It posits an international feministconspiracy to depose the ruling American patriarchy with a feminist matriarchy. To achieve and establish this plan, they kidnap and replace the U.S. President, discredit the head of the Z.O.W.I.E. intelligence agency, and commandeer a nuclear-armed space platform, all directed from Fabulous Face, a women's beauty farm in the Virgin Islands. Circumstances compel ex-secret agent Derek Flint to help his ex-boss, and so uncover the conspiracy.
James Coburn and Lee J. Cobb reprise their roles as Derek Flint and spy chief Lloyd C. Cramden, Flint's ex-boss, respectively. Jerry Goldsmith, who wrote the score for Our Man Flint, also returns. The ad campaign features poster artwork by Bob Peak. The title is a play on the phrase "in like Flynn."[3]
This film and Caprice with Doris Day were the last films made in CinemaScope, with Fox and other studios moving to Panavision and other widescreen processes.
Plot
After observing the launch of a new space platform, Z.O.W.I.E. Chief Lloyd C. Cramden joins President Trent for a game of golf. Their game is interrupted by the Fabulous Face organization. They succeed in knocking Cramden out, capturing the president and replacing him with an actor surgically altered to look like him. The Fabulous Face plans to control the world and run it entirely by a group of women. The first step in their plan is to gain control of a US space facility in the Virgin Islands. They establish a spa there as a cover. The women establish their headquarters near the rocket base and plant tape recorders in their hair dryers to brainwash their sisters.
Puzzled by an apparent three-minute time discrepancy—revealed by a perusal of a stopwatch that was active during the switch—Cramden visits the former agent Derek Flint's apartment in New York. He is greeted by three women who lead them to Flint. Cramden requests him to investigate the mystery. Meanwhile, Lisa Norton, a Fabulous Face agent, talks to the three women and tricks them into accepting a visit to the spa. Cramden later encounters Norton at an Italian restaurant. Disguised as a southern tourist, she drugs him with "euphoric acid" (a soporific substance) and stages a compromising scene with a prostitute at a hotel; the scene is then photographed and published under the auspices of General Carter, who is working with Fabulous Face. With Cramden framed as a libertine, the "imposter" President publicly suspends him from active duty.
Derek Flint eventually hypnotizes Cramden with his special watch and learns what really happened. Investigating further, Flint breaks into Z.O.W.I.E. headquarters and discovers the two astronauts on the recently launched space platform are actually Russian female cosmonauts. Flint is interrupted by General Carter and turncoat guards who, after a struggle, believe they have killed Flint when he apparently falls into a document incinerator.
Having actually escaped his demise, Flint travels to the Soviet Union to continue his investigation. Dancing in the Bolshoiballet, he makes contact with ballerina Natasha. She actually is a Fabulous Face operative and attempts to drug him with euphoric acid. Flint foils Natasha's designs and tries to interrogate her but is interrupted by the KGB, who want to bring him to the Soviet Premier. Flint escapes their clutches. He next sneaks into the Kremlin and overhears the Premier bluffing the fake U.S. President; conversational clues point to the spa.
Cramden also travels to the spa to investigate further but is captured and imprisoned with the real President. Fabulous Face, in anticipation of Flint coming to the spa, have imprisoned his girl friends in cryogenic chambers. Flint boards a flight for Cuba disguised as a revolutionary. Distracting the other passengers, he ties up the pilots, parachutes out over the Virgin Islands, and swims to the Fabulous Face complex. There, he is intercepted by Norton, who brings him before the Fabulous Face leadership, a group of female business executives. Flint attempts to talk the women out of their plan but is interrupted by General Carter, who is dissatisfied with his subordinate role and plans to take power himself with the aid of the fake president. After a fight, Flint is captured by Carter's men and placed, along with Cramden, the captive President, and the Fabulous Face leadership, into cryogenic suspension. Flint escapes his chamber. He decides to join sides with the women in stopping Carter's plan to atomically arm the space station. Flint, Cramden, President Trent, and the women travel to the base where the launch is scheduled to take place. There, the women seduce and subdue the male guards. After they take over the control room, Carter (who is on board the rocket) threatens to activate his atomic warheads unless he is allowed to proceed with the launch. Flint boards the capsule before it takes off; once in orbit, he and Carter fight, causing the spacecraft to tumble. After overpowering Carter, Flint escapes the capsule, which is then destroyed with Carter trapped inside by a missile launched from the surface. Flint then manages to float to a nearby space platform, where he enjoys the hospitality of the resident female cosmonauts while awaiting return to Earth.
Bill Lear– credited as W. P. Lear Sr.–makes a cameo appearance as himself.
