Playing Games With Goldfinger
Even after watching film adaptation of Goldfinger numerous times and poring over the book, it’s easy to miss “Rumpelstiltskin” purring under the hood. Major players from the fairy tale have been combined or splintered, and are joined by a noisy chorus of secondary characters who squeeze together for a globe-trotting adventure.
The version of “Rumpelstiltskin” most of us heard as children was distilled from one of mankind’s oldest tales, pre-dating Homer, the Bible and possibly even the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ethnographers categorize it as a Type 500 Folktale: “The Name of the Helper” because a devil’s bargain between a supernatural assistant and his human client can be nullified only if the client guesses the helper’s name. The protagonist is often a young woman who has, in some sense, been offered as a sacrifice.
In the Brothers Grimm version, a miller’s daughter is placed in jeopardy by her father’s foolish boast to the King that his girl is so clever she can spin straw into gold. The King orders her to be locked in a room with a spinning wheel and a pile of straw. Told that she must fill the room with gold by morning or pay with her life, she begins to sob. A strange little man suddenly appears and announces that spinning straw into gold happens to be his specialty. What are the odds?
Objects and events often line up in threes in fairy tales, but “Rumpelstiltskin” takes this device to the limit. The “manikin” spins a wheel three times to produce strands of gold. Over three successive nights the girl must fill three rooms with gold, each larger than the last. If she can fill the third room the King promises to marry her.
The little man demands three tokens for his work, a necklace, a ring, and the girl’s firstborn child. A year after the miller’s daughter weds the King, the imp arrives to collect his final payment. Greeted by more sobbing he gives the Queen three days to guess his name. If she fails, he takes possession of the child.
The distraught Queen sends out a messenger each day to scour the countryside for unusual names. After two unsuccessful surveys of the kingdom the messenger spies a strange little man doing a gleeful dance in the woods by night while chanting a triumphant song ending with the words, “Rumpelstiltskin is my name.”
On the third day the Queen makes three guesses and scores a bullseye with her third try. The indignant helper throws a tantrum, stamping his foot with such wrath that it becomes wedged in the floor. Struggling mightily to free his foot, he tears himself in two.
Fleming bests “Rumplestiltskin" at this game of threes: He divides Goldfinger into three sections, “Happenstance,” “Coincidence,” and “Enemy Action.” Goldfinger cheats Du Pont at Canasta, a game in which threes have special status. Big Ben strikes three just before Bond’s phone rings. A Records clerk at MI6 turns up information on three Goldfingers. Col. Smithers announces that the world is in its third Gold Age. Goldfinger boasts that his henchman Odd Job is one of only three men in the world with a Black Belt in Karate.
Bond has three female companions this time, the two Masterton girls, Jill and Tilly, and a cat burglar named Pussy Galore. Fort Knox is protected by the Third Armored Division. Bond crosses his fingers and leaves a desperate message for Felix three days before Operation Grand Slam.
It should be noted that in the fairy tale the Queen never actually guesses Rumpelstiltskin’s name. Her spy helps her cheat, the same way Bond helps Du Pont outcheat Goldfinger at Canasta, and then outcheats the cheater on his own behalf at golf. And bear in mind that as a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond is literally the Queen’s agent. As if to remind us who he’s working for, Fleming even has Bond pause for a moment to gaze at a portrait of Her Royal Majesty hanging on a wall.
Goldfinger’s secret has nothing to do with his name. Fleming had already played that card in a previous thriller involving another ginger card-cheat, one whose real name would suggest his true allegiance and his motive for wanting to demolish London. What Goldfinger must guard at all cost is his Rube-Goldberg blueprint for stealing the U.S. gold supply. The moment any of Goldfinger’s confederates hear the secret, they cannot leave his side and live, as one of them learns the hard way.
The names of Goldfinger’s underworld associates seem designed to suggest quirky or clandestine proclivities with at least one major exception: Helmut M. Springer. “Springer”can refer to the English Springer Spaniel, a breed of bird dog trained to flush out game and retrieve the kill. One possible meaning for “Helmut” is “battle spirit,” but we’re never told what the middle initial “M” stands for. What is it doing there? Is it needed to differentiate this man from all the other Helmut Springers?
Or has Fleming included a middle initial to provide an extra letter needed to turn the Detroit gangster’s name into an anagram? There is already one obvious anagram in the story, in the feline-themed female acrobatic team, "Pussy Galore and Her Abrocats."
My initial thought was that another “m” would be needed to produce the word “Grimm” as in the brothers who collected and preserved European folk tales, including “Rumpelstiltskin.” But then I found myself stuck trying to string the remaining letters into something meaningful. Or, at least something meaningful in English.
Helmut is a German name, and German happened to be Ian Fleming’s second language. With this in mind the letters in Helmut M. Springer can be rearranged to spell Grimme turnspiel, “Turnspiel” apparently means indoor game, or, according to Google Translate, gymnastic game. Remembering that Springer and his bodyguard wind up somersaulting down a stairwell, even if most of the hoods’ names do spotlight character traits, Mr. Springer’s name seems to provide a clue to his ultimate downfall, while underlining his fate as collateral damage in a German fairy tale.