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Painting Women Gold Can be Problematic...


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#1 Revelator

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Posted 29 November 2013 - 11:00 PM

One of my favorite bloggers is the animation writer Mark Evanier, whose blog "News From Me" is reguarly updated. Some of his recent posts are on the topic of Goldfinger and the gold-painted Shirley Eaton.

 

Here is his post from last Monday:

 

I never quite figured out why the villain had that [painting Jill gold] done insofar as the storyline was concerned. I mean, her character, Jill Masterson, helped James Bond screw up Mr. Goldfinger's poker game…so Goldfinger sends Odd Job to perform an ugly deed. James and Jill are rolling around in bed in what appears to be his room. Odd Job somehow gets inside, knocks Bond out and then when our hero wakes up, there's Jill — dead and covered head-to-toe in gold paint.

Bond later says she died from "skin suffocation," from being painted. Isn't that like the hardest way imaginable to kill someone? I mean, it's not like she would hold still while Odd Job got out his tray and roller and gave her a couple of coats of semi-gloss. He did a neat job, too. There's no sign of any spills or drips of gold anywhere else in the room. And as you can see not in the movie but in some of the publicity stills, he was nice enough to leave her underwear on and paint it, too — and presumably under it. He did all this before Bond regained consciousness.

I'm going to guess Bond was wrong; that she didn't die from being painted. I'm thinking Odd Job did it the easy way: He killed her, then painted her. That sure would have saved a lot of time and helped get him outta there before Bond woke up. And he could really have left before then if he hadn't bothered to paint her at all.

Why do that? All I can think of is that it was Goldfinger's little way of signing his work, making sure Bond knew who'd done it. But Bond would have figured that out. Earlier that day, she turned on her boss, one of the most powerful, ruthless men in the world. Later on, she's murdered. If 007 couldn't put that one together, Mr. Goldfinger had nothing to fear from him.

But of course, Goldfinger was afraid that Bond would interfere with his plans to make zillions…so while the guy's unconscious, why not just kill him? Goldfinger had several opportunities to kill 007 in that film and didn't. For a guy who wasn't shy about killing anyone who stood between himself and what he wanted, ol' Auric sure went out of his way to not kill the one guy who seemed likely to foil his plans.

I love that movie but it's filled with things like that that bother me. They did such elaborate special effects and stuntwork in the assault on Fort Knox…why not take the five minutes in editing to have that countdown clock run in real time? It's counting down the seconds until the kaboom! and — I actually timed this — we see it at 215 and after one full minute of screen time, it's at 146. Then we have another 40 seconds of screen time and it's at 127.

Then there are a lot of cutaways to the ticking clock that don't coincide much with the action happening between them…but here's the bottom line. From the time it says 127 on the clock to the moment where it's stopped at [SPOILER ALERT] 007, there's two minutes and 47 seconds. The last twenty seconds alone last about a minute. For me, it just lessens the reality in a movie that was built on firm logic, believable feats, and a completely possible premise.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a cockroach in the kitchen that I have to go kill. I'm thinking that instead of getting out the spray or stepping on it, I'll paint it gold. That will be so much easier.

 

I emailed Evanier and said some of his questions on Goldfinger could be traced to the decisions made by the screenwriters in adapting Ian Fleming's novel. In the book, Jill's death occurs "offscreen," and Bond only learns of it after confronting Jill's sister Tilly, who gives the details, many of which differ from the film version. Her death is (slightly) more plausible in the book but less memorable. Here's the relevant passage from Fleming's Goldfinger (chapter 14):

 

She whispered, almost to herself, "He killed my sister. You knew her — Jill Masterton."

Bond said fiercely, "What happened?"

"He has a woman once a month. Jill told me this when she first took the job. He hypnotizes them. Then he — he paints them gold."

"Christ! Why?"

"I don't know. Jill told me he's mad about gold. I suppose he sort of thinks he's — that he's possessing gold. You know — marrying it. He gets some Korean servant to paint them. The man has to leave their backbones unpainted. Jill couldn't explain that. I found out it's so they wouldn't die. If their bodies were completely covered with gold paint, the pores of the skin wouldn't be able to breathe. Then they'd die. Afterwards, they're washed down by the Korean with resin or something. Goldfinger gives them a thousand dollars and sends them away."

Bond saw the dreadful Oddjob with his pot of gold paint, Goldfinger's eyes gloating over the glistening statue, the fierce possession. "What happened to Jill?"

