value of their gold reserves to multiply by an astronomical amount.

[7] In the novel Goldfinger arranges for a plane to fly directly to Geneva. However Goldfinger wanted to avoid any suspicion since Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce was made of gold it weighed considerably more than an ordinary car. It might have raised some eyebrows to have using a plane able to carry a tank just to fly one car to Geneva. A sedate drive through the European countryside was certainly less suspicious.

[8] In the novel Jill had given Tilly a ring by which she could identify James Bond. However since Jill had not actually seen Tilly prior to her death, the ring was merely a plot device by Fleming.

[9] In the film Bond is kept in a dungeon room underneath the stables of Goldfinger’s horse ranch in Kentucky. Although Bond and Tilly were kept in locked rooms on the horse ranch, the underground dungeon was purely cinematic license.

[10] The Spangled Mob, originally headed by Jack and Seraffimo Spang were featured in the novel Diamonds Are Forever.

[11] In the novel Goldfinger planned to incapacitate the troops a toxin added to the water supply, which was of course dependent on everyone drinking water.  He also planned to hijack a train to carry all the necessary manpower dressed as medical personnel to take of the “medical” emergency. However the hijacking of the train would not have gone unnoticed especially with all of the people boarding the train. To open the Bullion Vault Goldfinger obtained a “clean” nuclear warhead with minimal radioactive yield however even with a low radioactive yield, the gold would have likely been too “hot” to handle without protective gear, at least for some time.  After which the vault had been opened the gold bullion would be loaded onto one hundred ten-ton trucks or some twenty six-wheel heavy industry road transporters. Goldfinger’s stated goal to remove all the gold reserves could not have been accomplished in the time period by the number of trucks or personnel.

[12] Even Bond had to admit that the scheme to irradiate the gold was brilliant, if insidious. Although Goldfinger took credit for the idea, it did not originate with him. When he first planned the Fort Knox robbery he had planned to loot it much as described in the novel Goldfinger. When he was initially searching for partners one of the people who he contacted was the American arch criminal Alexander Wainwright Luthor. It was Luthor who quickly pointed out the serious flaws in attempting to physically remove the gold and suggested irradiating it. Luthor declined to participate in the actual robbery, preferring to use his insider knowledge to build up his own personal gold stocks. A fantastic version of Luthor’s involvement in Operation Grandslam is depicted in Action Comics No. 277 June 1961

[13] Although the film does not specify what breed of horse Goldfinger bred it was undoubtedly the Palomino for obvious reasons.

[14] In the novel Bond is taking a commercial BOAC flight to London. At the counter he is told that he has to get a typhoid shot before being allowed to leave the country. When he gets the shot it renders him unconscious. He awakens on a BOAC flight that has been commandeered by Goldfinger. Bond certainly would have been suspicious of the sudden need for a typhoid shot. Also it would have been far easier for Goldfinger to commandeer a private plane rather than a commercial jet.

[15] In the novel the place of safety is Moscow. Goldfinger the criminal capitalistic entrepreneur was heading for the heart of communism with a hoard of gold. This of course was sheer nonsense, although it may indeed be what Goldfinger told Bond. He had of course earlier told Bond that he intended to give all of the gold stolen taken to a Soviet cruiser when in fact he planned to irradiate it and drive up the world wide prices of gold. Goldfinger was being deliberately misleading partially to deflect blame off his Red Chinese partners but also because since the Soviet Union was the Great Enemy of the time, it seemed plausible on the surface. However there is very little chance that Goldfinger would willing take his person and his personal hoard of gold to a totalitarian state where he would become a subject of the state and his gold would very likely become state property.

[16] In the novel Bond cuts the airplane window with a knife, avoids getting his arm sucked out of the window and maneuvers Oddjob in front of it. Oddjob’s vast bulk is then compressed and sucked out of the small window. Had Bond actually broken a window and maneuvered Oddjob in front of it Oddjob would have been sucked against the open window and most likely killed by the equalization pressures against his body. However his bulk would have stopped the decompression inside the cabin and he would not have been sucked from the cabin.

[17]  The readers of the novel are left with the impression that Bond’s manly charms had “cured” Pussy of her lesbianism. While it may true that Pussy made advances towards Bond, it is not likely that he changed her sexual orientation. That lesbianism could be “cured” by a romantic encounter with a “real” man was a common sexual stereotype in the fifties, one especially propounded by authors with a male chauvinist viewpoint such as Fleming. Considering that Pussy gravitated towards Tilly during the main course of Operation Grandslam rather than Bond makes her sudden conversion suspect. This is especially true when she prefaced the romantic encounter with the statement, “Will you write to me in Sing Sing?” It seems fairly obvious that she is using her sexuality in an attempt to have Bond use his influence to have any criminal penalties reduced or pardoned. Bond almost certainly knew what she was doing but was not about to turn her down.

Both the novel and film to an extent bowdlerized the character of Pussy Galore and her relationship to James Bond. In the novel although strong hints were dropped about the relationship between Tilly Masterton and Pussy Galore, Ian Fleming for the most part ignored it, making it seem as though Pussy was actually waiting for Bond. In the film version Jill Masterton was killed off before the character of Pussy was even introduced, making certain that there could be no hint of a relationship between the two women. Also despite having an all girl crew, Pussy was written as an aloof, hard to get tomboy rather than a lesbian.

