Bond tries to secure Pussy Galore's cooperation in Goldfinger.
The British Film Institute ignited intense discussion among James Bond fans this week. The BFI is coming out with a program of films scored by John Barry, including Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, according to The Guardian.
Goldfinger includes a sequence where Bond (Sean Connery) wins over Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman). In the 21st century, this doesn't always go over well.
The institute issued "trigger warnings" about the movies (which also include The Ipcress File) saying the films may have elements that may offend modern audiences.
An excerpt from The Guardian story:
A spokesperson for the BFI told the Guardian:
"As a cultural charity with responsibility for the preservation of film and moving image work and presenting it to audiences, we continuously face and deal with challenges presented by the history of film and television programmes and how they reflect views prevalent to their time."
Some Bond fans consider this silly. Goldfinger's 60th anniversary is this year. There has been plenty of time to hash over these issues.
A critic for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw, raised the question whether such warning were necessary.
Other fans say this is OK as long as the movies themselves aren't altered.
For more than 50 years (at least in the U.S.), Bond movies had parental advisories attached when broadcast on the U.S.
In the States, the first Bond film shown on TV was Goldfinger in 1972 on ABC. The gunbarrel logo was taken out. Later Goldfinger showings saw the movie cut down further to meet a two-hour (with commercials) broadcast slot.
Similar cuts occurred with other Bond films. ABC's most ambitious editing was a 1976 showing of On Her Majesty's Secret Service where the orders of scenes were changed with an American voice-over actor providing narration as Bond.
These issues persisted for years.
As recently as 2002, ABC used digital technology to make the panties of Plenty O'Toole (Lana Wood) in Diamonds Are Forever black where they were flesh-colored in the original 1971 film.
Other movies having nothing to do with Bond have gotten disclaimers similar to what the BFI is doing.
The Disney + streaming service added a disclaimer to Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier from 1955. Several years ago, the TCM channel in the U.S. had a showing of 1942's Holiday Inn. The introduction, before the film began, cautioned the audience that Bing Crosby did a song number in blackface, which modern audiences abhor.
All of this points to complicated issues. The BFI controversy is not the last word.
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