Tonight, ITV4 showed Goldfinger, perhaps not unexpectedly.
When you see three Bonds in the space of a week, you notice recurring tropes or things, really.
Of course, with Connery now gone, it has a different vibe. He's now in movie legend like Bogarde in Casablanca. He's alive, and not alive. It's slightly wrong to say you appreciate him more - I did at the time - but you are less blasé watching. It's like you're looking back on the day and it's over, whereas before you were living it.
Anyway! Recurring things. Lots of people get knocked out in this, including Bond himself a few times. There's a symmetry as the pre-credits dancer gets knocked out (care is taken to ensure a) She deserves it, as she's in on the scheme to knock Bond out and b) She's shown to be alive and not really hurt afterwards, that would kind of spoil the mood.
Within a very short time, however, Connery himself takes a knock from our Korean friend and is out for the count. This might redress a sort of balance for viewers who might have felt Bond had behaved badly earlier, like when Brosnan says 'Kill her! She means nothing to me! in GE, and has the same done to him later by the same woman.
Tonight for the first time I saw Bond in his towelling suit and Leiter in his grey suit standing in the distant background surveying Goldfinger as he talks his pigeon through his card game.
Bond uses the same demeaning line to both Jill Masterton and Pussy Galore about how personal they are with Mister Goldfinger.
Watching the subtitles offers a new slant. Dink is called Denk (again, that actress died last year too) and Jill Masterton is called Masterson, as in the book but not in the film.
Note how Connery's action with her gun case mirrors his with Klebb and the Lektor at the end of FRWL: 'Here, I'll take that...'
Lake Toplitz? Where the hell's that? It's where the Nazi hoard of gold is. I thought they were mythical. Maybe a late 1960s Indiana Jones could uncover it in his next flick.
Now, I love this film but damned if I can see what is going on really at the end. Those troops are falling over as the planes fly over, fine, but are they acting or is it a fake drug? If Pussy Galore has tipped them off then why the hell is Goldfinger even being allowed near Fort Knox. It makes sense at the time as we don't know what's been going on but no sense in retrospect.
Of course, watching folk storm a US landmark with troops doing nothing - was glad to watch this knowing nothing iike that could happen in America today! 
Is Oddjob the only villain with his own side-effect - those golden notes? Other villains like Wint and Kidd and Nik Nak have their themes. Jaws never had a theme did he. However, that Spectre henchman whose name temporarily escapes me had a theme of sorts.
GF is a more straightforwardly enjoyable film than FRWL and as a kid you could follow most of it. I enjoyed it as a kid seeing it on a black and white telly in the mid 1970s. I enjoy it today in remastered colour but it hits a snag - the digital sound is not great and some of the notes grate. One day they'll knock it out with a digital visual and analogue sound and we'll all fork out again.
The dubbing of Gert Frobe by someone called Michael Collins is nothing short of brilliant. Shirley Eaton's dubbing is great too. Funnily enough having the same actors doing the dubbing assists with this odd continuity in the series and controversially I'd say it makes the film more accessible to Brits and Americans because they simply sound less foreign. It's Disneyland foreign.
Sad to say I think Shirley Eaton is now the only surviving member of the cast? Ironically, as her character is the first to die on screen. Or what about Wai Lin on the plane?
The American vibe of this film for the last furlong puts me in mind of JFK where nothing is quite as it seems.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
