When even escapist stories have dark edges

Poster for In Like Flint

In the 1960s, there were many escapist takes on the spy genre. But even the escapist versions had their dark sides.

Case in point: In Like Flint (1967), the second Derek Flint movie starring James Coburn. The movie’s story includes elements that are downright disturbing when you stop to think about it.

Rich people out to take over the world: In the case of In Like Flint, the rich people are women. As the film opens, the women have been at it for some time. They have been working to brainwash other women through their chain of Fabulous Face beauty outlets. Hair washing and brainwashing at the same time, hero Flint observes.

A big chunk of the U.S. military is on the plot: Colonel Carter (Steve Ihnat) is on the plot — or so the rich women think. In reality, Carter is going to double-cross the rich women. He intends to take over the world himself.

More disturbingly, Carter appears to have quite a number of military personnel working with him. And Carter has access to U.S. space projects which figure into the plan. Flint ends up having to combat quite a number of Carter’s men.

The U.S. President can easily be replaced with a double: A big part of the plan involves kidnapping U.S. President Trent (Andrew Duggan) with an actor who has undergone plastic surgery. The President’s abduction occurs with only a minimum of security present while Trent is golfing with ZOWIE head Kramden (Lee J. Cobb). After the switch takes place, very few people are aware of it.

To be sure, the movie is very light-hearted overall. Flint comments about an actor as president. At the time this was made, Ronald Reagan had been elected as governor of California and there was already talk of him running for president. There are also in-joke references to the 1966 Batman series (made at 20th Century Fox, where this movie was also produced) and Fantastic Voyage (also made at Fox and produced by Saul David, producer of the Flint films).

Flint’s favorite transportation choice nears an end

Poster for In Like Flint

Learjet, once the preferred mode of transport for 1960s spy Derek Flint, is nearing the end of its run.

Learjet is ending production this year, Reuters reported. Demand for Lear aircraft has been affected by Embraer SA and Textron Inc’s Cessna, according to the news service.

In the two-film Flint film series, Derek Flint (James Coburn) was a fan of jetting about in a Learjet. In fact, Learjet founder Bill Lear (1902-1978) made a cameo in In Like Flint. The real-life Bill Lear presents Flint with a new model jet. Lear was billed as W.P. Lear Sr. in the end titles.

Bill Lear began the company in 1963 and sold it off in 1967.

The Reuters article provides this background about the impending end of Learjet:

Bombardier, which acquired Learjet in 1990, said last week production would end this year. But it will service the plane, which accounts for about 42% of its in-service fleet of just under 5,000 business aircraft, according to JETNET data.

TCM has a night of spy films on Jan. 25

Turner Classic Movies will show five spy films the evening of Jan. 25 and early-morning hours of Jan. 26.

Here’s the lineup. All times EST.

8 p.m.: Arabesque (1966), directed by Stanley Donen: Donen had a success with 1963’s Charade, a suspense film that included a bit of humor. That movie also included a score by Henry Mancini and titles by Maurice Binder.

Mancini and Binder reunited with Donen on Arabesque, with Gregory Peck as a university professor who gets involved with spies as well as a woman played by Sophia Loren.

Also present was Charade scripter Peter Stone. However, Stone took an alias (Pierre Marton) and shared the screenplay credit with Julian Mitchell and Stanley Price.

 10 p.m.: The Ipcress File (1965), directed by Sidney J. Furie: James Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman launched a second, less flamboyant, spy film series based on Len Deighton’s novels. This was a source of tension with Saltzman’s 007 partner, Albert R. Broccoli.

The name of Deighton’s spy wasn’t disclosed in the novel that’s the basis of this movie. The character, as played by Michael Caine, was christened Harry Palmer for the film.

For the first of three Palmer films, Saltzman hired a number of 007 film crew members, including composer John Barry, production designer Ken Adam and editor Peter Hunt.

12 a.m.: Our Man Flint (1966), directed by Delbert Mann: The first of two spy comedies with James Coburn as Derek Flint.

