007 Countdown Part 2 - Goldfinger

Hello everyone and welcome to Some Like It Scott's latest Countdown miniseries: the 007 Countdown. This time, in honor of the upcoming release of the 25th film in the franchise, NO TIME TO DIE, Scott, Scott, and Jay will be revisiting an abridged selection of 007 films to see how James Bond has evolved across decades, storylines, directors, and actors. Starting with the legendary performances of Sean Connery in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER and ending with the full retinue of Daniel Craig's performances across the last decade and a half, the countdown crew will give their thoughts on 10 different Bond films. Join us each week as we dissect a different Bond film!

On the second episode of the countdown, Scott, Scott, and Jay revisit the follow-up to last week's film and the third movie in the Bond franchise, GOLDFINGER. The film opens with Sean Connery's Bond successfully completing a mission that finds him bombing a drug lab in Latin America. After completing his mission, he flies to Miami for a short holiday, only to be spoiled with the assignment of observing bullion dealer, Gert Fröbe's Auric Goldfinger, who is vacationing at the same hotel. It doesn't take Bond long to discover some of Goldfinger's less illicit, but still shady dealings, cheating at a high-stakes game of gin rummy via his employee, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton). Bond foils Goldfinger's cheating and seduces Jill, only to be knocked unconscious in his room by Goldfinger's manservant, Oddjob (Harold Sakata). When Bond wakes up, he finds Jill dead, covered from head-to-toe in gold paint. Bond returns to England, but his Goldfinger assignment doesn't end there, as he is tasked with uncovering how Goldfinger is able to transport large caches of gold across international borders and thereby exploiting different gold prices in foreign markets. This assignment takes Bond to Switzerland and finally back to the U.S. to Kentucky, on a collision course with the now-infamous Fort Knox "heist" that Goldfinger aims to accomplish. The countdown crew give their thoughts on whether GOLDFINGER builds on the formula established in its predecessors, whether Connery continues to live up to the Bond archetype, and whether this film indicates an upward trajectory for the Bond franchise overall.