"She cabled me to come. She was in an emergency ward in a hospital in Miami. Goldfinger had thrown her out. She was dying. The doctors didn't know what was the matter. She told me what happened to her — what he had done to her. She died the same night." The girl's voice was dry, matter of fact. "When I got back to England I went to Train, the skin specialist. He told me this business about the pores of the skin. It had happened to some cabaret girl who had to pose as a silver statue. He showed me the details of the case and the autopsy. Then I knew what had happened to Jill. Goldfinger had had her painted her all over. He had murdered her. It must have been out of revenge for — for going with you." There was a pause. The girl said dully, "She told me about you. She — she liked you. She told me if I ever met you, I was to give you this ring."

Bond closed his eyes tight, fighting with a wave of mental nausea. More death! More blood on his hands.

 

 

Today Evanier mentioned my email and quoted the above passage in his blog. He commented:

 

 

Okay, so let me see if I have this right: Goldfinger gets women to his place, hypnotizes them and when they're in a trance, Oddjob paints them gold…and I guess it's implied Mr. Goldfinger rapes them at some point. They wake up and Oddjob takes the paint off them and they get a thousand bucks and he kicks them out. They don't die because Oddjob doesn't paint their spines. But as punishment for being with Bond, Jill Masterson got her spine painted and then…

 

Well, I'm not sure. She wound up in an emergency ward. Was she still painted gold? I guess not because the doctors didn't know what the matter was. So the idea here is that Oddjob had taken the paint off but she was still dying from having had it on, is that it? But she was also coherent enough to send a cable to her sister to travel to see her…and she was alive when the sister got there, which was the same night because she died the same night she was painted. And she told the sister what Goldfinger had done to her but I guess she didn't tell the doctors who were trying to save her life. And then she died and…oh, this whole idea of killing women by painting them gold is getting to sound really impractical. It might be easier to just deep-fry a turkey…

 

It probably would, but I think the image of a dead woman completely covered in gold is alluring enough to defeat any question of plausibility. What do you think?


Edited by Revelator, 29 November 2013 - 11:44 PM.


#2 AMC Hornet

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 04:37 AM

Wot I think is:

I can't comment on the gold painting; I think Mark is right - kill her first, then paint her body. It takes less time, cinematically.

As for the countdown clock, some of that time can be accounted for:

While you're running your stopwatch to compare the countdown time with elapsed real time, stop it every time the scene switches from Bond & Oddjob to the US forces racing to reach the bomb. These two events are happening at the same time.

Same goes for the timer at the climax of TSWLM: while Bond is hanging from the camera dolly, techs behind the 'impregnable' louvers are trying to switch the circuit.

It doesn't account for all the time, but it helps ease the self-induced headaches we all suffer trying to make sense of a fantasy film set in a relatively realistic, but still somewhat elevated parallel universe.



#3 Dustin

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 06:39 PM

If I remember correctly (did I read this in FOR BOND LOVERS ONLY?) Fleming had heard about this odd accident of the nightclub dancer and couldn't resist using it for his own book. It was then thought to be 'skin suffocation', but later most physicians agreed that this accident - and other cases of a similar nature - was most probably caused by a rare and extremely developed form of contact allergy. If we look at divers and swimmers - easily the activities with the highest risk of suffering 'skin suffocation' -practically no such cases are documented.

Fact is that the skin's breathing at below 1 per cent just doesn't figure important enough to kill a human organism when affected. Meanwhile certain allergies - still a relatively young field of expertise in Fleming's day - are known to have a potentially lethal effect that would have been difficult to counter even by an intensive care unit of that era.

Interesting in that context is Fleming's clever use of characterisation for Goldfinger. His greed for gold is not just depicted as such, it also blends with the cardinal sin of lust, and in a manner that suggests control and intent - 'once a month' - thus removing Goldfinger from us ordinary sinners - and Bond - who just cannot withstand the temptation. By inserting that bizarre episode and Goldfinger's private kink Fleming doesn't just create a slightly perverted villain, he paints a character that is at once familiar and completely alien.

Edited by Dustin, 30 November 2013 - 06:41 PM.


#4 Double Naught spy

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Posted 01 December 2013 - 10:10 PM

It's always refreshing (and all too rare!) when someone uses their mind and re-examines something we all just sort of "take for granted" and Evanier's thoughtful critique is no exception.  I confess that I never have given the whole "paint job" subject much thought until reading his comments.  I just sort of took it for granted that it 'made sense' in regards to the film.  Thanks for sharing this with us Revelator!  That said, now that my "critical thinking cap" is on, I'd like to take a stab at countering some of the points made...

