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BOND: 10 Things You Might Not Know About GOLDFINGER

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1. Sean Connery had always been vocal about his discontent with his Bond salary, from pretty much straight after Dr. No's release and success. For his debut Bond outing he was paid just £10,000, From Russia With Love earned him £167,000 and he negotiated a small salary increase  prior to production beginning on Goldfinger. However, during filming a further pay dispute broke out, and after he suffered a back injury when filming the scene where Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, Connery used it to leverage 5% of the net profit from this and any subsequent Bond films he starred in. In the end, he made approximately £330,000 for Goldfinger.


2. Gert Fröbe had such a heavy German accent that all his lines as Auric Goldfinger had to be dubbed by Michael Collins. However, in the film's trailer Fröbe's own voice is heard when Goldfinger tells 007, "Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond, it may be your last."

3. Concerned about censors, the producers thought about changing Pussy Galore's name to Kitty Galore, but director Guy Hamilton didn't like it, later stating;
"If you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and [told him] we were big supporters of the Republican Party."
However whilst the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name Pussy Galore to appear on promotional materials, so for the U.S. market she was subsequently called Miss Galore or Goldfinger's personal pilot.


4. Jack Lord was approached to reprise the part of Felix Leiter, the role he'd played in Dr. No, but, according to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money. The producers declined and recast the part. Initially Austin Willis was set to play Leiter, but at the last minute his role was switched with that of Cec Linder, and so Willis played the part of Goldfinger's gullible gin rummy opponent instead. 

5. Harold Sakata, who played Oddjob, was an Olympic silver medal winning weightlifter who had never acted before. Despite this, director Guy Martin cast him after being impressed with his appearance on a wrestling program. Determined to make the most of his big break, Sakata was always keen to do anything suggested to him, often going above and beyond the call of duty, something which resulted in him being badly burned whilst filming his death scene. As Oddjob was electrocuted a small current actually did make its way through his body, despite his pain, Sakata determinedly kept holding onto the hat until the director finally said "Cut!"


6. In Ian Fleming's original novel, Goldfinger uses a circular saw to try to kill Bond. In fact, in 1959, when the book was published, lasers didn't even exist - the first being built a year later by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Laboratories.

It was director Guy Hamilton who first thought of switching Goldfinger's weapon of choice to a more cutting edge tech, but laser's were still very much in their infancy, so production designer Ken Adam was advised on the laser's design by two Harvard scientists. It was all theory at the time as the high-powered industrial laser featured hadn't been invented.

When it came to the film the laser beam itself was an optical effect added in post-production, and for close-ups where the flame cuts through metal, technician Bert Luxford heated the metal with a blowtorch from underneath the table to which Bond was strapped.


7. The timer on the bomb was supposed to stop on 003 but producer Harry Saltzman thought it would be funny if it stopped on 007, and had the scene changed in post-production. This explains Connery’s line:
"Three more ticks and Mr Goldfinger would’ve hit the jackpot."
8. Aston Martin were reluctant to part with two of their cars for the production. The producers could not come to a suitable arrangement and so had to pay for the vehicles out of the budget, but after the success of the film, both at the box office and for Aston Martin, the Bond series never had to spend money on a car again.


9. Goldfinger was one of the first movies to fully capitalise of promotional licensed merchandise, with James Bond clothing, dress shoes, action figures, board games, jigsaw puzzles, lunch boxes, toys, record albums, trading cards and slot cars all making their way into stores on the back of this film. Of course, the most popular item was the Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys. The first one produced was presented as a gift to Prince Charles (who was 15 at the time), and the toy car went on to become the biggest selling toy of 1964.

10. In the original end title credits, which featured the famous "James Bond will return in..." teaser, the next film advertised was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. However, thanks to the problematic sourcing of Swiss locations and the settlement of the Kevin McClory lawsuit, it was decided to switch production to Thunderball. The end title teaser was later changed to advertise this, but several of the earlier prints are still in existence.

James Bond will return in 10 things you might not know about On Her Majesty's Secret Service Thunderball.

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