I agree...that is why Connery is my favorite Bond. He was the most well-rounded and fulfilled all aspects: toughness, humor, playboy demeanor, etc. Roger Moore was too goofy. Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig were very tough, but at the expense of the humor and playboy aspects of the character. Pierce Brosnan was also very well-rounded, but maybe leaned a bit too far into the playboy side...a bit overly manicured and prissy compared to Connery's grittier portrayal.
@@johnsampson6387 For me Craig ion Casino Royale was still learning how to be Bond. He didn't get fancy gadgets, he got common-sense stuff. He complained when his suit was tailored, but straightened up when he saw himself in the mirror. He didn't get a fancy death trap, he got a knotted rope to the crotch. And only at the end did he wear a suit while carrying a silenced SMG.
@@johnsampson6387 Bit unfair to call Brosnan 'prissy'. He didnt have the animal magnetism of Connery but then very few actors have in the history of cinema.
Miss these old British-style spy scenes. Old Brit officers from the SOE in WW2, classic RP British accents, upper class manners, no rude loudmouths. I wish they would make these films again (not necessarily Bond). So many good WW2 and postwar spy stories available.
Agreed - while the modern bond films with Daniel Craig have been (mostly) very enjoyable, the problem is that the modern world is no place for the gentleman spy. With computers and networks everywhere, modern bond has to resort to massively fantastical plotlines and overly complex villians to provide a thrilling adventure story. By contrast just look at this scene - the entire set up is simply that a man is obtaining gold, melting it down and recasting, and somehow getting it abroad to sell for profit. It's dead simple and quite feasible, especially at a time when the smallest computer weighed several tons and occupied the space of a small barn. Back then everything was physical. It wasn't about data and sensors and whatever else. It was about slipping things past the net by disguise, subversion, seduction, or whatever else worked. And of course there were all the gadgets too - a leftover from the war and a need to provide SOE troops (as well as the resistance) with inconspicuous weapons and demolition charges and such. Modern bond gets a pistol that can read his finger print, where old bond got an exploding pen and a briefcase that doubled as a radio jammer. The post war years were simply a better time, technologically speaking, for the idea of a top-agent in the field. Modern spies are just hackers for the most part, with exceptionally boring and short lifespans
@@daredemontriple6 your half right. things are more tech and online now. however people still need to go to places and do things. as q says in spyfall "every now and then a trigger needs to be pulled". i think a lot of people are disillusioned with the modern age and think we are further ahead than we are.
@@murchuan8782 and equally M's look at Bond after the petty retaliation of "you'll draw it from Q Branch with the rest of your equipment in the morning..." This scene definitely is in my top 3 of all time, and possibly number one.
Not a fan of brandy with a cigar. Brandy has 40% alcohol and tastes hot anyway, add it to a hot cigar and you have a confused palate. Better to smoke a ruby Port of maybe a tawny with a good Cuban.
Well, Bond was the creation of Ian Fleming, who was himself from a background of wealth and privilege, and who definitely enjoyed the finer things in life. Fleming gave Bond a lot of his own personality traits, and being a _bon vivant_ with expensive tastes was one of them. This is why Bond is knowledgeable about things like brandy, sherry, fine cuisine, the finest tailors, and other such luxuries. M's reaction was "oh of course, he _would_ know about something like that."
@@Hibernicus1968 There's also the subtle implication that M was the one who brought it. So having his gift insulted by his guest, then dissected by his subordinate...
The actor who played the banker in this scene is the same actor who years later played a British central banker in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
It was Richard Vernon He had a part in many films and TV series - example is The Cedar Tree from the early 1980’s and I spotted him doing some travel programmes in the 60’s Oh those wonderful days in the 60’s and to some extent the 70’s when life was much simpler 🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🏴🏴🏴🏴👍 👍 ❤️❤️
So glad that others love this scene as much as I do. It's as good as anything in the movie. Perfectly shot and perfectly acted. Also quite true to the novel, though naturally condensed. Lovely stuff. One of my all time favorite Bond moments.
@@Kingfisher1215 Aside from the DC films (Specifically Skyfall and maybe Casino Royale), the best 4 Bonds are From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me
This M was superior in every way. He often couldn't decide whether Bond was an irresponsible womanizer or just an irritating know it all. But in the end he always had his back because he knew what mattered - an agent who got things done. I always hated the way they wrote Judy's M, and how far she ran with the whole man hater angle.
This one scene perfectly explains the whole plot of the movie without going into too much detail & I also love the underlying tension between Bond & M - Bond showing off his superior knowledge of fine wines yet M masterfully puts him in his place with the quip about who is doing the lecture & telling Bond to requisition the gold bar from Q branch. After all Bond is a civil servant & M is superior. Goldfinger & Spectre are my two most favourite Bond movies.