Production
Coburn's fee for the film was $500,000 plus a percentage of the profits.[4] Filming took place in September 1966 in Hollywood and on location in Jamaica.
Coburn later said Gordon Douglas "really didn't direct the film" saying Robert 'Buzz' Henry (Coburn's stunt double and a stunt arranger on the film), the director of photography (William H. Daniels) and myself were really responsible for the film. But that was the fun of it. Gordon Douglas was ill or had a heart problem or some damn thing. Anyway, he would come on the set and say what we were doing was wonderful and so on. Then he would often leave the set. Still it was fun. We had a great group of team players... the studio (Fox) really didn't support us with that concept. The script was also never finished. We actually started shooting without an ending to the film. The ending was tacked on the picture. Saul was working on a different ending, but the studio just wanted us to finish the film so they could release it. We had to shoot fast. We also had a pretty good budget. Most of the young women in the sequel were girlfriends of the execs working at the studio. It was playtime for those guys."[5]
Our Man Flint co-screenwriter Ben Starr claimed he was asked to write the film but left after a dispute with Saul David over his salary.[6]
Totty Ames, who played Simone, one of the female triumvirate, was the wife of producer Saul David.[7]
Locations
Whereas in Our Man Flint Derek Flint lives in The San Remo in Manhattan, in In Like Flint he lives in the Wilshire Regent in Los Angeles. However, the skyline projected out the window is of Manhattan, with the DuMont Building visible in the background. The Fabulous Face spa in the Virgin Islands is represented by the Round Hill Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica.[8] Interiors of the Z.O.W.I.E. facilities were filmed at the Hyperion sewage treatment plant.
Deleted scenes
Some dialogue was removed after the previews that created a dispute between Saul David and 20th Century Fox.[9]
When Flint debates the fallacy of the women's plans he states,
I'm sure all your facts are accurate but, like any other underdog in this world, you know more about the sickness than you do the cure. What you propose merely turns the coin over. It's the same old coin. If it's a slug on one side girls, it's a slug on the other. Now, forget it!
Jerry Goldsmith returned to score the film, reusing his Our Man Flint theme. The song Your Zowie Face was composed by Goldsmith with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.
The film earned $5 million in rentals in North America in 1967.[12] This meant it ranked in the top twenty films at the box office that year.[13]
According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $6,975,000 in rentals to break even and made $9,125,000, meaning it made a profit.[14]
Critical reaction
In Like Flint received mixed reviews when released in 1967; a New York Times critic said: "Although the film crawls with dime-store beauties, there is a noticeable lack of sexiness in it. Women bent on being tyrants evidently haven't much time for anything else".[15]
Roger Ebert had similar criticisms: "The sexiest thing in the new Derek Flint misadventure, In Like Flint, is Flint's cigarette lighter, which is supposed to know eighty-two tricks, but actually delivers only five, of which, one is the not extraordinary ability to clip Lee J. Cobb's moustache".[16]
The most lauded element of the film was the score, once again composed by Jerry Goldsmith. As critic Daniel Schweiger wrote in 2014, "There’s hep, insane energy to spare in Goldsmith’s delightful grooves, ostinato excitement and confident strings, especially when he roughhouses “Swan Lake”-style with bongo prancing, horn-slurring Russian dance moves. And even given the score’s way-lighter tone, there are also some dynamite two-fisted brass moves that Bond would envy."[17]
Coburn later said, "The studio was very surprised by the success of the sequel. We said we might do more Flint films if the scripts were really good and if they hired top directors. Although Fox wanted us to do more Flint films, it just never worked out. They just didn't seem to care about quality anymore."[5]
In 1978 it was reported Coburn and Saul David were writing a script for another Flint movie.[19] However it was never made.
In popular culture
In the movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, the main character Austin Powers (while being on honeymoon with his new wife Vanessa Kensington) switches on the TV to a scene from In Like Flint. He mentions to Vanessa that it is his favorite movie. The phone in Austin's devices has the same ringtone (but altered) as the Z.O.W.I.E. telephone in the beginning of this film.
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.
Vladimir Sergeyevich Ilyushin was a Russian military officer and a test pilot in the former Soviet space program. Ilyushin was a son of the famous aviation designer Sergey Ilyushin, and whose career was mostly as a test pilot for the Sukhoi OKB. After retiring from the space program, Ilyushin became a sports administrator and was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2013.
Our Man Flint is a 1966 American spy-fi comedy film that parodies the James Bond film series. The film was directed by Daniel Mann, written by Hal Fimberg and Ben Starr, and starred James Coburn as master spy Derek Flint. A sequel, In Like Flint, was released the following year, with Coburn reprising his role.