 

Regarding the amount of time needed to paint Jill vs. how long 007 was knocked out:  It's not implausible to assume that Oddjob is such highly skilled in hand-to-hand expert that he is able to render (think: Vulcan nerve pinch) his victims unconscious for well over an hour.  Based on the (pre-paint job) plans 007 made with Felix for dinner and the subsequent call by Felix (post paint-job) complaining that Bond failed to show up, Bond has clearly been unconscious for quite some time.  Of course, this is all theory, but look at Bond's actions after he makes plans to meet with Felix.  He goes to the fridge to get more champagne in preparation for another romp in the sack with Jill.  Certainly not the actions of a man who, for the sake of argument, just made plans to meet his friend in an hour. 

 

Given that time is on Oddjob's side, he was likely under orders by Goldfinger to do the job with perfection.  I think it's more plausible for Goldfinger to order Oddjob to paint Jill (easy enough to bring some tarps into the room and remove them along with the paint cans before 007 wakes up) and to lay her body on the bed without so much as a drop spilled in some sort of "artistic message" than it would be for him to order Oddjob to just slosh some paint on her and let the Fontainebleau's maid service clean up the rest of the mess.  (Speaking of maids, the one who let 007 into Goldfinger's suite is damned lucky Auric never found out about her!)    

 

The undies Shirley Eaton is seen wearing in the publicity stills are not seen in the film and, just like the pasties over Ms. Eaton's breasts that are also seen in the publicity photos, are not meant to be considered as what the character Jill Masterson is wearing in the film.  Given what she and 007 were just up to, I highly doubt Jill was still wearing panties!  LOL

 

Granted, 007's comment to M that Jill died from skin suffocation is likely an erroneous conclusion.  However, since it is highly implausible that Bond stuck around Miami and attended her autopsy, his comment can easily be chalked up to him imparting second-hand knowledge to his boss based on the Miami Medical Examiner's faulty conclusion rather than any personal knowledge Bond might or might not have on the subject.  In other words, Bond could just have easily told M, "Based on the M.E.'s findings....etc.."  Perhaps, upon further inspection of the corpse, the M.E. would later conclude that she suffered a skillfully-placed blow by her assailant.

 

As for Goldfinger not having Oddjob kill Bond on the spot.  A megalomaniac like Goldfinger might have simply been intrigued by anyone who could get the better of him (which I image was a rare occurrence to run across someone of that caliber for someone like Goldfinger.)  Goldfinger's curiosity about this mystery man who 'bested' him clearly outweighed any thoughts of revenge.  For all he knew, Bond could be some rogue adventurer (ala Simon Templar) who, having proved himself to Goldfinger, could be used (or exploited) by Goldfinger in the future.  Although it's not stated, when they next meet at the golf course, Goldfinger must have thought to himself, "Holy hell!  Aside from him 'besting' me, this guy is resourceful enough to get out of Miami without being charged with murder!?!"  At that point in the story, Goldfinger had no knowledge that 007 is MI6, or that he posed any threat to himself, his organization, or Operation: Grand Slam.  However, this is not the case will the traitorous Jill.  Given what he was about to undertake in a matter of days, Goldfinger's decision to kill her was as much about revenge as it was about silencing a potential security leak. 


Edited by Double Naught spy, 01 December 2013 - 10:10 PM.


#5 Revelator

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Posted 02 December 2013 - 10:26 PM

Today Evanier has returned to the topic:

 

I'm not sure why I'm devoting so much space to trashing a movie that I like as much as Goldfinger. I guess I'm fascinated that I like it so much despite the fact that you could drive the Battlestar Galactica through some of its gaps in logic. Here's a message from Douglas McEwan…

 

All the stuff about the problems of killing Shirley Eaton by painting her gold are on the nose. The ones from the book you mentioned today bothered me when I first read the novel, back before the movie even came out. (My dad, who was given to monitoring my reading, though unlike Mother, he knew better than to try to censor or restrict my reading, also read it, and got caught up in explaining to me how the logistics of moving the gold out of Fort Knox were beyond impractical, even though Fleming devotes an entire chapter to explaining how to do it in great detail. That plot hole the movie fixed.)

 

But what got me in the movie was the Hood's Congress and the death of the gangster Solo. ("Hood's Congress" is the title of the first of three chapters covering Goldfinger's explanation of the heist to the hoods.) In the movie, he gives the hoods the most-elaborate show-and-tell explanation of his plan imaginable, with giant movie props and that flipping pool table/control panel, and the huge model that rises from the floor. He's spent thousands on this lecture's props, and then he just kills them afterwards. Why not kill them without the lecture? Also, in the book, he doesn't kill them; they all participate in the heist.

