OUR MAN FLINT (1966), IN LIKE FLINT (1967)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*   

 Of all the sixties superspy films, the two featuring James Coburn as the debonair Derek Flint—which works I’ll term “FLINT 1” and “FLINT 2”—come closest to duplicating some of the appeal of Eon’s James Bond series. This is easiest to see in the general look and sound of the Flintfilms. Even though neither movie had a budget equal to the average Bond film, they did an exemplary job of reproducing the “conspicuous consumption” glamor of Bond’s high-society exploits (though one doesn’t see Flint venture into any of the seamier settings where Bond seemed quite comfortable). Jerry Goldsmith’s scores for both films convey the same sultry glitz as the scores for the best Bond works, though it may be a blessing that the producers didn’t try adding lyrics to the music.

 

The best feature of the Flintfilms is their flawless reproduction of what I’ll call the “Hugh Hefner aesthetic,” the fantasy of being a well-heeled lothario able to lure countless women into one’s “pad of sin,” so to speak. FLINT 1 establishes that the hero lives with four girlfriends, all of whom are equally sanguine with sharing Flint’s sexual favors, which is certainly something the comparatively fastidious Bond would never have done. FLINT 2 cuts Derek down to just three girlfriends, and of course in both films Flint romances at least one extraneous woman, both times a femme fatale working for the hero’s opponents. (On a minor note, in both films Flint’s girlfriends get kidnapped by the villains, but in neither movie do the fiends try to make the hero back off with threats to his lovely bunkmates. Apparently, the kidnappings only take place to give the hero a more personal reason to save the free world.)

 

An even more profound difference is that, for all Bond’s multifarious talents, he was never presented as a polymath superman. According to a DVD commentary for THE ULTIMATE FLINT COLLECTION, a paperback novelization of the 1966 film calls Flint a “soldier of fortune”—but how many real soldiers-of-fortune also moonlight as surgeons, biologists, and general scientific geniuses? How did Derek Flint get that way? The films don’t even give the viewer even as much explanation of his nature as one gets for the genesis of Doc Savage, an earlier polymath superman. Even Flint’s relationship with his ostensible boss Cramden (Lee J. Cobb) is left vague, though FLINT 1 implies that the hero worked for Cramden in some capacity, probably as an independent operator. The films have fun with a hero who can go his own way and ignore his superior’s commands. Yet because the viewer never knows how Flint keeps himself and his girlfriends in opulence, it’s clear that the writers wanted the audience to embrace the Hefneresque fantasy without asking such inconvenient questions.

 

Further, thanks to Coburn’s real-life training in martial arts, Flint is a much better technical fighter than the rough-and-tumble British spy. As good as Bond’s fights were in their way, even the greatest Bond afficionado can’t imagine 007 duplicating Flint’s best brawl, taking out a half dozen henchmen in FLINT 2’s gymnasium setting.

 

I probably didn’t make any such comparisons when I saw both Flintfilms in my youth. I probably took both serials on the same terms, as being wild adventure-thrillers. Nevertheless, seeing them again today causes me to realize the ways in which the Flint producers intentionally distanced themselves from the Eon franchise—not to mention some of the unintentional differences.

 

For instance, the Eon Bonfilms are always well paced, being careful to keep the audience interested in the proceedings. In the Flintfilms, though, the hero, once he’s apprised of the threat he must track down, spends a tiresome amount of time in the detection process, and not in an entertaining way. The writers throw in bits of humor to break up the dull parts—during a bar scene, Flint pretend-brawls with a “friendly” fellow spy who looks a bit like Sean Connery. But the dull parts remain dull nonetheless.

 

In one respect the Bond producers had a big leg up on the Flint producers, because the former got to adapt the books of Ian Fleming, books rife with fascinating hommes and femmes fatales. The writers of FLINT 1 don’t even try to come up to this level, though. The villains of this opus are a trio of mad scientists who assemble their own private spy-organization, “Galaxy,” and then attempt to blackmail the world into submission with their weather-control machine. Cramden, who heads the even more unfortunately named spy-group “Zowie,” sends Flint after Galaxy, and two Galaxy-agents, Gila (Gila Golan) and Rodney (Edward Mulhare) come gunning for the hero. I found most of these sequences boring, even Gila’s seduction of Flint, which of course leads to her defection from the evildoers to join the side of the angels—or rather, one angel with a killer kiss.

