In Like Flint (1967/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Top Gear: 50 Years Of James Bond Cars
(2012/BBC DVD)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B-/C+ Extras: B/D
Film: B-/Documentary: B-
PLEASE
NOTE: The In
Like Flint Blu-ray
is limited to 3,000 copies and is available exclusively at the Screen Archives
website which can be reached at the link at the end of this review.
Twilight
Time concludes their separate limited edition Blu-rays of the James
Coburn/Derek Flint films with In Like
Flint (1967), running only 3,000 copies like the first film Our Man Flint (1966) which we reviewed
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11997/Our+Man+Flint+(1966/Fox/Twilight+T
As noted
before, Flint
is an expert ace agent who is simply not active at the time a new crisis
arises. When his spy agency Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization World Intelligence
Espionage) needs him, spymaster Lloyd Cramden (a great set of performances by
Lee J. Cobb) reluctantly calls on him yet again. This time, the U.S.
President kidnapped and Flint
called in to find him. This leads him to an all-women’s organization who
have their won crazy plan to take over the world led by a devious mastermind
(Anna Lee). Also showing up are Andrew
Duggan, Jean Hale and a pre-Batman
Yvonne Craig (Batgirl in the third and final season of the hit Fox TV series)
as a Soviet dancer and possibly more among a cast of many women and a cast as
amusing as the first film.
Again based
on Hal Fimberg’s Flint
books, Fimberg did the screenplay adaptations himself but solo this time out.
Though again not taking the spy genre too seriously, the films have their
amusing action moments. The film has a
different tone and is a little darker as directors switched from Daniel Mann to
the underrated Gordon Douglas.
The
over-the-top look, color, production design, satire and jokes continue and
there is a sense that the film wants to move into darker territory even as it is
relentlessly wacky, but that becomes a contradictory thing and despite Producer
David wanting to add some more thoughtful dialogue (which studio head Richard
Zanuck had cut against David’s wishes, leading to him leaving the studio for
good) and ending the series as they had done everything they possibly could
have with the material at hand.
Again,
the influence on Austin Powers is obvious, though this was also the look of The
Summer Of Love, the late 1960s, color coming into filmmaking & TV and at
least the character (and franchise, if you will) quit while it was ahead. The glut of many similar films also likely
had Fox move onto other projects despite the film being a hit. I think it is as good as the first almost,
but some repeated scenarios do not help, yet I like what Douglas
brought to it and Coburn did everything he could have with the role.
Extras
again have again been expanded from the DVD edition and repeat the terrific
feature length audio commentary track by film scholar/fans Lee Pfeiffer and
Eddie Friedfeld, the five featurettes form the DVD version (Future Perfect, Feminine Wiles, Spy School,
Musician's Magician and Spy Vogue), two brief on-camera
interviews with Coburn and Cobb by Art Linkletter at the premiere in Puerto
Rico, Deanne Lund screen test for the film, the Original Theatrical trailer for
this film, a great trailer for the underrated The Quiller Memorandum (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and a very
nicely upgraded HD copy of the original promo featurette “Take It Off”
with great color fidelity, detail and depth.
New extras include another new illustrated booklet on the film with
another winning essay by Julie Kirgo, the Isolated Music Score Track by the
great Jerry Goldsmith in stereo and four new featurettes (made in 2009) after
the film was issued on DVD including Derek
Flint: The Secret Files, James
Coburn: The Man Beyond the Spy, Designing
Flint and Flint Vs. Zanuck: The
Missing 3 Minutes.
That too makes
this as loaded as any James Bond Blu-ray, which says something since they are
so extensive. If you are a serious Spy
fan, these new upgraded Our Man Flint
and In Like Flint Blu-rays are
must-have releases and make all previous versions of the films on home video
highly obsolete, belonging on the same shelf as all those loaded James Bond
Blu-rays.
The only
thing Flint
never had was a distinctive car or even a comical one, but James Bond has a
longtime association with great motor vehicles from his first novel. The great Richard Hammond hosts Top Gear: 50 Years Of James Bond Cars,
a one-hour special from 2012 meant to promote Skyfall, celebrate a half-century of the most successful film
franchise of all time and give us a review of the cards for better and
sometimes worse in the series.
