Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Which would you pick as the better one? Let's be honest, people may call Dr. Strangelove the best but these are the ones they secretly watch many more times. In one corner it's Clint in his very first stubble and in the other it's Connery in the Aston and on the farm. These movies also sparked their own manias where many copycat movies were made.

This is very tough to choose so i actually cannot. Aw heck fine Goldfinger. Forgive me Leone.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

i pick any Saw torture device because they're real.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

So I have a good ripoff (;)) of Yojimbo (Leone NEVER asked AK for the rights to the story but it was all ok in the end) vs. A damn fine Bond film which was fucking awesome


Bond for the win.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

fistful by a hair.

incidentally I would rate The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as being better than the combined sum of every Bond movie ever made.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

A Fistful of Dollars easily. Goldfinger is light fun but not one of my favorite Bonds (and certainly not in comparison to From Russia With Love). Whereas Fistful is a great movie in its own right (while obviously a rip off of Yojimbo).

Edit: In terms of fun films from 1964 I'd put A Hard Day's Night above either of them.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

This is kind of a misleading poll. It would be better to pit YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967) against FISTFUL, since FISTFUL wasn't released in the U.S. until 1967 anyway (as were the two Leone "Man with No Name" follow-ups). Nobody in the U.S. had even heard of the Leone film, or Italian westerns for that matter, until 1967.

In which case, I'd pick YOLT over FISTFUL. I used to like GOLDFINGER but repeat viewings over the years have greatly diminished it in my eyes. So much of it is set in the un-picturesque horse country setting where Bond is held prisoner (Maryland? Kentucky?) and Goldfinger & co. are setting up their Fort Knox caper. And Bond's a prisoner for much of the time, which greatly weakens his effectiveness as a hero. Also, Bond gets this great gadget-filled car and it doesn't help him at all! After that whole chase, he crashes the car and gets caught thanks to that old mirror-on-the-road gag. How lame! What's the point of having all these high-tech gadgets if you get caught anyway?

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Fistful of Dollars. I love those Spaghetti Westerns.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

And Kurosawa never bought the rights to Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.

I consider Goldfinger one of the most overrated Bond films -- 007 gets two HOPAs killed then spends the rest of the movie as the villain's prisoner. The only thing he accomplishes is convincing Pussy to turn traitor -- the soldiers would've killed Oddjob when they got to the vault, and Q ended up pushing Bond out of the way to disarm the bomb.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Goldfinger - it's one of my favorite Bond films, plus I prefer For a Few... to Fistful.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Yep. If it weren't for a few iconic moments (Bond finding the girl covered in gold and "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"), Goldfinger might be considered one of the weaker Bond movies.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Yeah well this is original dates only.

Bond's attitude later on is a change of pace from the previous 2 where he was doing everything so who cares about minor quibbles like that. Now he had to use his wits when he was imprisoned and still found a way to win even though indirectly.

Nope Goldfinger earns every bit of cred it receives even now after all the years and that's why so many Bond movies have tried to replicate it.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

So many Bond films have tried to replicate the formula of Goldfinger to the series' detriment, I'd argue. You can trace a direct line from the invisible car in Die Another Day to the souped up car in Goldfinger.

Bond's biggest success in Goldfinger was turning a lesbo on to men.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Without Goldfinger the series would not have survived either. GF is also one of the 15 movies on TCM's most influential movie soundtracks. I mean who cares about that 1 thing, what about the mood and tone of the movie and how easy going it is.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

It's so easy going that Bond doesn't do anything in it.

I assume your initials stand for "From Russia With Love," which is my all time favorite Bond film and one I wish the rest of the series had been more like. But judging by your comments, it seems "Goldfinger" would be a more apt screen name for you. :)

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

A much more prolific franchise released what many consider to be it's best film in 1964: Mosura tai Gojira. Without that as a selection I went with Mr. Bond.

same here

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Yeah...FaFDM is much better than FoD. I blame that it's not a story I know of before that film and Lee Van Fucking Cleef.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

GOLDFINGER's soundtrack isn't even that good. Other than the theme song, all I remember is that horribly grating music that plays over the first stage of the Fort Knox caper. I've had the soundtracks to the first seven Bond films roughly since they came out. My fave remains YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, followed by ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, THUNDERBALL and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Although there's one piece of music used repeatedly and heard over action scenes in FRWL, THUNDERBALL and YOLT that's also gotten pretty annoying over the years.

But it was the theme song from YOLT, sung by Nancy Sinatra over that beautiful credits sequence, that really swept me away. YOLT remains one of my all-time favorite films. (FRWL is the second best Bond film, followed by DR. NO.)

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Yeah my name is that acronym back when i was really into Bond in the mid 00s and FRWL is definitely awesome but i'd go for Dr. No if someone shoved a gun barrel in my mouth. FRWL and GF both have their strengths, honestly the first 3 make a great trilogy like the Dollars trilogy.

