I'd like to elaborate on my nomination of Auric Goldfinger as an antagonist. I am just now rewatching Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, after some years. I had hated it, and still see no need to turn Holmes, the most popular literary character of all time, thus far, into an action hero; but, as I think on Holmes' primary antagonist, Professor Moriarty, I am struck by Goldfinger's correspondence to him. Moriarty is the THINKING criminal antagonist. There have been other cunning, calculating, cerebral antagonists in literature, e. g., Iago in Othello, but precious few in popular cinema; perhaps The Godfather, with a kind of common-sense Street Smarts. Moriarty clearly relishes ratiocination as a tool for crime--and so does Goldfinger! Remember Goldfinger's presentation to all his colleague crime bosses, about his proposed assault on Fort Knox? "Science has brought us to the moon! It has split the atom! . . . It has been used in every area--EXCEPT CRIME!" Most antagonists are brutes. Just as the beautiful antagonist is much more intimidating than the ugly antagonist, so is the intelligent antagonist much more to be feared than the brutal one. Goldfinger was one smart sumbitch, which is why he, and not the amazing Aston-Martin DB-5, made this movie a classic. That is also why Moriarty helped to make Holmes the world's most loved literary character.
(I acknowledge that Hannibal Lecter is a brilliant antagonist, but I don't perceive him as being a criminal per se. Goldfinger and Moriarty were out for personal wealth and power. Lecter was hunting for dinner; also, he was nuts.)
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