40 Fun Facts About Our Man Flint

Galaxy agent Hans Gruber in Our Man Flint shares his name with the villain of which 1988 action film?

Die Hard gave the name Hans Gruber to Alan Rickman's master thief, 22 years after Flint killed the first Gruber in a Marseille toilet stall. The 1985 horror film Re-Animator borrowed the name too.

Which big-screen spy spoof hero watches In Like Flint on his honeymoon and calls it his favorite movie?

Austin Powers switches on In Like Flint during his honeymoon in The Spy Who Shagged Me. His emergency telephone also rings with a variation on the Flint films' presidential hotline tone.

Which code number belongs to the Sean Connery lookalike British agent in the Bond spoof Our Man Flint?

0008 is the British agent Flint brawls with in a Marseille club, a wink at James Bond's 007. Later in the film, Gila is seen reading a novel about the same agent.

Which US president's voice is imitated on Cramden's hotline telephone in Our Man Flint?

Lyndon B. Johnson's voice was supplied by actor Van Williams, who repeated the impression later that year in Batman: The Movie.

Dick Wilson, an uncredited Galaxy overseer in Our Man Flint, became Mr. Whipple in ads for which toilet paper?

Charmin kept Dick Wilson busy as grocer Mr. Whipple in more than 500 commercials. In Our Man Flint he supervises the process that turns Galaxy's captives into Pleasure Units.

Which bird of prey, described as anti-American, attacks Derek Flint at Malcolm Rodney's command in Our Man Flint?

An eagle, America's own emblem, is turned against Flint, and the bird gets the film's final shot as it soars over the smoking ruins of Galaxy's island.

Which pocket item, fitted with dozens of secret functions, is Derek Flint's only weapon in Our Man Flint?

A cigarette lighter is all Flint carries after turning down the standard spy kit. Gila slips it back to him on Galaxy's island, and he uses it to escape and sabotage the machinery.

What does the Galaxy organization manipulate to blackmail every government on Earth in the spy spoof Our Man Flint?

The weather is Galaxy's weapon: its three scientists unleash storms, earthquakes and eruptions, demanding that nations disband their armies and give up nuclear power.

Which fish stew, identified from a trace on a poisoned dart, gives Derek Flint his first lead in Our Man Flint?

Bouillabaisse is the clue that points Flint to Marseille, where a Galaxy agent sits in a seedy club enjoying his favorite soup. Flint's sleuthing owes more to Sherlock Holmes than to 007.

Edward Mulhare, the villainous Malcolm Rodney in Our Man Flint, later played Devon Miles in which 1980s action series?

Knight Rider cast Mulhare as Devon Miles, who hands David Hasselhoff's Michael Knight his missions. On Broadway he had taken over from Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady.

In Our Man Flint, the assassin Gila fires a poisoned dart at Derek Flint using a string from which instrument?

Harp strings give Gila both her cover and her weapon: she takes the place of a restaurant's musician, but the dart misses Flint and hits his old boss Cramden instead.

Which crime syndicate does Derek Flint ask a British agent about in Our Man Flint, only to hear Galaxy is bigger?

SPECTRE, the syndicate from the early James Bond films, is named outright, which places Flint in the same fictional world as 007.

Offered a standard spy kit in Our Man Flint, which German pistol favored by James Bond does Derek Flint reject?

Walther PPK and an attaché case hiding a throwing knife are both waved away by Flint as too primitive. He prefers a gadget of his own design.

Which fictional spy agency, run by Lloyd Cramden, calls Derek Flint out of retirement in Our Man Flint?

ZOWIE stands for Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage. Its computers all name Flint as the one man for the job, to the dismay of Cramden, who cannot stand him.

How does Derek Flint convince his Galaxy captors that he has died in Our Man Flint?

Suspended animation makes Flint look dead inside a sealed safe, so Gila and Rodney photograph the body and send the picture to Cramden. He later revives and slips into Galaxy's base.

Which booby-trapped item left behind by Gila in Marseille points Derek Flint toward Rome in Our Man Flint?

A cold cream jar packed with explosives is Gila's parting gift, and Flint clears the club before setting it off. What remains leads him to Exotica, a cosmetics firm in Rome.

Trapped inside a safe in Rome, Derek Flint is carried toward Galaxy's island aboard what in Our Man Flint?

A submarine waits to collect the safe, with Flint supposedly running out of air inside. During the trip he learns that his four companions have been kidnapped too.

Derek Flint tracks Galaxy to an island headquarters in which sea in Our Man Flint?

The Mediterranean hides Galaxy Island, a volcanic outpost that tears itself apart once Flint wrecks its machinery. An American warship picks up the survivors.

Van Williams, who voiced the president in Our Man Flint, starred opposite Bruce Lee as which masked TV crimefighter?

The Green Hornet ran for one season in 1966–67, with Bruce Lee as Kato. Flint star James Coburn was Lee's friend and later a pallbearer at his funeral.

Which actor, Broadway's original Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, plays spy chief Cramden in Our Man Flint?

