Goldfinger: from typewriter to screen, conclusion

Our final installment looking at UK film historian Adrian Turner’s examination of how the screenplay to Goldfinger came together.

February 3, 1964: Sean Connery now weighs in on the Goldfinger screenplay. “No longer the hunk who came cheap, Connery had become an international star…and he wanted to ensure the film suited his own interests,” Turner wrote in his 1998 book on the film.

Connery attends a meeting with producer Albert R. Broccoli and screenwriter Richard Maibuam, despite the fact that Paul Dehn wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay. Turner quotes from Maibuam’s notes of the meeting:

“Connery feels tone of script all wrong. Wants serious approach with humor interjected subtly as in other films…Connery is very much against Pussy bouncing him around….He feels Bond is overshadowed completely by Goldfinger throughout.”

Shortly thereafter: Paul Dehn now crafts a second draft, which becomes the shooting script for the film. Dehn incorporates suggestions of Broccoli, his partner Harry Saltzman, Connery, director Guy Hamilton and Maibuam. The latter suggests a tweak that is used. Dehn’s first draft had Bond remarking that someone had a “crush” on Mr. Solo (Springer in earlier drafts, which was in line with Ian Fleming’s novel) when the gangster is killed. It’s Maibaum who suggests Goldfinger saying he needs to arrange to have his gold separated from the late Mr. Solo. Bond replies that Solo had “a pressing engagement.”

September 1964: On the day of Goldfinger’s world premier, Dehn sends Maibuam a cable: “Congratulations on Goldfinger am proud to have collaborated with you.”

(Adrian Turner on Goldfinger, page 206-208, 50)

THE END OF GOLDFINGER
BUT JAMES BOND WILL BE BACK
IN THUNDERBALL