Goldfinger (1964)

Richard Vernon: Colonel Smithers

Photos 

Quotes 

• Colonel Smithers : Have a little more of this rather disappointing brandy.

  M : What's the matter with it?

  James Bond : I'd say it was a 30-year-old fine, indifferently blended, sir... with an overdose of bon-bois.

  M : Colonel Smithers is giving the lecture, 007.

• Colonel Smithers : [Referring to the gold bar on the dining room table]  Mr. Bond can make whatever use of it he deems necessary... provided he returns it, of course. It's worth five thousand pounds.

  [Bond reaches for the bar, but M stops him short] 

  M : You'll draw it from Q Branch... with the rest of your equipment... in the morning.

  James Bond : Of course, sir.

• Colonel Smithers : Gentlemen, Mr. Goldfiinger has gold bullion on deposit in Zurich, Amsterdam, Caracas, Hong Kong... worth 20 million pounds. Most of it came from this country.

  James Bond : Why move it?

  Colonel Smithers : Because the price of gold varies from country to country. If you buy it here at 30 dollars an ounce, you can sell it in, say, Pakistan for 110 dollars and triple your money... provided, of course, you have the facilities for melting it down.

  James Bond : And has he?

  Colonel Smithers : Apart from being a legitimate international bullion dealer, Mr. Goldfinger poses... no, that's not quite fair... *is*, among his many other pursuits, a legitimate international jeweler. He's legally entitled to operate modest metallurgical installations. His British one is down in Kent. We have yet to discover how he transfers his gold out of the coutry... Lord knows we've tried.

  [to M] 

  Colonel Smithers : If your department can establish that it is being done illegally, the bank can institute proceedings to recover the bulk of his holdings.

  James Bond : I think it's time Mr. Goldfinger and I met... socially, of course.

  Colonel Smithers : I was hoping you'd say that.

  M : It might lead to a business talk... Mr. Goldfinger's kind of business.

• Colonel Smithers : We, here at the Bank of England, Mr. Bond, are the official depository for gold bullion... just as Fort Knox, Kentucky is for the United States. We know, of course, the amounts we each hold, we know the amounts deposited in other banks, and we can estimate what is being held for industrial purposes. This allows our two governments to establish, respectively, the true value of the dollar and the pound. Consequently, we are vitally concerned about unauthorized leakages.

  James Bond : I take it you mean smuggling.

  Colonel Smithers : Yes. Gold, gentlemen, which can be melted down and recast, is virtually untraceable... making it, unlike diamonds, ideal for smuggling... attracting the biggest and most ingenious criminals.