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 American science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a submarine crew who is shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. In adapting the story for his script, Kleiner abandoned all but the concept of miniaturization and added a Cold War element. The film starred Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence, and Arthur Kennedy.
The Blue Max is a 1966 war film directed by John Guillermin and starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress, Karl Michael Vogler, and Jeremy Kemp. The film was made in DeLuxe Color and was one of the last movies filmed in CinemaScope. It was filmed entirely in Ireland, and included numerous location scenes shot in Dublin, Wickow and Cork. The plot is about a German fighter pilot on the Western Front during World War I. The screenplay was written by David Pursall, Jack Seddon, and Gerald Hanley, based on the novel of the same name by Jack D. Hunter as adapted by Ben Barzman and Basilio Franchina.
Von Ryan's Express is a 1965 World War II adventure film starring Frank Sinatra, Trevor Howard, and Raffaella Carrà, and directed by Mark Robson. Produced in CinemaScope, the film depicts a group of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who conduct a daring escape by hijacking the freight train carrying the POWs and fleeing through German-occupied Italy to Switzerland. Based on the 1964 novel by David Westheimer, the film changes several aspects of the novel, most notably the ending, which is considerably more upbeat in the book. Financially, it became one of Sinatra's most successful films.
100 Rifles is a 1969 American Western film directed by Tom Gries and starring Jim Brown, Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds. It is based on Robert MacLeod's 1966 novel The Californio. The film was shot in Spain. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, who had previously also scored Bandolero!, another Western starring Welch.
Rio Lobo is a 1970 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, from a screenplay by Burton Wohl and Leigh Brackett. The film was shot in Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos and in Tucson, Arizona. The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It was the third Howard Hawks film to explore the theme of a town sheriff defending his office against belligerent local outlaws: the others were Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966), both also starring John Wayne. Rio Lobo was the last film Hawks made.
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round is a 1966 crime film written and directed by Bernard Girard, and starring James Coburn. It marked Harrison Ford's film debut.
Derek Flint is a fictional world adventurer and master spy featured in a series of movies and comic books. Flint, a parody of James Bond and Doc Savage, is an agent for Z.O.W.I.E..
The President's Analyst is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Ted Flicker and starring James Coburn. The film has elements of political satire and science fiction, including themes concerning modern ethics and privacy, specifically the intrusion of the telecommunications alliance, working with the U.S. government, into citizens' private lives. The film was released theatrically on December 21, 1967, and was initially not a commercial success. However, it was reviewed favorably and eventually achieved cult status.
Murderers' Row is a 1966 American comedy spy-fi film starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm. It is the second of four films in the Matt Helm series, and is very loosely based upon the 1962 spy novel Murderers' Row by Donald Hamilton.
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? is a 1966 comedy DeLuxe Color film written by William Peter Blatty and directed by Blake Edwards for the Mirisch Company in Panavision. It stars James Coburn and Dick Shawn.
Fathom is a 1967 British spy comedy film directed by Leslie H. Martinson, starring Raquel Welch and Anthony Franciosa.
Saul David was an American book editor and film producer.
Stanley Wilson was an American musical conductor, arranger and film composer. Wilson was one of the most prolific collaborators in the Hollywood music industry for more than three decades. The creator of original themes and incidental music for several TV series, he also composed, arranged, or orchestrated more than 100 films. Wilson is considered "truly outstanding and most deservedly well loved of all the music directors".
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story by O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. It follows a spaceship crew who investigate a derelict spaceship and are hunted by a deadly extraterrestrial creature. The film stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. It was produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill through their company Brandywine Productions and was distributed by 20th Century-Fox. Giler and Hill revised and made additions to the script; Shusett was the executive producer. The alien creatures and environments were designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, while the concept artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss designed the other sets.
Hard Contract is a 1969 American drama mystery film written and directed by S. Lee Pogostin and starring James Coburn and Lee Remick. It premiered on April 30, 1969 in Panavision.
Dead on Target is an American television film. The film originally aired on ABC on March 17, 1976, and was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. The film was a backdoor pilot for a possible weekly series, but it was not picked up to series, and it became the last Derek Flint movie. Ray Danton replaces James Coburn as Derek Flint, who is now a private detective and former Z.O.W.I.E. government agent. The cast also includes Sharon Acker, Susan Jane Sullivan, AKA Susan O'Sullivan, Lawrence Dane, Gay Rowan, Linda Woods, Donnelly Rhodes, and Kim Cattrall.
Space propaganda is a form of propaganda relating to achievements in space exploration and space science. It is used primarily to further a nation's perceived technological superiority, through the operation of a state-funded space agency. Space propaganda was first emergent during the Space Race of the mid-20th-century, an indirect extension of the Cold War.
References
↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN978-0-8108-4244-1. p.255
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