Fleming’s deliberate glossing over the Pussy and Tilly’s relationship may because he felt that it was not appropriate do much beyond mentioning it due to his chauvinist attitudes towards lesbianism in general. It may also be because MI5 requested that he downplay the relationship because the same attitudes existed at the home office. M may have felt that it was not in the best interests of the service that it be known that the mission’s success had hinged on one of their agents actively encouraging a lesbian affair. Realizing that Pussy was out of his reach, Bond seduced Pussy by proxy, using Tilly as his agent, playing on Tilly’s twin desires of revenge on Goldfinger and for Pussy.

[18] Prince Zarkon and his Omega Men had their adventures chronicled by Lin Carter in the following accounts, The Nemesis of Evil, The Invisible Death, The Volcano Ogre, The Earth-Shaker, Horror Wears Blue.

[19] For more details on the various members of Prince Zarkon’s Omega Crew, please see the Prince Zarkon article.

[20] Pussy was able to track the following crimes Peterson’s female cadre, the assassination of a Latin American dictator in his palace by a needle gun, the hijacking of a million dollars worth of uncut heroin from a Tangiers harbour, the theft of a priceless Rembrandt belonging to the Soviet Union from a museum in France, the theft of plans of a new jet engine from a factory in West Germany, a group of gemstones stolen from Elite Gemstones Ltd in New York, the mysterious crash of the Keller Oil company jet which took the lives of Mr.Keller and his staff, the murder of Wyndgarde an insurance investigator and the apparent suicide of Mr. Reginald a board member of Phoenix Oil,

[21] This Carl Peterson was Carl Peterson Jr. the son of Bulldog Drummond’s archenemies, Carl Peterson and Irma Caber. As aptly demonstrated by Rick Lai, Carl Peterson was the uncle of Irma Caber so Irma Caber was both Carl Peterson’s mother and his cousin. The relationship between Carl Peterson Jr. and Irma Eckman was also quite bizarre. Irma Eckman was the daughter of Irma Caber and Lamont Cranston, as demonstrated in Irma of the Ilsa. Irma Eckman was then Carl Peterson jr’s half sister as well as his first and second cousin.

[22] Having women as his primary operatives seems to have been one of Carl Peterson jr.s particular traits. It is not known if this were through his own desire or from the influence of Irma Eckman

[23] Pussy would eventually discover Peterson had not, as Pussy supposed, taken her Cement Mixers gang and turned it into a ruthless gang of assassins but rather he had co-opted an earlier, previously existing organization and merely invited members of the Cement Mixers to join up with them. The organization that Peterson controlled through female intermediaries was The Order of Our Lady founded by Astar who was also known as Sumuru.

[24] Why Fossard’s organization broke up and why his daughter disappeared were revealed in To Catch A Thief  (MGM) What happened to Danielle Fousssard is related in Tarzans in the Valley of Gold.

[25] Akbar may have been Quatar. Although it did not have a King or Emir that took power in 1967, Britain did announce in that year that it would be giving up control of the Arab states. This could be a reference to Britain’s intention to pull back from the region and Peterson’s desire to seize control in Britain’s absence.

[26] This may have been Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani or another member of the royal family of Quatar

[27] Although the explosive chignon apparently killed Penelope and Irma, it actually only killed Penelope. Irma managed to jump from the boat and was far enough below the surface that the explosion did not harm her to any great degree. Drummond found to his dismay that Carl Peterson had also escaped and would plague him on one more occasion. Irma and Carl Peterson Jr. gathered the remnants of their organization and regroup. Together they attempted an ambitious gold hijacked that pitted them against another famous secret agent. This incident, albeit altered, was depicted in The Wrecking Crew (1969)

[28] More information on Octavia Smytha, a.k.a. Octopussy and her organization will be revealed in the Octopussy article of this series.

[29] A Life Model Decoy was depicted in the comics as a sophisticated robot capable of flawlessly impersonating a person. This however was not the case. LMDs are actually the products of extraterrestrial pod plants which were modified by the US Government. A few such plants have gone missing from the government inventories and into the hands of people wealthy enough to purchase them.  People such as Mordecai Midas.. For more information please see the William Luthor article.

[30] This was depicted in Iron Man V1 17-19

[31] These incidents of Mordecai Midas were depicted as being by Auric Goldfinger in the James Bond Junior cartoon series as Earth Cracker, Cruise to Oblivion, Goldie's Gold Scam. These also depicted Goldfinger’s henchman Oddjob as still alive and working for him. This was one of the many fictions in the cartoon series.

[32] Although one of the people on the trip was indeed related to Major Boothroyd of the Q section of MI5, and did display intuitive inventive genius, she had no inkling what he kindly uncle actually did for a living. The son of Felix Leiter was only a fiction of the cartoon show, at least in regards to be being a companion of James Bond Jr.. Another fanciful addition was that of the character of Goldie Finger, Auric Goldfinger’s daughter. Having been unmanned by his paralysis, Mordecai liked to surround himself with beautiful women and found several ruthless ones to work as his agents. Among these were Goldy and Barbella, two of the products of Doctor Hans Glaub’s experiments in producing a superior race of people. Dr. Glaub’s work will be explained in detail in the forthcoming  View to a Kill article.

[33] The story of Mordecai Midas attempted take over the former Hughes International holdings was fictionalized in Iron Man V1 103-107