 

And then there's Solo, who gave his name to Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Literally. Fleming consulted on the series's creation and suggested the name from his book.) He wants his million in gold now! Goldfinger gives it to him, Oddjob drives him and a million dollars in gold (Hope that car had super-duper suspension) off, pulls over, shoots Solo, then has the car smushed into a cube, an oddly non-bloody cube given that a human being has been crushed within. I'd expect it to be running blood. Oddjob drives the cube back in a pick-up truck that appeared by magic, and we hear Goldfinger say: "Excuse me, I must extract my gold from Mr. Solo," which, I would think, would be difficult and bothersome.

 

Why not just take Solo out of the room and shoot him? What possible point was served by crushing him in the car with the gold? All it did was force Goldfinger into a tiresome chore of extracting the gold from the crushed car. It doesn't even constitute getting Solo's body off Goldfinger's property, since Oddjob just drove him back and his remains will be out again as they extract the gold. All Oddjob has accomplished is to make the gold hard to get to and to destroy gratuitously a very nice car. (In the second unit shots of the car driving about, Oddjob was doubled by Michael Wilson, who now produces the Bond movies.)

 

In the novel, Solo participates in the robbery of Fort Knox. Another hood refuses and demands immediate payment. Goldfinger sends him out of the room and presses a button to signal Oddjob. A few minutes later Oddjob returns and this scene ensues:

 

[Goldfinger said:] "I have received bad news. Our friend Mr. Helmut Springer has met with an accident. He fell down the stairs. Death was instantaneous."

"Ho, ho!" Mr. Ring's laugh was not a laugh. It was a hole in the face. "And what does that Slappy Hapgood, his torpedo, have to say about it?"

Goldfinger said gravely, "Alas, Mr. Hapgood also fell down the stairs and has succumbed to his injuries."

Mr. Solo looked at Goldfinger with new respect. He said softly, "Mister, you better get those stairs fixed before me and my friend Guilo come to use them."

Goldfinger said seriously, "The fault has been located. Repairs will be put in hand at once."

 

Vastly more logical, with no one forced to extract a million dollars worth of gold, in 1964 dollars, from a crushed Caddy. The hoods have a laugh about it. And we didn't get: "I have received bad news. Our friend Mr. Helmut Springer has met with an accident. He fell into a vat of gold paint and his pores suffocated."

 

 

All true. But let's get to the biggest leap in logic: How the hell does Goldfinger think he's going to get away with Operation Grand Slam? He and his private army fly in, kill hundreds of U.S. soldiers, detonate a nuclear device that will probably destroy most of a city and also render the gold in Fort Knox radio-active for 58 years, thereby enhancing many times over the value of the gold he owns.

Big question: Would it work like that? I mean, the U.S. still has the gold, almost all of which was probably going to sit in the vault for 58 years untouched, anyway. Would it really become valueless until the year 2022?

 

Bigger question: So, uh, what happens to Mr. Goldfinger when the combined military forces of the United States of America come after him, bomb the bejeesus out of every damn building he owns, kill him and seize his gold? I mean, what's he going to do? Have Oddjob throw his hat at the First Marine Division?

 

I mean, it's not like Goldfinger can cover up his involvement in all this just by killing James Bond. The authorities already know where Bond is and besides, Goldfinger has way too many employees to keep his role a secret. If China is involved, he might start World War III in the process but there's no way he's going to get away to enjoy his more-valuable-than-ever gold.

 

I know, I know. It's not supposed to make sense. I think I'm just impressed that the movie "works" in spite of the fact that so little of it makes sense. And I think I like the fact that when you come right down to it, this whole ghastly plan is not foiled by Bond's cunning or courage or expert spy work. It's foiled because Pussy Galore develops a crush on him…



#6 Revelator

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Posted 02 December 2013 - 11:00 PM

 Thanks for sharing this with us Revelator! 

 

You're welcome, and thank you for your response.

 

It's not implausible to assume that Oddjob is such highly skilled in hand-to-hand expert that he is able to render (think: Vulcan nerve pinch) his victims unconscious for well over an hour.  Based on the (pre-paint job) plans 007 made with Felix for dinner and the subsequent call by Felix (post paint-job) complaining that Bond failed to show up, Bond has clearly been unconscious for quite some time. 

 

Yes, the first suggestion is very plausible, and the second strikes me as correct.

 

 (Speaking of maids, the one who let 007 into Goldfinger's suite is damned lucky Auric never found out about her!)    

 

Or the hotel, since it would have instantly fired her. Bond's lucky that he stumbled across the most feckless maid there!

