.
OUR MAN FLINT
(directed by Daniel Mann, 1966)
***** (out of 5)
*
> Since this broad spoof of James Bond 007 hit theaters in January of 1966, I must have been all of 9-years old when I thrilled to it in a darkened movie house. What an imprint it left!
Wait a minute! There’s something going on here that only one man can solve. The world is is turmoil! Frenzied diplomats turn to their computers and come up with the one individual on earth who can snatch victory from defeat- and here he is: the Total Man: OUR MAN FLINT! He fences for breakfast. Karates for lunch. Dances for dinner. Kisses anytime. Visits the most sensational places. And when our man Flint discovers a spy close to home, his superb training and instant reflexes take over. Mention pleasure, and Flint is right on the job. His lighter has 82 different functions. (83 if you wish to light a cigar.) He’s as much at home in the casbah as he is in the boudoir. Or anywhere else for that matter. The surprises keep building! The women get wilder! But whatever happens Flint can handle it! You’ll never believe it!
. I was a Bond-mad kid with a wild imagination, so wild campy satire like this was made for me. Naturally, I had not yet developed the sophistication to see it as the obvious broadside on the celebrated 007 spy franchise that it was, which had progressed as far as THUNDERBALL by then. I did notice the obvious allusion to the volcano-lair of Dr. No, a device repeated here, but I did not dwell too deeply on it.
. In the two Flint films, Sean Connery’s James Bond is replaced by James Coburn’s Derek Flint- every bit as cool, hip, suave, witty, sexy, resourceful and dangerous as 007, but (impossibly!) more so. Flint can do all kinds of things Bond couldn’t- even stop his heart for relaxation and life-extension for hours at a time, before being revived by his amazing watch that has any number of unexplored functions that might be helpful to an intrepid spy.
. Playboy Flint is a former agent of Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage, obviously), who is reluctantly called back into duty despite his checkered record of insubordination, when three mad scientists attempt to blackmail the world with technology that has the potential to alter the world’s climate. (Manmade global climate destabilization- in 1966! Imagine that!) In these films, Lee J. Cobb created the irascible mold he seemed typecast in, as Flint’s skeptical blustery boss Cramden. I always loved to watch this actor at work- or perhaps more accurately: at play. He goes for comedy here, but Lee J. Cobb delivered some very searing dramatic performances.
. OUR MAN FLINT is extreme kitschy silliness of the highest order. It’s a cartoon of a movie- nothing is believable for an instant. 100% gaudy overkill. Some might say this is one of the movies that is so bad it achieves greatness. Could be- but even my 60’s, I don’t want to overthink it.
– A great flick is a great flick, even if it is utterly and irredeemably goofy.
*
IN LIKE FLINT
(directed by Gordon Douglas, 1967)
*** (out of 5)
*
> As a Bond-mad kid, I was predisposed to dig Derek Flint- James Coburn’s suave, sexy auteur secret agent, who knew everything and could do anything, effortlessly.
. I dug the original OUR MAN FLINT, when I saw it in the theaters during its original run when I was a sophisticated 11-years old, and was too naive and green to even recognize it as a parody of the Bond spy flicks. After all, the conclusion to DR. NO in that manmade volcano was not no less ludicrous than anything I saw in the Flint universe. (I should have been tipped off by Flint’s superhuman ability to slow his heartbeat dramatically when he slept, his physiology reawakened by a device on his super-cool watch that protruded and poked him back to life.) Flint was admired as a man’s man- both intellectual and athlete, and of course, adored by the ladies who swarmed around him in doting adoration. Flint was a gentleman-playboy, and exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up.
. This sequel had pacing problems. Poor box office killed the franchise. But it’s a vivid kitsch reflection of the swinging sixties, in a story about the women leaders of the world plotting to overthrow the men in power, who have so bolloxed everything. I can dig that.
– Stupid, simple, retro… fun!
*
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