20 Things You Didn’t Know About Goldfinger (1964)
8. “Shocking! Positively Shocking!”
Screenwriter, Paul Dehn - who had been hired by Harry Saltzman to evoke the British elements of Richard Maibaum's script - suggested that the film’s pre-credits sequence should be an action scene that was entirely unrelated to the main plot. However, Sean Connery disliked Dehn’s rewrite, so Maibaum based the pre-credits sequence on the opening of Ian Fleming’s 1959 novel, in which Bond briefly reflects on killing a Mexican heroin smuggler.
The pre-credits sequence was filmed on 9th March 1964 on the Paddock Tank at Pinewood Studios, whilst the exterior of Mr Ramirez’s base was shot at the Esso Oil Refinery in Stanwell, Middlesex (now Surrey). The producers rented Sean Connery's pristine white tuxedo from the filmmakers of his earlier movie, Woman of Straw (1964) specifically for the scene.
Stuntman, Alf Joint played the capungo who attacks James Bond in Bonita's (Nadja Regin’s) dressing room at the El Scorpio Café after the original actor - a cat burglar - was arrested. Optical effects supervisor, Cliff Culley provided Joint’s reflection in Nadja Regin’s eye in post-production, but Joint was badly burnt when the coil of the heater that Connery threw into the bathtub after him got caught around his leg.