By 1966 the Bond series was firmly established and ripe for spoofing. TV had offered up the semi-serious The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and the out and out comedy Get Smart (1965) but ’66 gave us two of the best big screen pretenders in Dean Martin’s Matt Helm and James Coburn’s Derek Flint.
Our Man Flint didn’t just send up the super spy genre but told an entertaining, if completely bonkers, tale of weather manipulation by the evil Galaxy organisation. All the Bond series trademarks are here – the beautiful girls, the criminal mastermind (actually there are three and they’re arguably well intentioned), the gadgets (Flint’s multi purpose cigarette lighter) the exotic locations (even if they are only studio bound sets) and the cool theme tune.
One thing is very different though and that’s Flint. As portrayed by James Coburn, Flint is a much cooler dude than Connery’s 007. A master of everything from cookery to ballet (which he teaches), a snappy dresser and all round hip cat, Flint is in many ways the anti-Bond, but then he does come from the private sector whereas Bond is a public servant so that’s perhaps to be expected.
Of course for a spy to be really cool he’s got to have the right theme and nobody does it better than Jerry Goldsmith, who not only gave Flint music to kick ass to but also provided the theme tune to The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Without Goldsmith and Coburn Our Man Flint just wouldn’t be worth watching.