Without GF's soundtrack the YOLT and all of those wouldn't have been possible because afterward they all tried to have bold singers trying to do what GF did.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

You say that as if no one ever would have thought to do those things if they weren't done in Goldfinger. It was mostly the same people working on the initial Bond films, I'm sure they would have figured it out eventually even without Goldfinger.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Yeah another Goldfinger type would've come along... but Goldfinger is still a solid Bond it's just we're now in a dark is cool phase so the more colorful movies are knocked down.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

FINALLY! Somebody saw something(s) in Goldfinger that nobody else never seems to notice before!

From the looks of things, Goldfinger seems to always get a constant pass by:

-Hey! Good Teaser! (Pre-credits sequence)
-Hey! Great theme song!
-Hey! Great henchman!
-Hey! Great henchwoman! (The name, at least)
-Hey! The introduction to the Aston Martin!
-Hey! A super-villian that doesn't want to to conquer the vorld! (Yes, intentional spelling typo)

^All of that *Apparently* is enough to say that Goldfinger is not only the greatest 007 film of all time, but one of the greatest adventure films ever made. But I'm sorry, I've tried AGAIN & AGAIN with this movie and I just don't see what the heck makes it such an enduring classic. Like Ash said, is it just BECAUSE Bond is kept as a prisoner for such a long time? Is that considered revolutionary? Maybe so because the "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."-line is labeled as one of the greatest quotes in cinema history. So maybe fans/critics would rather see Bond....Dying? Instead of actually doing something? I'll at least disagree with Ash regarding the soundtrack because I happen to still love the "Raid at Fort Knox" track---But it's just too bad that the music happens to play over those scenes of the soldiers getting gassed (Even though the soldiers are aware of the caper, this entire sequence is just as campy as anything as you'd find on the 60's BATMAN tv show)

(Fistful/Dollars on the other hand) Though it was a complete remake of an absolute classic that I love (And keep in mind that i frst I saw Fistful long before I had actually watched Yojimbo) Plus the fact that even though Sergio Leone was supplied with an extremely minimal budget (Another factoid that I wasn't aware of long after) Leone still managed to create magic with what he was given. I can certainly say that no "Magic" was ever created with my many viewings of Goldfinger.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Personally i dont really give a shit about checklist stuff like iconic lines or the gadgetry, it's all about the mood/tone, the opening in the southern club. Fistful is really good but the secret world of spies is just barely more interesting.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

I've not seen A Fistful of Dollars, but I just watched Goldfinger on Blu-ray two nights ago so it's fresh on my mind. I remember reading an issue of Golf Digest about a decade ago and they asked Bill Murray what the greatest golf movie was, and he replied, "Goldfinger." You can complain about the fact that Bond is held prisoner for the majority of the film, but that's in Ian Fleming's novel and this was made at a time when they still made an effort to adapt his source material. Fleming constantly had Bond in that kind of fix, and while it may somehow diminish him as a hero to some, I always saw it as unreasonable to think the guy wouldn't be taken prisoner on a semi-regular basis given his line of work.

Barry's score is rock solid for my taste, from the cabaret source music to the fanfare that welcomes us to Miami, the guitar-driven instrumental take on Shirley Bassey's iconic title song that appears in several cues...I totally dig this score. It's not as atmospheric as From Russia with Love, but taken entirely as its own work I think it's pretty damn good.

The movie does have its plot holes, of course. Goldfinger giving the briefing to the hoods just to gas them all anyway was a completely contrived way of delivering the exposition to both Bond and us, the audience. And the whole fake-being-gassed scene has always felt poorly done to me. Maybe it's the music, or the editing, or the fact that I just don't buy it. Whatever.

Connery drives the whole film, though, and it's really the last time that he gives us a James Bond who is an ordinary guy in an extraordinary world. Here, he still behaves like an operative on a mission; bemused by the trappings of his adversary, but completely committed to his job. The rest of his appearances, Connery walks through the whole picture just taking for granted that he'll win in the end. We all knew Bond would carry the day in Goldfinger, but Connery doesn't play him that way. It's also the only time Guy Hamilton directed a Bond movie while making any effort to keep the film grounded or coherent; Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun are little more than a series of set pieces strung together by thin jokes.

Also, Honor Blackman was a major casting mistake. Pussy Galore is supposed to be from the South. She works for the film alright, but as someone who enjoyed Fleming's novel I was always bugged by the fact they made her a Brit.

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Jaime Pressley would have rocked in that role a few years ago. If a remake were made today, give the part to Megan Fox. In two years?...Taylor Swift. In four years? I'm not goin' there. ;)

Re: Battle of 1964: A Fistful of Dollars vs. Goldfinger
 

Waitaminute who's to say Honor WASNT playing a southern type? she didnt have any accent. The opening of Goldfinger btw is better than many movies by itself.