The Kiss Of Death From Mr. Goldfinger

How they painted Shirley Eaton gold for the movie, Goldfinger.

I never quite figured out why the villain had that 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 Oddjob to perform an ugly deed. James and Jill are rolling around in bed in what appears to be his room. Oddjob 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 Oddjob 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 Oddjob 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.

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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.