In Like Flint
| In Like Flint | |
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 original film poster by Bob Peak |
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| Directed by | Gordon Douglas |
| Produced by | Saul David |
| Written by | Hal Fimberg |
| Starring | James Coburn Lee J. Cobb Jean Hale Andrew Duggan |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | William H. Daniels, ASC |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | March 15, 1967 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 99 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Our Man Flint |
| IMDb • Allmovie | |
In Like Flint is a 1967 film directed by Gordon Douglas, the sequel to the parody spy film Our Man Flint (1966). It posits an international feminist conspiracy to depose the ruling American patriarchy with a feminist matriarchy. To achieve and establish it, 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 spa in the Virgin Islands. Circumstances compel ex-secret agent Derek Flint to help his ex-boss, and so uncovers the conspiracy. Actors James Coburn and Lee J. Cobb reprise their roles as "Derek Flint" and spy chief "Lloyd C. Cramden", Flint's ex-boss. The movie poster for In Like Flint features a classic piece of movie poster artwork by the late Bob Peak.
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The U.S. President is kidnapped and replaced with an identical impostor; military turncoats have infiltrated and now control Project Damocles (orbiting nuclear weapons); and framed the Z.O.W.I.E. Chief, Lloyd C. Cramden, as a libertine. The only trustworthy people available to him are his aide-de-camp, 2nd Lt. Avery, and ex-secret agent Flint.
Cramden visits Flint at his New York City apartment, asking he investigate three minutes that he "lost" from a stop-watch-timed golf-tee by the President (Andrew Duggan). Flint agrees to investigate the matter, but in a week's time, after returning from a Mojave Desert survival exercise. Irritated, Cramden leaves; that evening, in a restaurant, he despondently ponders his problem at dinner, alone. There, Honey Trap, a seductive Southern Belle, befriends him for dinner, then subdues him with drugged cigarettes to take pictures of him with a prostitute as a means of blackmail. Conveniently, turncoat Army officer, Brigadier General Carter (Steve Inhat) happens by, arresting him and offering discreet help. The President publicly fires Cramden and disgraces him as spy chief; desperate for help, he sends for Flint.
The re-called Flint hypnotises and interrogates Cramden, learning how he was drugged in the restaurant; clues require clipping Cramden's mustache, which has traces of "euphoric acid". Clues derived from Flint's on-site chemical analysis of the mustache ashes point to Moscow, the Fabulous Face womens' spa in the Virgin Islands, and to outer space. Fabulous Face replaced the President with an identical actor (Duggan), substituted Russian women cosmonauts for the American astronauts in the space station, and discredited the spy chief.
Investigating the space station telemetry — registering female heartbeats — Flint fights turncoat guards at Z.O.W.I.E. HQ; afterwards, they think him dead, fallen into an incinerator. He goes to Russia, to meet ballerina Natasha (Yvonne Craig) and learn why the crew of the American space station crew are Russian women cosmonauts, not American astronauts. The KGB interrupt their tryst, because the Prime Minister wishes to chat with him about ballet. Flint escapes to the roof; the K.G.B. follow and fight him, after killing some of them, he escapes and finds himself eavesdropping on the Soviet Premier bluffing the U.S. President; conversational clues point Flint to the Caribbean Sea, and to Fabulous Face, in the Virgin Islands via Cuba.
Aboard the Aeroflot aeroplane enroute to Cuba, Flint (disguised as a bearded Cuban Revolutionary), gets the passengers singing the Internationale to distract them from his parachuting over the Virgin Islands, after tying up the pilots. He swims to Fabulous Face island, which is is well defended, but, a local dolphin takes him through the defences; he emerges in a steam bath.
Investigating the island complex, he encounters Fabulous Face leader Lisa (Jean Hale), and questions her about the cosmonauts. He then encounters Gen. Carter, silent partner of the Fabulous Face leaders, whom he also betrays. Flint resists, but is out-numbered; he, Lisa, the women leaders, Cramden, and the President are cryogenically frozen. Flint escapes his freezing chamber with a sonic wave amplifier device, which is disguised as a cigarette lighter and belt buckle.
Flint, having learned of Carter's plan to atomically arm the space station, goes to the Fabulous Face mission control centre and allies himself with the women leaders to undo Carter's plans of militarising outer space. Thus, Flint and Carter pilot the Project Damocles spacecraft to the station; they fight in zero gravity, making the spacecraft tumble. After overpowering Carter, Flint escapes the capsule (about to be destroyed with a nuclear missile) to the space station inhabited by two female Russian cosmonauts; having saved the world, Flint must accept their hospitality.
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".[1]
Roger Ebert said like 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".[2]
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 favourite movie.
