Just caught this. Directed many movies, the early James Bonds being the most noted. For those of us of a certain vintage, we'll never forget the laser scene in Goldfinger. Pure cool Bond was then. It was the 60s and London swung like a pendulum do....

Facebook friend posted a nice article about Hamilton's influence, here's a bit of it. There's even a Stones connection from Hamilton's work...the artist he hired to create the iconic golden woman title sequence for Goldfinger was Robert Brownjohn, who also designed the artwork for the Let It Bleed cover.

The effect of Goldfinger on cinema, culture and of course the onscreen fortunes of James Bond 007 cannot be underestimated. It’s not just 007 that emerges from the shadows at the beginning of Goldfinger, the modern day blockbuster does. The first two Bond films are brilliant films, yet visually and narratively very static. As soon as we get to Goldfinger the whole film’s about movement. We’ve got the Aston Martin DB5 and the film opens with a diver at a Miami hotel falling down into the water and the camera goes with it. That is down to Guy Hamilton opening up both the visual and pacing dynamic of Bond. Goldfinger is one of the first really visual films of the Sixties. Terence Young’s brilliant Dr. No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963) are still quite tied to that cerebral, dialogue-based spy world. We are often told the story through dialogue. But in Goldfinger and under Hamilton’s command we are not told a woman’s going to be killed. We see her, painted in gold and dumped on a bed.It is a visual, adult and visceral currency Hamilton afforded the Bond franchise forever more.

A great many of the visual tics of Goldfinger are part of the lexicon of Sixties cinema. Bond waking up with Pussy Galore putting a gun to his face, Bond on the laser table, the DB5, Robert Brownjohn’s gilded titles, Bassey’s notes, a deadly hat and Shirley Eaton dead on the bed – they are all as much a vital beat of 20th century entertainment as they are when Bond turned a dramatic corner on film.

[www.mi6community.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-04-27 02:57 by latebloomer.