@@DrinkWater713 Bond is getting a lecture on smuggling and how the British Government believes that Goldfinger is moving gold from country to country, which is illegal. Then the Colonel offers bond what he calls "disappointing" brandy. M wants to know what's wrong with it, and Bond gives a cheeky reply about cognac regions (Fins, pronounced "Feen") and how the brandy has an "overdose of Bon Bois" (another reference to a cognac region). Basically he's showing rarified taste and obscure knowledge of cognac that makes M feel that he's showing off. So M says "Colonel Smithers is giving the lecture, 007". In other words, know your place.
It had nothing to do with a Master dynamic, it has to do with his training in fine wares. He was trained to know the proper etiquette in drinking, such as ordering a separate glass of water to add a few drops to your scotch or whiskey to bring out the flavors yourself. It was his job to keep that charade up because he had to infiltrate these organizations as some pompous rich nobody who drinks expensive booze, and not a assassin with a license to kill. The British government made him like that and invested money into his training, he better know what is in the brandy since double 0's are the best. Christ man, read the books and watch all the movies.
@@Saintbow you’re aware Bond is a spoof I hope? Because you sound like you’re taking this far too seriously. But then the internet is a nice safe home for little bullies like you.
@@runawayplane6166 My thoughts as well; Moore had the same savoir-fairewith a slightly more restrained showmanship/panache. Now you've got three subs :)
My dad was in army intelligence right at the end of WWII. When I was a little kid I always thought my dad did the same stuff as 007. Needless to say Sean Connery has always been my favorite actor. RIP Sean you are a legend. I've read every James Bond Novel that Fleming wrote. In college literature class 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' was required reading.
@@maratonlegendelenemirei3352 I don't know about him, but I might if the weather was so bad that the postman was actually risking his life against weather that might kill him, was serving away from his family by hundreds or thousands of miles, was not going to sleep in his own bed that night, and if I'd seen any postmen in recent years actually doing their work on foot in the traditional manner in bad weather as opposed to little vans. That and I don't really need snail mail much except occasional parcels, and those tend to come with dudes in little vans. If the postman were to meet those conditions, I would definitely thank him if I was actually there to receive the mail. I might omit the "for your service" part, since we would have the advantage of an immediately obvious context, he's still just doing it for a wage, and it's not ultimately earth-shatteringly important to the future of my life or country that it happen every day. Of course, were we ever again to have the timely on-foot delivery daily and super fast inter city letter times of my youth, I'd be less surly.
@@randomobserver8168 Joining the military is a career choice that you get paid to do like in any other. Death and injury can occur in any chosen career or job.
I absolutely love small detail, when M tries to figure out how Bond knows that's something wrong with "rather disappointing brandy". I absolutely love M face right there.
I did my eighth grade term paper on Ian Flemming. I'd seen all his movies to that point. My teacher - of course - thought I was touched in the head...😂
That was a great film. James Bond at its peak. Connery was unbelievably good. The look M gives him after he smelled the bottle is really funny. The film is very entertaining. I like this movie. That's how Bond should always be. ✌
Way back when…my father explained to me that the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown NYC had more gold in its basement than all of the places mentioned above…combined. Many countries held their gold reserves in that same basement and paid each other by simply moving the gold around from room to room.
The actor, Denis Cowles, who plays Brunskill, the valet, was born in 1889. Even though I was alive at the time the movie came out, I'd forgotten how many older folks still working in the Swinging Sixties in Britain, were born in the 19th century, in the Victorian Era.
@@mebsrea On a very tangential note, Bertrand Russell, who was alive when I was a boy, said that his grandfather met Napoleon, or glimpsed him at least. (Near enough to George Washington!) Sort of brings nearly a quarter of a millennium ago a lot closer, doesn't it?
To bring the 19th century closer for Americans, I read that the last widow claiming a pension as the spouse of a US Civil war veteran died this January! (she was 17 when she married a 93 yr old veteran in 1936)
Loved how the Director chose to move the camera AWAY from them as they are talking. All the way to the back of the room. Causing them to look small. Usually you will see the camera going TOWARDS the actors in a scene like this. Very interesting. I liked it a lot. Then the Director cut in to them for closer shots. All great.
A standard US gold bar weighs just over 27 lb. I handled one once in the vault at the NY Federal Reserve, back before 2001 when they still did vault tours for Reserve Bank employees. You really needed two hands to heft it. It cracks me up when I see people in movies tossing them around one handed. That bar, if real gold, would have likely weighed 10 kilos, or 22 lb.
