After releasing the first 3 James Bond films on Laserdisc in a 2-disc CAV format in 1991, Criterion was asked by EON Productions (producers of the James Bond Films) to recall all unsold Laserdisc product.

They felt that the audio commentary tracks on the 3 titles were unacceptable to Albert R. Broccoli, one of the original producers of the 3 films.

The people on the commentaries Bruce Eder(Film Historian)Steve Rubin (Film Historian), Terence Young (Director),Peter Hunt(Editor),Ken Adam(Production Designer),Richard Maibaum(Writer),Guy Hamilton (Director) speak their minds and say pretty much anything they feel with no reservations.

Like the screenwriter of From Russia With Love Richard Maibaum calling Ian Fleming a "Snob", or Director Terence Young recalling Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records) affinity for marijuana.

Ideally this is best listened to whilst watching the film since much of the commentary is scene specific, but it is still a great listen on it's own.

I bought all three LaserDiscs when they were released and within 6 months all three had been pulled and the "offending" commentary tracks removed from the new pressings, although for awhile the secondary commentaries were available on cassette from Criterion.

Title:Goldfinger
Artists:Bruce Eder(Film Historian),Director Guy Hamilton, Writer Richard Maibaum, Editor Peter Hunt, Production Designer Ken Adam
Year:1964
Audio Commentaries 1990-1991
Time:1:50:00 Mins


PM For Link

I'm going to download all three. Thanks!

Thank you!

@Wildwood Park

Thanks for the shares!

Quick question - you mentioned "secondary commentaries" that were available on videocassette. Were these other commentaries ever carried over onto DVD or Blu Ray? (Gets confusing sometimes keeping track of how many commentaries were ever recorded for a certain film, and which ones are available on which release. lol)

Quick question - you mentioned "secondary commentaries" that were available on videocassette. Were these other commentaries ever carried over onto DVD or Blu Ray? (Gets confusing sometimes keeping track of how many commentaries were ever recorded for a certain film, and which ones are available on which release. lol)

The secondary commentaries were not on "video" cassette, they were in fact standard audio cassettes that Criterion for a time made available to accompany the LaserDisc which had been stripped of the commentaries.

People that bought the LaserDisc after the initial discs were pulled received a voucher to mail in for the audio commentaries.

As to "other" commentaries there are new commentaries on the Blu-Ray releases with Guy Hamilton,Terence Young, and many other technical members of each production.

They have never re-released the commentaries that I posted today however.

Many, many thanks for these commentaries, had given up hope of ever being able to listen to these!

Welcome Rob, like I had stated earlier it works best while watching the movie but even alone I think it's a great listen.

Thanks for the welcome, long time reader, first post! Really appreciate your efforts. I'll try and listen with the films, been a few years since I've seen the first few. Amuses me how back in the day these things weren't checked out first by the studios. Suppose commentaries were in their infancy back in the laserdisc days, guess in terms of a mass audience anyway.

Also I am sure initially the Studios were not too worried about the commentaries being that LaserDisc always was a niche market with never more than maybe a 5% penetration in the home video arena.

Living here in Southern California there were many places to rent and buy LaserDiscs and there was quite a bit of buzz in local media in regards to these Criterion releases and mention of the offending commentaries.

First read about it 10 or so years ago, always thought it was a shame they had been 'erased' from the general public. Only just thought - 20 years old? Time Flies!

This is pretty damn cool !!! Many, many Thanks for this fine share !!!
and Thanks for being an advocate of Free Speech/ or commentary (lol)

Very welcome Boris, I am happy that a few people have found this post finally and are enjoying it.

Enjoying it very much, Thank You again !!! These Laserdiscs had quite a few extras. One of the rarest being the Scorsese' Taxi Driver commentary (that was recently added to the new Blu-ray after being many years out of print). I think the people involved in the making of the films really got a kick out of speaking directly to their audience, video tape certainly didn't allow it.

I have that Taxi Driver LaserDisc and it also has an isolated score of Bernard Herrmanns great and final score.

I may do a transfer of that someday as well.

If you've got Criterion's version of The Great Escape, that would be a commentary well worth having. They went out and recorded John Sturges not too long before he died (he was quite ill), and it's great stuff.

New Link Added.

Thank you so much for this type of rare stuff!

Great commentary. Thanks for posting!

Javajunky ur quite welcome.

Pm For Link.

Thanks for the links!

Many thanks for these Bond commentaries WildwoodPark! :)

Is it too late to get these?

I would love a link to the commentaries.

Links received: very nice to share these commentaries with us! Thanks a lot!

Many thanks.

Had this before my old PC crashed. Would love the link. Thank you

I would love to have the link to all three commentaries if possible. Please and thank you.

Received, thank you!

Oh - I'd really like to hear these. I was looking for them a long time ago and gave up, a link for all three would be awesome. Thanks.

Oh, wow, could I have the link!?

This sounds very interesting - may I have a link please?

I rented these discs back in the day but never thought to copy them! Can I get a link please? Thanks.

I would very much like to check these out as well.

Many thanks for sharing the links, much appreciated!

I don't suppose it would be possible to post the Goldfinger one in 128kbps like the other two? 96kbps give me a headache...

Thanks again

can I also have the links please? thanks!

Would love a link, thanks!

May I please have the link?

It's also here:

https://archive.org/download/goldfinger-criterion_laserdisc-commentary_track
https://archive.org/download/dr_no-criterion_laserdisc-commentary_track
https://archive.org/download/from_russia_with_love-criterion_laserdisc-commentary_track

Links received! Rep added! Many thanks :D

Link received.

Many thanks to you, WildwoodPark! Take care.

Please can you send me link? Thanks

Link received.
Thanks for the share�

You folks need to PM me!

I rarely read through threads.

Great stuff!

Please send me the link. Thank you

Thanks, oliverino!

Thx!

Cheers