 

The film finally picks up the pace again when Flint reaches Galaxy’s island refuge. Once the hero’s there, he finds out that, in addition to harboring the usual small army of henchmen, the scientists have a boatload of “pretty people” who reside on the island for reasons never clear to me. (This made a little sense in MOONRAKER, where the villain planned to repopulate the world, but that wasn’t the idea here.) Somewhat more believable is that the scientists, who claim that they desire world rule to control all the fractious countries, also use brainwashing machines to turn hot young women into “pleasure units.” Possibly the writers had some notion of presenting the scientists as a nonconsensual mirror-image of Flint’s randy-but-consensual sex-life, but if so it’s a muddled message. Even CASINO ROYALE  pulled off a similar trope much better, showing villain Woody Allen trying to eliminate all human males taller than he, so that beautiful women will no longer scorn him.

 

Though the Rodney and the weather-nerds are unimpressive foes, and Gila is no Pussy Galore, FLINT 2 comes up with somewhat better villains (though Flint’s female conquest is even less impressive than Gila, and she more or less fades out before the ending). This time the menace is an all-female organization, Fabulous Face, which also hangs out in an island paradise (in the Virgin Islands, ha ha). Instead of a trio of scientists, the secret cabal is headed by three relatively mature women, none of whom stand out from one another, and with a few exceptions almost everyone in Fabulous Face is a hot young woman. FF’s plot does involve world blackmail, in the form of taking control of a space station with nuclear capabilities, but they’re more subtle in other gambits, replacing the U.S. President with a lookalike impostor and trying to brainwash all American women into overthrowing the patriarchy and erecting a matriarchy.

 

While no one would call the schemers of FLINT 2 “feminist,” their attempt to elevate women to the ruling class is at least more resonant than Galaxy’s vague altruism. Not only does the threat of matriarchy summon forth associations of “the war between men and women,” it’s possible to see Fabulous Face as the obverse of Flint’s tediously pliable conquests.

 

Once again, before the hero gets to the island refuge, he must meander through an assortment of trivial escapades, though the one in Russia, wherein Flint contends with ballerina Yvonne Craig, has a little oomph. When the matriarchs of FF outline their devious plan for the hero’s benefit, he’s refreshingly chauvinistic about women wearing the pants, even the script does give the women some good rejoinders about their unappreciated skills. Fortunately for Flint, the plot doesn’t require him to engage in fisticuffs with a bunch of girls. Because FF had to deal with some male conspirators to put across their plan in a male-dominated government, those former allies, led by General Carter (Steve Ihnat), decide to take over the whole operation. Thus, Flint is free to exercise his vast martial skills on thick male skulls, and the betrayed Fabulous Facegirls even throw in with the hero. In what will be for some viewers FLINT 2’s standout scene, the hero directs a bunch of women to schmooze with a group of Carter’s men, only to clobber the guys with their kung fu moves. Nevertheless, Flint is the main hero, so he gets the big final scene, rocketing all the way up to the space platform to overpower Carter, save the world, and receive bounteous appreciation from hot women. The movie ends with the implication that by helping Flint, Fabulous Face will get off with no more than a rap on the knuckles for their massive conspiracy. In fact, a studied shot of the three matriarchs suggests that they’re going to continue their quest for power in a more typical feminine manner: that of “stooping to conquer.”

 

THE ULTIMATE FLINT COLLECTION is rife with a lot of other DVD goodies, including the aforementioned commentary. One item I appreciated purely from a completist’s POV: an obscure TV-movie pilot for a Flint series, OUR MAN FLINT: DEAD ON TARGET. There’s no metaphenomenal content here: Flint (Ray Danton) is a troubleshooter who gets mixed up in a mundane and very boring kidnapping plot. He’s partnered with an aspiring lady detective played by Sharon Acker, and the only thing the producers borrowed from the films was the notion that this Flint was still a lothario with at least two concurrent girlfriends.