This scene is meant to be in the Bank of England in the evening when it's closed. The only other people around would have been a detachment of soldiers from one of the Guard's 5 infantry regiments. Terrific to think that while these elegant men were having their dinner and talk, that there would have had fully armed, elite soldiers on station and patrolling the premises - even in the vault down below. During the Gordon Riots in 1780 a detachment of the Foot Guards successfully defended the Bank of England from a violent mob. Thenceforth the Bank paid for a detachment of soldiers, usually provided by the Brigade of Guards to defend the Bank. From 1780 the detachment marched from their barracks, initially from the Tower of London, later Wellington or Chelsea Barracks though in bad weather the detachment would be sent by a normal train of the London Underground. Imagine that! With a Guard Mount at 3 pm, each guard consisted of one Officer, one Sergeant, one Corporal, one Lance Corporal, eight Guardsmen and a drummer; originally the guard had 30 Guardsmen. Once at the Bank there were two sentry posts, one outside the Counting House Parlour and another outside the bullion vaults. The officer was given half a bottle of port and the right to invite a friend or two to dinner in the Bank. The other ranks were a given pint of beer with their dinner and one brand new shilling, two for a sergeant, that they bought tea and a cake with in the Canteen. The Guard wore plimsolls in the bank in Modern times. From 1963 the Bank Picquet travelled by vehicle clad in service dress and armed with automatic weapons with the emphasis on security moving from ceremonial to tactical deployment. Faced with military manpower cuts, it was reluctantly decided that there was no longer a justification for this duty to continue with the duty ending on the evening of 31 July 1973 . Pity.
@@user-ck8ec7pj1l Cheers. I should say that the scene was filmed in Pinewood studios, so everything you see is a mock up - there wasn't even a ceiling! It's all in the commentary on the DVD. You'll notice that the waiter serves cigars from the left to all of them, ensuring that he slices the cigar end over the box, so the cut part drops into the box. It's details like this that made the Bond films of the 1960's - early 1980's so British and so classic Guy Hamilton, the director, was a WW2 Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boat officer, ferrying secret agents into Occupied Europe. His mannerisms were copied by Connery for Bond. Hamilton gave Connery a crash course in the world of the English gentleman, as that was the world Hamilton lived in. Sean Connery was pretty rough and ready, having had a very hard life as a poor working class Scotsman. What your looking at in these films is Guy Hamilton, at 1 remove via Sean Connery, presented as 007.
"Colonel Smithers is giving the lecture 007... Damn, Bond just got sonned." Bond did embarrass "M" in front of a high ranking officer in the Military, even though I doubt that he even really knew what ***007*** said. Bond could be a bit overbearing at times. Both Bond and M could be a bit overbearing at times. Proud, Stubborn, and Condescending as Hell.
billthestinker the excheqeur I saw in a Christopher Lee movie called Brides of Dracula. It combined elements of Bond and Hammer horror acvording to reviewers. But the same magic just wss not there. Altho the actor played a similar British Civil Servant it was just lost in direction that was not top notch like Goldfinger's. Even Guy Hamilton's directorial efforts paled in comparison to his own Bond work! There was just something about Cubby Broccoli that bought out the best in everyone through his production values.
The thing about Bond was he was not concerned with other people's feelings. He was a psychopath, but he knew the difference between right and wrong. Women were disposable playthings. He really didn't care. Sean Connery was perfect for the role.
Saw this movie last Saturday as part of the 60th Anniversary cinema re-release, absolutely amazing, even though I can tell you the entire script at this stage, to see this epic on a huge screen and booming sound was fantastic to say the least. Go see a classic Bond movie in the cinema please, you won't regret it
@@countalucard4226 she was.... until Bond came along. Which is why in Thunderball, Fiona points it out to him to which he replied "well, you can't win them all"
Also saw this rerelease for the 60th anniversary @Westfield VUE and seeing it on the big screen after watching it for decades on tv was a entirely different experience!
Well, Venezuela was basically a satrap back then. As soon as it wasn't, the UK government decided to go ahead and steal a sizeable chunk of Venezuela's gold.
Gold at $30 an ounce at the time of this movie. Today it's $1950 an ounce. This gives us some idea about how massively devalued the Dollar and other paper currencies have become, and how much purchasing power we have lost using paper currencies.
Yes they are literally discussing how they run a global cartel to control the price and can't tolerate anyone trading gold outside their cartel monopoly system in this scene. It's shocking that this got made in retrospect.
I loved that special moment when as they are talking and after Bond made an analyzed study of that brandy, we see them slowly passing around that Crystal decanter. To where M gets it and he sniffs the brandy. Then looking over at 007 to give him that look that he may be right about the brandy. Great subtle moment.
