Sequel to 1966's "spy fi" comedy adventure 'Our Man Flint', 'In Like Flint' features star James Coburn's return to the role of playboy, jack-of-all-trades master spy Derek Flint. Both films did very well for 20th Century Fox at the box office but Coburn felt done with the character after two outings, so save for an abortive TV pilot with a different cast no more Flint films were ever made. Still the Flint movies were probably the sharpest of the various James Bond imitators of the time, ably balancing legit mystery and adventure with parody elements.
The villians of the first film were, and this will sound weird, 'well meaning misogynists', so this film goes the other way with a radical feminist conspiracy containing lesbian undertones. However the wicked ladies are double crossed when the military men they were working with reveal their intentions to start a world dominating dictatorship with aid of an orbital weapons platform.
Coburn is great as always and Jean Hale is lovely to look at as Flint's primary love interst (with "Batgirl" Yvonne Craig also lovely as the secondary love interest). Yet both films greatest asset and key to grounding the property to some realism and pathos is Lee J. Cobb as Flint's boss Camden, he's given more to do this film and we see he and Flint's relationship mature from the more antagonistic dynamic of the first movie, it would have been interesting to see where they would have taken this had subsequent films been made. Andrew Dugan is also good as the Eisenhower/Johnson mash up president and his vainglorious imposter. Both movies are similar levels of good, this one being probably a little better made and a little less fun. ***
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