To start
with, Hammond
misses a few cars. He drives the
original Vintage Bentley of the books, but forgets to show the similar car in From Russia With Love, talks about the
Aston Martin DBS in Quantum Of Solace,
but skips the original model in On Her
Majesty’s Secret Service and (it had one scene in) Diamonds Are Forever, has fun making fun of the AMC cars in The Man With The Golden Gun but while
celebrating its classic broken jump sequence did not note or know the producers
wanted an AMC Javelin (their answer to the Mustang used in Diamonds Are Forever) but it had been discontinued, skips the Lotus
Turbo Esprit from For Your Eyes Only
while talking about the Citroen 2CV instead and otherwise covers the history
well all the way up to showing the many cars used just for the opening of Skyfall.
He covers
all the Aston Martins, the Toyota 2000GT from You Only Live Twice, the Lotus Esprit S2 submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me and rightly bashes
the Brosnan BMWs (complementing the Aston in Die Another Day too much), test drives some of these cars and even
tries out an ivory white Lotus Excel submarine car that is the icing on the
cake.
Unfortunately,
this lasts less than an hour, but is a fun show (the series usually is so) and
Hammond obviously loves bond and gets to interview many people connected to the
films including Daniel Craig, Producer Michael G. Wilson, Roger Moore and Guy
Hamilton. Don’t miss this fun special,
but there are sadly no extras.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on In Like Flint was among the last major Fox productions shot in the
CinemaScope format (along with the first Flint
film) while the Bonds beginning in 1965 were shot in widescreen scope Panavision. The DVD version looked good, but this new
Blu-ray of In Like Flint also has
better color range and richness throughout than that older DVD. Originally processed in DeLuxe color, a lab
Fox founded so they did not have to pay Technicolor anything, I think the color
is a little more consistent here, but detail can sometimes suffer (save stock
footage) because of the age of the print and the lenses. The film stocks seem to be a little faster,
though, as compared to Our Man Flint. Shot by Director of Photography William H.
Daniels (who worked with Saul David before on Von Ryan’s Express and
also lensed Valley Of The Dolls), it is meant to be seen on a large,
big, widescreen and now more than ever, more so than most action films today.
This Blu-ray
too is the equal of the Bond Blu-rays for You
Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s
Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved
Me (all also 2.35 X 1 scope films that we finally caught up with and I
discussed in some detail in the previous Our
Man Flint Blu-ray review), but the Panavision scope lenses are still superior
and since we also caught up with the stunning-looking Diamonds Are Forever Blu-ray, a comparison to that Bond versus the Flint films will give film fans and
other viewers an idea of just how far Panavision got ahead of CinemaScope
(ending its use eventually, but offering its own special odd look to the Flint films that actually helped both)
as well as how their superiority held up against challenges from cheaper
Techniscope, SuperScope, the inevitable Super 35mm format as well as interesting
and distinctive scope lenses like Todd-AO 35, Franscope, HawkScope, ArriScope,
J-D-C-Scope and Technovision, all of which are formats I like for different
reasons.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Top Gear special has some great clips from the Bond films, plus the
new interview and driving footage is all shot in HD. This looks good for DVD, but I wish this were
issued on Blu-ray as well.
The sound
on In Like Flint (unlike Our Man Flint) is this time upgraded to
a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix that is not bad and better than the DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono original sound lossless mix of the film as issued in
optical theatrical mono. Both are warmer
and richer than the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono from the DVD and the 5.1 has more
depth as expected, so it is not a bad upgrade.
The isolated music track with Composer Jerry Goldsmith’s fun score is
here in again stereo, also again included background starts & stops
including Goldsmith cueing the orchestra to play in a great additional behind
the scenes look at this hit film and the music again still holds its own
against the 5.1 mix. The audio
commentary track is here in regular DTS 2.0 Stereo. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on the Top
Gear special is just fine for such a special, but the Bond clips constantly
sound underwhelming and a controversial piece of “music” was edited out of The Man With The Golden Gun car
jump. Hmm….
Check out
both releases today!
As noted
above, In Like Flint (along with Our Man Flint) can be ordered while
supplies last at:
www.screenarchives.com
- Nicholas Sheffo
