Goldfinger

Of all these early Bond films I've seen (I'm up through the sixth), this is my favorite. It's also the only one that has nothing to do with SPECTRE. It's not that I don't like SPECTRE, I just enjoyed Goldfinger's story and characters the most. It gets rolling early with the classic scene of the woman covered in gold paint, something that wouldn't actually kill you, but an iconic moment nonetheless. Goldfinger himself is a classic Bond villain, with a particularly clever evil plan and penchant for theatrics. I mean, this is the guy who strapped Bond to a table with a laser and told him he expected him to die. Oddjob is the quintessential henchman; silent, nearly indestructible, and extremely deadly. And Pussy Galore is a great Bond girl; the first one who actually spoke with her own voice and was a legitimate actor, and actually put up a fight instead of just falling into his arms.

This is the first Bond movie to take place in the United States at least part of the time, and it's funny to hear the voices of the actors picked to play the gangsters Goldfinger works with, they're as stereotypically American as possible. The most important location in the film is actually Kentucky, which is fairly tame by Bond's standards, but there's a good reason, his target is Fort Knox, and the assault on said building is the series' biggest and most elaborate sequence yet. Bond actually spends a great deal of his time in Kentucky being captured and trying haplessly to get a message to the outside world, and it's interesting to see the first time he really seemed vulnerable. Of course his manhood's just as deadly as his brawling skills or Walther PPK and ends up being what saves the day in a convoluted sort of way. As a break from the early films' all-SPECTRE-all-the-time approach, I liked it a lot.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: Cuba, Miami, Switzerland, Kentucky
Bond, James Bond: 12:00, 38:20 (interrupted)
Martini shaken, not stirred: 55:30
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 3
Kills: 7
Non-lethal takedowns: 5