For sale: some pricey 007 props

At the Heritage Auction Galleries Web site, there are some James Bond props up for sale by the Ian Fleming Founcation for the serious 007 collector:
For example, there’s:
–A temperature gauge from the Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 with an opening bid of $600.
– A prop cell phone from Tomorrow Never Dies with an opening bid of [...]

Automotive Traveler’s salute to Goldfinger

Automotive Traveler, a Web site that deals in auto-related matters, has its own salute to Goldfinger. Part of the post by Richard Truesdell deals with the sequence where 007’s Aston Martin makes short work of a brand new Ford Mustang:
“From Russia with Love” might be my favorite, “Goldfinger” was clearly the film where the series [...]

Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary (cont.): the first hit 007 song

Nearly 45 years after it was introduced, Goldfinger’s title song still resonates with the public. As we’ve written about before, the song was nearly killed because co-producer Harry Saltzman hated it. But there was no time to record a replacement. So it remained and became a big hit.
The previous 007 film, From Russia With Love, [...]

Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary: the car that changed everything

Almost 45 years ago, when Goldfinger came out, part of the attraction was James Bond’s super car, the Aston Martin DB 5. The 007 film series was never the same.
In Ian Fleming’s 1959 novel, Bond had a choice of two cars from MI6’s motor pool: an Aston Martin DB III or a Jaguar 3.4. He [...]

Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary (cont.): Adapting the golf match

We’re about 10 days from the 45th anniversary of Goldfinger. One of the keys to the film was adapting an 18-hole golf match between James Bond and Auric Goldfinger. The golf match was one of the reasons why Goldfinger was Ian Fleming’s longest novels. Paring it down would help make the film version the shortest [...]

Roundup of 007/Ian Fleming-related anniversaries this year

We’ve noted some of these and skipped others. In any case, this is proving to be quite the year for notable James Bond and/or Ian Fleming-related anniversaries. Here’s a recap:
April: 100th anniversary of the birth of 007 producer Albert R. “Cubby Broccoli.
May: 100th anniversary of the birth of 007 screenwriter Richard Maibuam
June: 30th anniversary of [...]

Countdown to Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary part II

The 45th anniversary of Goldfinger’s world premier is next month. With that in mind, here’s a list of 10 major decisions that helped shape the movie.
1. Selecting Goldfinger as the third Ian Fleming novel in the series to be filmed. Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman weren’t going by the order the novels appeared. [...]

Countdown to Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary part I

Whether you like the movie or not, Goldfinger in 1964 was the first mega-007 hit. There may be better Bond movies (From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service come to mind), but Goldfinger made James Bond a cinema super star.
Next month is the 45th anniversary of the film’s world premier. In honor [...]

007/Hawaii Five-O part III (the end, we hope)

OK, we’ve milked this for all it’s worth. But how in heaven’s name could we have forgotten this one?
Harold Sakata 007: Played Oddjob, Goldfinger’s lead henchman in the 1964 movie with the villain’s name as the title (and just to be clear it was called Goldfinger not Oddjob). Five-O: Played a thug in a fifth-season [...]

The Huffington Post celebrates Goldfinger!

We’re not sure how many of our readers are also readers of the politically-left website The Huffington Post, but political analyst William Bradley has posted a quite nice tribute to the James Bond film Goldfinger, on the occasion of its 45th anniversary.
Mr. Bradley is clearly a long-standing and knowledgeable fan, and writes quite lovingly of [...]