Notes regarding the pre-title are my longest by far from first project viewing of Goldfinger yesterday afternoon.
To me they’re both a key structural element in defining “the James Bond movie,” and an aspect that cannot be duplicated by following rote formula or mechanics. It’s not uncommon for a motion picture to begin in medias res, provide background and even advance central plot lines before opening titles. But these vignettes are at once stand-alone and chief among parts that make up a whole that should not be reduced to any one of its sum.
Albert R Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, and Terence Young had yet to get it right in their first two films. And Never Say Never Again will never quite make a final list due in no small part because of this absence.
Curiously, as I prepared to make this post, I thought more in terms of other 007 features as opposed to what I’d just seen in Goldfinger. Without settling into any sort of delineation of particulars, and recognizing that pick-and-place repeats of that 1964 effort wouldn’t last long, I went to my memory alone for examples. The training mission at Gibraltar featuring three Double-Os and the introduction of Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights immediately came to mind. The “Terrorist Arms Bazaar on the Russian Border” ten years later, in Tomorrow Never Dies, as another.
Too many others, however, lacked “inspiration.” Thunderball and Diamonds Are Forever felt overly reliant upon crude fist-fighting. A View to a Kill and SPECTRE were runnin’ around, chasin’ around sequences that, frankly, fell short of basic Bond movie standards for thrill value, let alone Bond pre-title standards.
On the other hand, it took a lot of discipline for me to keep The World Is Not Enough off the list. Outstanding in-and-of-itself, but I just could not get past the bifurcation. The office building escape was spectacular, Goldfinger-class. But then came the phenomenal Q-Boat chase: Possibly pre-title calibre, and certainly a worthy contender for any number What Makes James Bond Movies Great lists. But in this placement it seemed more to say, “and because what you just saw didn’t quite make the mark, here’s this.”
From the following preliminary list of nine, then, The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy almost made final cut through clever twists that distinguished them from otherwise more pedestrian ski and aerial extravaganzas. GoldenEye and and the 2006 Casino Royale earned points for being different, but lost points for appearing to try too hard (for the sake of trying too hard).
- Goldfinger (1964), Sean Connery
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Roger Moore- For Your Eyes Only (1981), Roger Moore
Octopussy (1983), Roger Moore- The Living Daylights (1987), Timothy Dalton
- Licence to Kill (1989), Timothy Dalton
GoldenEye (1995), Pierce Brosnan- Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Pierce Brosnan
Casino Royale (2006), Daniel Craig
The summary at this point is that Goldfinger stood out for a pre-title that was an engaging story that could hold its own as a short, and, too, as something clearly bigger than a scene within the larger movie of which it was a part. It was also essential 007, by which I mean, who and what he is, why we have come as an audience to enter his world; not simply something to advance the plot later, something that might be helpful to know about him later, or, God forbid! something that otherwise would not be a good fit for the rest of this theatrical ride.
Among other things, pre-titles pick up where the previous motion picture ended, with the promise that James Bond would be back. He may be portrayed by a different actor, after a long absence or short, in a world with completely different rules of engagement. But this is reminder and assurance the he remains confident, clever, and creative.
And, too: He always wins before the title credits roll.
