Pussy Galore

All Music Guide:

You either loved them or loathed them (some did both), but it was difficult to ignore the bawling, intentionally crude, anti-musicianship coughed up by Pussy Galore. A bunch of scuzzy-looking juveniles from Washington, D.C. -- their name coming from Honor Blackman's character in the James Bond film Goldfinger -- and led by a young punk rockin' bohemian hipster wannabe named Jon Spencer, Pussy Galore created an unholy metallic ruckus that was part serious avant-garde noise wail, part nonsense pose. Considering their limited skills, narcissistic tendencies, and drug-cult mythologizing, there is a sizable body of work from this band. The problem is that it's mostly hit-and-miss, which is a polite way of saying a little Pussy Galore goes a long way.

A serious discussion of Pussy Galore's musical attributes must thoroughly ignore technical ability; they have none. Spencer and guitarists (no bass) Julia Cafritz and Neil Hagerty locked horns in a badly played riff-fest with ex-Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert, sounding as if he's dropping pots and pans on the floor. Surprisingly, with all of their hip attitude and condescending, arty indifference, Pussy Galore was capable of creating some great trash rock. However, these moments were accidental, the byproduct of doing something long enough and eventually getting it right.

Really the only difference between good Pussy Galore music and bad is that the latter is boring and the former is not -- that is unless you have an extremely high tolerance for low-rent nihilism. At their noisiest and most frantic (e.g., the two fine EPs, Groovy Hate Fuck and Sugarshit Sharp) there is a messy ebullience to this muck that undercuts their normal snotty, calculatedly offensive shtick. And they did have a sense of humor as they proved on their 1986 cassette-only release, a track-by-track cover of the Rolling Stones' classic Exile on Main Street. This release is not recommended to Stones fans. Still, for a band that no one predicted would have a long life, Pussy Galore turned out many interesting side projects and bands since their demise in 1990. Spencer went on to form Boss Hog, and later the much-better Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, while also adding his distinctively smartass touch to recordings by the Gibson Bros.; while Neil Hagerty joined forces with Jennifer Herrema and formed Royal Trux.

Wikipedia:

Pussy Galore is a fictional character from the James Bond film and novel Goldfinger. In the film, she is played by Honor Blackman. As with many of Ian Fleming's creations, the name is a double entendre; in this case with respect to pussy, which is another word for cat, or is a slang term for vagina, while galore means an abundant or plentiful supply of something.

Blanche Blackwell, a Jamaican of Anglo-Jewish descent, was considered the love of Fleming's later life and formed his model for Pussy Galore.

Novel

In the novel, Pussy Galore is the only known woman in the United States who runs an organized crime gang. Initially trapeze artists, her group of performing cat-women, "Pussy Galore and her Abrocats," were unsuccessful and were later trained as cat burglars.

Her group grew into a Harlem lesbian organization known as "The Cement Mixers". Pussy Galore is herself a lesbian. In the novel, she has black hair, pale skin and the only violet eyes Bond has ever seen. She is in her thirties, her voice low and attractive. Pussy explains to Bond that she became a lesbian after she was sexually abused by her uncle at the age of 12.

Her group is enlisted by Auric Goldfinger to aid in "Operation Grand Slam", an operation that would poison the Fort Knox water supply with a water-borne nerve agent (GB, also called sarin), and, if successful, would use a stolen nuclear weapon to blow open and rob the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox of one billion dollars in gold bullion. Goldfinger enlists the Cement Mixers because he needs a group of women to impersonate nurses in the fake emergency medical teams he plans to send into the poison-stricken Fort Knox.

After Bond and Felix Leiter foil "Grand Slam", Galore runs into Bond while impersonating a stewardess on Goldfinger's hijacked escape flight to the Soviet Union (which carries his remaining fortune in gold), and Bond is drugged by a fake vaccination and kidnapped to join Goldfinger on the plane, where Goldfinger is determined to kill him at last. However, Bond punctures the window of the airplane with a knife (causing Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob to be sucked out and plunge to his death), then tackles Goldfinger; Bond strangles him in the ensuing struggle. Bond forces the crew of the airplane to reverse course, and when they run out of fuel and are required to ditch the gold-heavy craft in the ocean, Bond and Pussy are the only ones who manage to escape to a life raft. It is hinted at the end of the novel that Pussy is sent to prison, as she says to Bond, "Will you write to me in Sing Sing?"

Pussy's backstory is suppressed in the movie, while her sexuality is never openly discussed; traits of lesbianism are subtly suggested (though not without plausible deniability) throughout the film.

Her original band of Amazonian catwomen still appear in the film, although remade into small-aircraft pilots.

Film

Concerned about censors, the film's producers thought about changing her name to "Kitty Galore", but kept the original name when British newspapers began to refer to Honor Blackman as "Pussy" in the lead up to production. Connery also noticeably pronounces her first name as "Poo-shee", possibly also a bow to censors. She is the oldest actress to play a Bond Girl. Blackman and Diana Rigg are the only two Bond girls who are older than Bond himself; Sean Connery was only 34 when filming Goldfinger, Blackman was 39. Rigg was 31 when filming On Her Majesty's Secret Service opposite the then 30-year-old George Lazenby. Pussy ranked second in a poll of favourite Bond Girls in 2007, beaten only by Ursula Andress' character Honey Rider.

Pussy is first seen after Bond wakes up in Goldfinger's private jet after previously having been knocked out with a tranquilizer gun by Goldfinger. Her stunning blonde-framed visage leaning over him being the first thing he sees as he lies on a couch regaining consciousness, the dialog runs as follows:

James Bond: Who are you? Pussy Galore: My name is Pussy Galore. James Bond: I must be dreaming.

She further explains simply that the nature of her employment for Goldfinger is that she's "a damn good pilot", intending to negate any notion of any more intimate relationship, and then tells Bond, "You can turn off the charm. I'm immune." She is the leader of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus, a group of professional women aviators in connection with Goldfinger's "Operation Grand Slam" (played in certain scenes by stuntmen in blonde wigs). Pussy is seen later using judo on Bond after catching him eavesdropping on Goldfinger's plan. She turns him in to Goldfinger.

Later on, Bond seduces the previously "immune" Pussy, and she secretly turns against Goldfinger; she alerts the Central Intelligence Agency of her employer's scheme, and they help her switch the deadly nerve gas to be sprayed over Fort Knox by her aviators with a harmless replacement (the soldiers below appear to die, but are actually faking).

After Bond foils Goldfinger's plan, the now-fugitive millionaire forces Pussy to participate in hijacking the President's private plane carrying Bond to the White House, intending to hijack it to Cuba. Bond defeats Goldfinger (who suffers Oddjob's fate in the novel when he is blown out the window at high altitude). Bond saves Pussy from the crashing plane, as they both bail out (this is shown only on radar), and they make love in an unknown tropical region, under a parachute.

Honor Blackman, in the Bond Girls Are Forever documentary, mentions she knows that Galore was written as a lesbian, and played the role as if she had been abused in the past.

Cultural references