Our Man Flint is a 1966 action film which stars James Coburn as Derek Flint. Directed by Daniel Mann, the premise of the film is that a trio of mad scientists attempt to blackmail the world with a weather-control machine.
Derek Flint is a parody of James Bond, which franchise had gained momentum in the 1960s with Sean Connery representing the British super-agent on the silver screen.
Plot summary
Super-cool spy Derek Flint (James Coburn), ex-agent of Z.O.W.I.E., is lured out of retirement to deal with the threat of Galaxy (a parody of SPECTRE), a world-wide organization led by a trio of Utopian mad scientists: Doctor Krupov (Rhys Williams), Doctor Wu (Peter Brocco), and Doctor Schneider (Benson Fong). Despairing of the world's governments ever getting their acts together, they demand that the governments all capitulate to Galaxy. To enforce their demands, they initiate earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, and other natural disasters with their climate-control apparatus.
Flint is motivated to take them on, not by the pleas of his former boss Lloyd Cramden (Lee J. Cobb), but due to a preemptive assassination attempt by Galaxy's section head Gila (Gila Golan), who covertly replaces a restaurant's harpist while Flint is dining with his four live-in "playmates": Leslie (Shelby Grant), Anna (Sigrid Valdis), Gina, and Sakito (Helen Funai). Gila uses a harp string as a bow to fire a poisoned dart, which misses Flint, but hits Cramden. Flint uses field rescue techniques to suck the poison out of the wound, saving Cramden's life.
The discovery of a chemical trace on the dart takes Flint to Marseilles for bouillabaisse. In one of Marseilles' raunchiest strip clubs he stages a brawl to gain some useful information from "famous" Agent 0008, who is investigating the narcotics trade that is keeping Galaxy in business. Galaxy agent Hans Gruber (Michael St. Clair) is in the club enjoying his favorite soup while waiting to rendezvous with Gila. Gila sends Gruber to ambush Flint in the lavatory. Flint fights and ultimately kills Gruber in a toilet stall, while Gila exits the scene - leaving behind a cold cream jar she has booby-trapped with explosives. Flint detects the trap and chases all the (relatively) innocent bystanders from the club before he detonates the bomb.
The remains of the jar lead Flint to Rome. After checking out several cosmetic companies, Flint investigates Exotica, where he formally meets Gila for the first time. He seduces Gila, getting her to take him to her apartment for an exchange of information and "bodily fluids". Following their encounter, he steals the keys to Exotica and breaks into the company's safe, learning of Galaxy's location before being trapped inside by Gila's snide assistant, Malcolm Rodney (Edward Mulhare). He and Gila assume the safe will serve as a suffocation-deathtrap as they transport it to a waiting submarine. During the journey, Flint learns that his playmates have been kidnapped and taken to Galaxy's island headquarters, then uses his power of self-induced suspended animation to fool his captors into thinking they have successfully killed him. Gila and Rodney take an evidence photograph of the "body", which they send to Cramden, then carry Flint back to headquarters on the submarine.
Flint covertly revives and sneaks into the Galaxy complex, but his infiltration attempt is thwarted when he is recognized and attacked by "an anti-American eagle", and he is taken before Galaxy's trio of leaders. Offered a chance to join their new order, he declares that Galaxy's vision of the world doesn't sound all that Utopian to him, and is sentenced to death by disintegration. Gila's failure to eliminate Flint results in her being stripped of her leadership role and reassigned to a position where she "can best serve Galaxy": becoming a Pleasure Unit - a fate which has already befallen Flint's playmates. Between this horror, and the fact that she has (naturally) fallen in love with Flint, Gila changes sides, slipping Flint his gadget-filled cigarette lighter before she is hauled away. With the help of the lighter, Flint again escapes, rescues his playmates and Gila, kills Rodney and destroys Galaxy headquarters.
Cast
The uncredited actor playing the overseer of the Pleasure Unit process is Dick Wilson, who later gained fame as "Mr. Whipple" in a long string of commercials for Charmin toilet paper.
References
The film contains direct nods to James Bond. Flint is initially offered a Walther PPK and an attache case with a concealed throwing knife with Flint dismissing both as "crude". During the French strip club sequence, Flint stages a mock brawl with a patron who is identified as Agent 0008, a British secret agent. The actor playing the role is similar in appearance to Sean Connery. During the fight, Flint asks 0008 if "SPECTRE is involved" and 0008 replies: "It's bigger than SPECTRE"; SPECTRE is Bond's nemesis in the films (and an inspiration for this film's "Galaxy" organization). Later in the film, Gila is shown reading a .0008 novel, a reference to the James Bond novels.
The distinctive ringtone of Cramden's much-used "presidential hotline" telephone is re-used in the films Hudson Hawk and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
The main villain in the movie Die Hard is named "Hans Gruber", the same as the man Flint fights and kills in a toilet stall, but there is no indication this is anything but a coincidence. The fight itself was explicitly parodied in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, wherein Austin Powers fights and drowns assassin Paddy O'Brien in a toilet.
In 1965, Our Man Flint introduces the Lear Jet on film, with designer Bill Lear flying it in a cameo appearance in the sequel In Like Flint. James Coburn travelled the U.S. advertising the film.
Herbie Mann covers Our Man Flint's title theme in his album, "Our Mann Flute"; its title a pun on it. Many other cover versions of the theme music were recorded during the mid-1960s.
A 1965 novelisation of the film by Jack Pearl includes much material not seen on the screen that may have been taken from an earlier draft of the screenplay.
Sequel
In Like Flint (1967) was directed by Gordon Douglas, and again starred James Coburn, with Cobb also reprising his role as Lloyd C. Cramden.
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