A Quick Look at Flint...

   There was a spy even cooler than Bond, and his name was Flint. Ask most movie spy fans which secret agent is our favorite, and the majority of us will tell you, without hesitation, Derek Flint. James Coburn scored his first major lead role as the strong-willed, unstoppable human computer known as Flint in 20th Century Fox's OUR MAN FLINT. In this adventure, a secret organization known as Galaxy has perfected a weather control machine and the only man who has a chance of saving the day is Flint! Coburn would return for the more elegant sequel, IN LIKE FLINT. (OUR MAN FLINT made Coburn a star, but he didn't want to get tied down a series.) In IN LIKE FLINT, Flint swings into action to help his former boss at Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage and happens onto a plot to replace the US President with a look-a-like, arm an experimental space platform, and shift the balance of power in favor of the female sex. During the course of events, Flint is assumed dead. (So, we have a thought-dead hero, an imposter president, and an armed space platform. I must wonder if that second G.I.JOE movie is officially a remake or not....) A little more elegant than the first film, IN LIKE FLINT is just as delightful. Unfortunately, saturation of the genre meant there wouldn't be a third film.* The two pictures have a breezy quality, a comic book mentality, that often has them written off as comedies. Unabashedly over the top, the films none the less deliver the goods. The two Flint films remain among my favorites in espionage entertainment. When I think of great spy music, it's Jerry Goldsmith's Flint theme that first comes to mind. For the tops in pop adventure, you can't go wrong with Flint!

(*Like Matt Helm, Derek Flint was revived for a TV movie in the 70's. While MATT HELM tried to capture the character played by Dean Martin, however, OUR MAN FLINT: DEAD ON TARGET shows absolutely no connection to the Coburn films. Ray Danton, who had played a Flint-like character in SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON, plays this Flint as a supposedly intelligent private detective in an adventure so bland and dull and poorly produced that it staggers the imagination. The action highlight is an exploding file cabinet, and the fireball might've at worst singed Flint's eyebrows. Really, the thing was terrible. And weirdly, Danton -with his dark greasy hair combed over his forehead- more resembles Harvey Lembeck than he does James Coburn.)

I've been keeping busy...

 So the relative lack of recent posts doesn't mean I'm not here...

A Quick Look: KING KONG VS GODZILLA (1963 - color)

   KING KONG's effects master Willis O'Brien had been trying to pitch a sequel, evidently since the 1930's. "King Kong vs Frankenstein" would've featured the giant ape confronting the latest monstrous creation of Dr. Frankenstein. It wasn't until the early 60's that he finally sold the idea to producer John Beck, who in turn sold the idea to Japan's Toho studio. Toho chose to replace the Frankenstein monster with their signature giant, and thus was born KING KONG VS GODZILLA. The film remains one of the most popular and successful of Toho's releases. It was the first Godzilla movie many monster kids saw, and it remains sheer enjoyment.

 

   In short, a Japanese pharmaceutical company is eager to capitalize on a legendary giant that feeds on some island berries the company has purchased. Whether it exists or not, some employees of the company are sent to the tropics to find the creature. They do, and soon Kong is headed toward Japan on a raft. Meanwhile, Godzilla has emerged from an iceberg and is heading straight for Japan... The result is one of the most enjoyable giant monster movies ever made. Just fun. At least for those who can take the movie on it's own merits... 

 

   O'Brien passed away before the film was released, and some have put forth that maybe it was best he never saw the final results since it departed so far from his initial idea. Obie's beloved stop-motion magic obviously couldn't be employed, and the man-in-suit Kong is light-years departed from anything as good as the master craftsman could've done. Honestly, it's a pretty shabby costume in general, far outclassed by iconic suits like those worn by George Barrows, etc. Conversely, Godzilla looks great, and the effects work really shines if you can just get around that crummy Kong suit. It's easy enough to do, though, and clearly the original audience didn't have any misgivings. It remains one of the top Godzilla movies of all time. This is the one really responsible for the continuing series of the 60's.

 

   The studio did hang onto the Frankenstein idea, though, and couple years later made FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (only they would've turned the Frankenstein monster into an ever-growing giant who does battle with a fire-spitting dinosaur...). Toho made another, unrelated Kong movie in 1967, KING KONG ESCAPES, which itself was based on the Saturday morning cartoon series of 1966!

A Cartoon Cuties Scene

 Rog and Crissy making martinis, Rog making sure his wife gets the biggest of the last two olives.