The movie takes nothing seriously, with an organization called ZOWIE (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage). ZOWIE is headed by Kramden (Lee J. Cobb), who gets exasperated when he’s forced to recruit Flint (who wouldn’t follow orders when Kramden knew him during their military days). Kramden has no choice because ZOWIE computers have pinpointed Flint as the only man who can foil a plot by Galaxy.

The best things about the movie are Coburn’s winning performance as Flint and Jerry Goldsmith’s score. Goldsmith’s music elevates the proceedings. In terms of production values, it looks only slightly more expensive than the television series produced at the time by 20th Century Fox.

2 a.m.: Our Man in Havana (1959), directed by Carol Reed:  The director again collaborates with Graham Greene, who adapts one of his novels. Vacuum cleaaner salesman Alec Guiness is recruited by British spook Noel Coward to do some spying in Cuba before the revolution. The cast includes Maureen O’Hara, Burl Ives and Ernie Kovacks.

4 a.m.: The Prize (1963), directed by Mark Robson: A spy tale starring Paul Newman centered around the Nobel Prizes being awarded in Stockholm. The script is by Ernest Lehman, who wrote 1959’s North by Northwest. Here Lehman adapts an Irving Wallace novel. The cast includes Leo G. Carroll, who was also in North by Northwest and who would shortly take the role of Alexander Waverly in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Jerry Goldsmith provided the score.

Shoutout to Mark Henderson who brought this up on Facebook.

 

1964: Flint before there was Flint

Publicity still from The Americanization of Emily (1964)

Fifty-one years ago, James Coburn played a suave, womanizing character.

However, it wasn’t Derek Flint from Our Man Flint. That film wouldn’t be released until January 1966. Rather, it was a publicity still for The Americanization of Emily, which came out in 1964.

The ’64 movie was a light movie that took on heavy topics, thanks to screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. James Garner and Julie Andrews were the leads but Coburn made a big impression in a secondary role.

In the publicity still for the movie, Coburn evokes the Flint character he’d soon portray. Take a look for yourself.

HMSS’s favorite character actors: Roy Jenson

Roy Jenson getting kicked by James Coburn’s Derek Flint

One in an occasional series

Roy Jenson is one of the most famous actors you’ve never heard of.

If you look at his IMDB.com bio, you’ll see one of the most famous scenes of 1974’s Chinatown, where Jack Nicholson’s J.J. Gittes is about to get his nose cut wide open. For our purposes, he was a frequent presence in 1960s spy entertainment, including The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (the pilot episode and a two-part fourth-season story), Our Man Flint, The Ambushers (the third Dean Martin Matt Helm movie), Mission: Impossible, I Spy and The Wild Wild West.

Born in 1927 in Calgary, Jenson for a time played professional football in the Canadian Football League. At 6-foot-2, at a time it wasn’t common to encounter somebody that tall, he eventually found work as a stunt performer and bit part player. When the 1960s spy craze commenced in U.S. television, Jenson found frequent work as secondary villains.

The actor died in 2007 at the age of 80. To view his IMDB.com bio, CLICK HERE.

TCM to have an evening of the Other Spies on Jan. 24

Turner Classic Movies is having an evening of the “other” spies on Jan. 24, emphasizing lighter fare.

The evening starts at 8 p.m. New York time with In Like Flint (1967), the second of two James Coburn outings as Derek Flint. The intrepid adventurer shows off his ability to talk to porpoises, infiltrates the Kremlin and ends up in outer space.

Next up at 10 p.m. is Where The Spies Are (1966) with David Niven, once Ian Fleming’s preferred choice to play James Bond in what amounts to a warmup for the 1967 Casino Royale spoof. Midnight brings Agent 8 3/4 (1964) with Dirk Bogarde. At 2 a.m. (actually on Jan. 25, of course), TCM is scheduled to telecast 1966’s The Silencers, the first of four films with Dean Martin performing a spoof version <a.of Donald Hamilton’s counter assassin, Matt Helm.

TCM’s final spy entry at 4 a.m. is Salt and Pepper (1968), with Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. The duo had done an episode of The Wild, Wild West together (The Night of the Returning Dead) and liked how director Richard Donner operated. Thus, Donner was hired to direct Salt and Pepper, one of Donner’s first theatrical films.