SMERSH (James Bond) Bond again squares off against SMERSH in "Goldfinger" after learning that Auric Goldfinger is the agency's treasurer. After "Goldfinger", SMERSH is mentioned only fleetingly, usually in reference to having been disbanded. In "Thunderball", three former members of SMERSH joined and became top members of the apolitical criminal organization, SPECTRE. In the continuation novels (and novelizations), however, SMERSH returns as an organisation essentially renamed and reorganised within Soviet intelligence. They are first mentioned again in the novelization of "The Spy Who Loved Me", although replaced by KGB in the film. In John Gardner's series of Bond novels, SMERSH is renamed Department
Goldfinger (film) Illustrated London News", thought "Goldfinger" "even tenser, louder, wittier, more ingenious and more impossible than "From Russia with Love"... [a] brilliant farrago", adding that Connery "is ineffable". Philip Oakes of "The Sunday Telegraph" said that the film was "dazzling in its technical ingenuity", while "Time" said that "this picture is a thriller exuberantly travestied." Bosley Crowther, writing in "The New York Times" was less enthusiastic about the film, saying that it was "tediously apparent" that Bond was becoming increasingly reliant on gadgets with less emphasis on "the lush temptations of voluptuous females", although he did admit that "Connery plays the