 

Granted, 007's comment to M that Jill died from skin suffocation is likely an erroneous conclusion.

 

A good way to recover from Bond's creator's original mistake (as detailed by Dustin)...
 

As for Goldfinger not having Oddjob kill Bond on the spot.  A megalomaniac like Goldfinger might have simply been intrigued by anyone who could get the better of him...For all he knew, Bond could be some rogue adventurer (ala Simon Templar) who, having proved himself to Goldfinger, could be used (or exploited) by Goldfinger in the future. 

 

That's certainly how the book handles Goldfinger's interest in Bond, since he later hires Bond as a secretary of sorts. However, Fleming's handling of that was ultimately implausible than the film's solution.

Pretty much all of the Bond films have gigantic holes when it comes to plot logic. Hitchcock's films do as well, because movie thrillers depend less on airtight logic than on the production of arresting images powerful enough to carry the mind along. Dream logic has to take over at points. It's a tribute to Goldfinger that Evanier has only started wondering about the film's implausible bits over four decades since he first saw it.

 

P.S. Double Naught Spy, are you the same guy as doublenoughtspy? If so I had a question for you.


Edited by Revelator, 02 December 2013 - 11:01 PM.


#7 Double Naught spy

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Posted 02 December 2013 - 11:53 PM

Revelator,

 

No sooner did I respond to your posting of Evanier's latest blog, than I saw you had posted a separate entry moments ago -  so I'm editing this post to reflect on you latest post/query.  For those of you following the continuity of this thread, what I typed down below is a (playful, albeit serious) response to Evanier's latest blog.  As for your question Revelator, no I'm not Doublenoughtspy. (And imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that I'd come up with such a similar moniker as an already-established CBN poster!  FWIW, I thought I was in "safe" territory by naming myself after what Jethro Bodine (from the Beverly Hillbillies) called 00 agents. Wherever you are DoublenOughtspy - no offense meant!)  As for it taking Evanier "four decades" to critically inspect Goldfinger - I love it!  As I posted earlier, it certainly forces me to put my "critical think cap" on.  

 

(the start of the original post)

I'd counter that, Goldfinger's Operation: Grand Slam (film version) was a damned-near solid plan.  He'd detonate the nuclear device and get away from the Fort Knox area Scott-free (I'm confident that any trace of Delta-9 nerve gas would have been destroyed in the ensuing atomic blast).  By the time the U.S. investigators arrived on the scene of the Fort Knox crater, even if they would've been able to pin the nuclear material to China, it still wouldn't have mattered a wit to ol' Auric.  And even in the unlikely event that M and MI6 decided to reveal that one of their double-oh agents was last seen in the company of Goldfinger, they'd run the risk that the villain would turn that information against them with a "conspiracy theory" that an MI6 agent was involved in the nuclear blast. 

 

The only flaw in Goldfinger's plan was 007's timely intervention (i.e. the WHOLE POINT of the film), Even after Goldfinger was "on the run", he was crafty enough to escape the scene (i.e the Battle for Fort Knox) and seemingly eluded a nationwide manhunt to the extent that he was even able to infiltrate the airfield where 007's plane was departing from.  Post-Fort Knox, the only flaw in his logic I can see was his desire to exact personal revenge on 007, which, even then could have gone either way (i.e. Goldfinger killing 007 aboard the plane and Goldfinger (presumable) making his way to a friendly nation).  If he would've just given up his last-ditch revenge plans, he'd likely still be living the high-life in Beijing (or some such place). But as it is, he rolled the dice against 007 one too many times and came up 'craps.'

 

As for the "why go to so much effort to kill Solo?" angle.  First off, we can all agree in the frame-work of the film that Goldfinger never intended for any of the mobsters to walk away from his stud farm with his promised pay-off to them.  That being said, does it really matter how they (Solo in particular) is killed?  One could easily make the case of, "Well, why did Goldfinger waste so much valuable Delta-9 gas on the mobsters when he could have just had his men enter the room and gun them down?"  But,that's just not Goldfinger's style. 

 

Sure, to the rest of us, destroying a perfectly good car, having to spend resources to extract the gold in the trunk, etc. seems like a waste of time/money...  but this is Goldfinger!  To frame his actions in a "middle-class suburban" mindset misses the point entirely.  The man's got more money (and is under the impression that, as soon as Operation: Grand Slam is completed, he'll have even more) than you or I could possibly imagine.  Honestly, when attempting to understand Goldfinger's actions/motivations, you have factor in his vast wealth (and not to mention that he's a megalomaniac nut-case).  


Edited by Double Naught spy, 03 December 2013 - 12:28 AM.