@@gordonbartlett1921 Eeeegad, my bad! I mean neither I think. I'd offer up instead 'aristocratic' (but endearingly so) to be more to the point?? All the same one of my all time favorite scenes of any Bond flick. Fun fact: the dinner conversation from Fleming's novel is almost an entire chapter! The movie does a pretty good job of digesting the gist of it from the book.
@@Tourist1967 Ah, yes. The great old days of the £.s.d., 12 pennies - 1 shilling,. 20 shillings - 1 Pound sterling system. Which I am told, mathematically speaking, was a more practical and sensible way of doing it than decimal - 100, as there are fewer ways to evenly divide 100, and several more ways to evenly divide 240. And though it pre - dated computers, as we know them, they could certainly be adapted to that counting system. But, 50 + years in, and mostly likely no signs of changing things now.
@@selfdoworse still their complete nativity of fiat currency and the beautiful slight of hand played in '71 by Central Bankers including our own scum bags.
"His establishment here is down in Kent" "You mean where the werewolf ran amok?" "Precisely" "I understand his hair was perfect" "Get back to the subject at hand 007"
@@fifthof1795 Yeah, he is always so irritated when Bond pops off about something related to a high class lifestyle lived on the taxpayer's dime and knowing something about seemingly everything.
Moneypenny was the greatest catch Bond could have ever hoped for. A loyal servant of the Crown, she was smart, sophisticated, pretty, skilled and caring. I’m glad they never consummated their relationship. It was always perfect this way.
Guy Hamilton was responsible for setting that scene and having it come across the way it did. His direction helped to establish the James Bond look. Everyone gives Sean Connery so much credit. But it was Guy Hamilton who schooled Connery on how to look and how to act.
No, it was not Guy Hamilton, it was Terence Young, a true bonvivant and director of the first two Conery Bonds (Dr No and From Russia with Love), who schooled Connery and defined his look and style as well as so much of the feel of the early Bond films. He insisted on Champagne on set! Young took Connery to his tailor, and told him to sleep in his new suit so it would be comfortable and feel second nature. He took Connery to his club and so, so much more. There are docos on Young's influence on Connery and the series that are magic to watch.
This scene is one of the reasons Sean Connery is the best James Bond. If you look at his tux compared to the others, it is obviously not up to snuff, but he wears it well. His style always came across as a blue collar guy in a white collar world, one of us, so we can always relate to him so well.
Note how M resents a member of the lower ranks having a better knowledge of brandy and blending that he should have. With a French mother, perhaps not surprising but again it establishes Bond as One Of Us
Agreed. YOLT was big budget but I've always felt Connery looked a tad disinterested in it somehow...and I think he looked positively lethargic in DAF.. just my opinion.
I wish On Her Majesty’s Secret Service had been produced earlier in the Connery era. I was an early teen when it was released and just couldn’t accept anyone else playing Bond. But having recently seen it, it was a great movie and Lazenby did very credible job, especially for a non-actor who bluffed his way into the role.
It’s a lot more, as the price of gold has outpaced inflation since then. Let’s stick with the price Col. Smithers gave for gold, £30, and the value of the bar, £5000. That means that the bar is 166.7 ounces. Using today’s (7/10/2020) price of gold, £1430 , we get a value of about £240000. One can understand why M insisted Bond draw the bar from Q branch in the morning.
00-Agents aren't novice! They are above the regular agent after all, they take the juicist assignments (but also take the highest risks! - Hell, M prides himself on getting casualty numbers among 00-Personal down 40% in 'Dr. No' and he gives Bond the PPK (because his Beretta jamed on him during an assignment) "in order to keep it that way")
@dreamingflurry2729 If I recall, Bond had a pocket size Beretta .25acp that got caught, snag as he drew it. M told Q branch to get new Walther PPKs in the larger .380acp caliber for all 00 series agents.
He said that bar on the table was £5,000 or $6,500 ($16.25 / ounce) in 1965. Today that 400 ounce bar X $1,910 per ounce or $764,000. Now that’s some Burns, (not Volker), Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Powell Fed driven inflation!
The Best Bond in one of the greatest Bond movies ever made. If a young Connery could as if by magic be transferred to the modern era and star in a new batch of well written and directed Bond movies, he'd still be the best Bond ever
The best Bond movie ever. This one set the mould for the blockbusters. Goldfinger best line by a Bond villain;”No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!” Absolutely awesome.
Some of the background is really fun too. Gert Fröbe not knowing English, Aston Martin refusing to give them a car, movie wasn't "big enough". They've never had to pay for a car since then.
