Ultimate Flint!

Like many I really love to sit down and watch the infection super-spy adventure Our Man Flint. I hesitate to dub it a spoof, though I won't long argue the point, in that this first Flint outing is only marginally outside the rather wide parameters of straight spy movies as laid down by the world-beating Bond franchise.

By the time Our Man Flint hit the screens in 1966, the Bond movies were already picking fun at themselves, so it doesn't require a parody to do the same. There are aspects of this story which are clearly intended as send-ups of the Bond franchise and the whole schmear would not have existed outside the shadow of Bond, but there's also at its core a real adventure here to hang a hat on.

That feeling comes more than anything from the way James Coburn plays the infectiously attractive Derek Flint, a supremely individualistic hero who works for the government only when it suits him to do so. A man who has a literal harem in his upscale ultra-hip apartment but who nonetheless seems to be totally supportive of the women in his life. Bond used women, Flint seems to really care for them, though the end result can often be the same. There's a core element of sadism in James Bond which is completely lacking in Derek Flint and that makes this rogue someone we can really root for and not merely support.

The story of Our Man Flint (also told in a contemporaneously available novel which I've never read) is that the world's weather is under the control of three scientists who for seemingly benign reasons want to save the world from itself and create their own skewed version of paradise on the planet. That paradise appears to reduce women to "pleasure units" and make men the masters of a sprawling resort. The scheme comes undone when the capable Derek Flint invades the remote volcano island base of operations and defeats the scheme to control the world's weather. There's a dame played by Gila Golan who ends up helping Flint and a nasty villain played by Edward Mulhare who gives him a decent opponent, but mostly this is a frothy adventure which allows us to watch Flint ply his trade, show off his smarts and exude his charm, all to save the world. It's done with a twinkle in the eye and a slight veneer of irony, but only occasionally slips over into parody and then only momentarily.

The movie proved to be a real success, and so much so that a sequel was demanded and made. More on that next time.

When James Coburn had a hit on his hands with Our Man Flint, it was very likely a sequel would be made and indeed it was with the highly memorable title of In Like Flint. This movie unlike its predecessor is an out and out spoof of the spy movies of the era, more broad in its comedy and unfortunately not as successful in keeping much in the way of suspense. It does however tread very close to the themes which had been only obliquely dealt with in the first movie and that forwardness doesn't help this movie which simultaneously wants to send a message of empowerment to women but seems to undermine any such message as well.

The Derek Flint of this movie is more of the classic Bond-style womanizer and less the champion of the many girls in his life. He's just as protective, but somehow his relationship with them seems a bit more utilitarian. To begin, he has a whole new harem, just three now since by his own admission he's trying to cut down, but his first quartet of lovelies have gone on to get married. It's suggested they are happy, but marriage is implied as the proper course.

That's important since the main story has a cadre of powerful women who have arranged world events in such a a way as to lead to a matriarchy across the globe. Their scheme is vague, but it is soundly rejected by Flint, who cannot really find a strong argument against it. All of that comes to naught when the men who have been assisting the scheme turn and try to take control. The women become Flint's allies and the story really degenerates into a proper mess.

The movie lacks the scale of the first one, though it seems it has as much money or even a bit more. The textures of the wardrobe are neatly handled, but the lack of a high-drama setting like the volcano from the first movie is sorely lacking. A health and beauty spa filled with bikini-clad chicks is fine, but there's little time spent selling a location which a super-spy saga needs.

If you didn't know it, and I'm one of those folks who didn't know it, there's actually a third Derek Flint movie. Flint, the charismatic hero of the Our Man Flint and In Like Flint, is the star of a 1975 television movie titled Dead on Target...sort of. The movie ain't a super-spy effort and sadly it doesn't star James Coburn. Actually this is a surprisingly awful movie, a semi-professional feeling outing which is a major snooze.

Derek Flint is played by an actor named Ray Danton, and in this story Flint is a humdrum private dick in the Sam Spade tradition. About the only connection to the two Coburn movies that I can detect is the odd haircut and the penchant of the hero to wear turtlenecks. Beyond that, there is almost no sense that we are dealing with the same guy. The movie appears to have a microscopic budget and there's a dreariness to the entire enterprise which is the very opposite of what one expects from the sleek flights of fancy from the 60's. The action is lame, the acting is often painful to experience and the plot is at once obvious and vague. A businessman is kidnapped by a contingent of Arab terrorists who want a change of government in an oil-rich distant land. They are helped by the attractive Sharon Acker, who is as close to a gorgeous chick as this flick gets. Flint has a rookie helper played by Gay Rowan, but her role seems mostly to wander into danger and get captured. Flint does employ a masseuse/lover, but it feels weirdly tacky, not cool.

If I didn't already own this movie on the Flint collection I bought many years ago, I'd never buy it now and cannot recommend anyone else do so either. I've owned this set for many moons, but never got around to fully checking it out until recently and found this movie nesting in the special features. As a curiosity it's interesting, but what it mostly did was remind how dreary it could be back in the 70's when the world suffered mightily from oil price shocks and run-down streets.

And that's Flint. A lot of fun and some tiny disappointment, but pretty entertaining overall. I think the Flint novels would make a great deal if sold together. I'd sure buy them. 

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