Lee J. Cobb, an Oscar nominee for On the Waterfront, makes the exasperated Cramden far more than a foil for Flint. He returned to the role in the sequel a year later.

James Coburn, the star of Our Man Flint, won an Academy Award late in life for which Nick Nolte drama?

Affliction earned Coburn the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Glen Whitehouse. Director Paul Schrader gave him the part because he was bigger than Nolte and could dominate him on screen.

Before Our Man Flint made him a leading man, James Coburn played knife expert Britt in which Western?

The Magnificent Seven was only Coburn's third film, and he was hired on the recommendation of his friend Robert Vaughn. Flint, six years later, was his first lead in a feature.

Which composer, later an Oscar winner for The Omen, wrote the score and telephone ringtone for Our Man Flint?

Jerry Goldsmith, then the studio's house composer, also created the distinctive ring of Cramden's presidential hotline. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards in a 49-year career.

Which director, who guided Elizabeth Taylor to her first Oscar in BUtterfield 8, made the spy spoof Our Man Flint?

Daniel Mann was considered an actor's director, credited with a string of Oscar-nominated performances. He did not stay on for the sequel, which went to another director.

Gila Golan, the Galaxy assassin Gila in Our Man Flint, was runner-up in which international pageant in 1960?

Miss World 1960 ended with Golan in second place. She adopted her stage name to keep the contest secret from the religiously conservative family she lived with in Tel Aviv.

Which Middle Eastern country banned Our Man Flint because co-star Gila Golan was an Israeli citizen?

Lebanon banned the film over Golan's nationality. She quit acting in 1969, complaining that she earned $150 a week on Our Man Flint while the studio that loaned her out collected ten times as much.

Sigrid Valdis, who plays Flint's companion Anna in Our Man Flint, became secretary Hilda on which wartime sitcom?

Hogan's Heroes made Valdis Colonel Klink's secretary after the first season. She married the show's star, Bob Crane, on the set of the series in 1970.

Our Man Flint producer Saul David next made which 1966 science fiction film about a crew shrunk to microscopic size?

Fantastic Voyage sent Raquel Welch and a shrunken team into an injured scientist's body. David had been a book editor, and all four films he produced for the studio in the 1960s were hits.

Bob Peak, the poster artist of Our Man Flint, later painted the posters for the first five films in which franchise?

Star Trek posters were among Peak's best-known later work. He painted the artwork for both Flint films and is remembered for his developments in the design of the modern film poster.

Which Hollywood studio created Derek Flint for Our Man Flint as a rival to United Artists' James Bond films?

20th Century Fox wanted a master spy of its own, an original character not based on books. The studio was pleased enough to have a sequel in preparation within months.

The title of the sequel In Like Flint plays on a phrase long associated with which swashbuckling film star?

Errol Flynn became linked to the rhyming slang phrase for getting in easily, though its true origin is disputed. The pun spread so widely that some speakers now take the Flint version for the original.

In the sequel In Like Flint, the women plotting to take over the world run their scheme from what kind of business?

A beauty spa named Fabulous Face, in the Virgin Islands, fronts the plot. Tape recorders planted in its hair dryers are used to brainwash other women.

In the sequel In Like Flint, President Trent is kidnapped and swapped for a lookalike while playing which sport?

Golf with spy chief Cramden is cut short, and an actor surgically altered to resemble the president takes his place. A stopwatch showing three unexplained minutes makes Cramden suspicious.

In the sequel In Like Flint, Derek Flint goes undercover in Moscow by dancing with which ballet company?

The Bolshoi gives Flint his cover in the Soviet Union, where he makes contact with a ballerina who turns out to be an enemy operative. He then slips into the Kremlin itself.

Which aviation pioneer, founder of a famous business jet company, has a cameo as a mechanic in In Like Flint?

Bill Lear, founder of the Lear Jet Corporation, made his acting debut in the sequel. The credits list him as W. P. Lear Sr.

Our Man Flint held its world premiere on which Caribbean island, where parts of its sequel were later filmed?

Jamaica hosted the premiere at St Ann's Bay in December 1965, weeks before the American release. Neither the film's star nor its director made the trip.

In Like Flint and the Doris Day film Caprice were the last films made in which widescreen process?

CinemaScope gave way to Panavision and other widescreen systems after 1967. Our Man Flint had been shot in the same process a year earlier.

Which future Sex and the City star appears in Dead on Target, the 1976 TV pilot that revived Derek Flint?

Kim Cattrall is in the supporting cast of the pilot, shot in Vancouver with Ray Danton replacing James Coburn. It was not picked up, which made it the last Derek Flint film.

Which science fiction author wrote Flintlock, an unproduced 1972 teleplay meant to bring Derek Flint back?

Harlan Ellison wrote it as the pilot for a TV series, with Coburn meant to return. The studios passed, but the script later appeared in print in The Essential Ellison.

Within a year of release, Our Man Flint was itself parodied by a film about superagent Flit made in which country?

Italy answered with Il vostro super agente Flit, starring Raimondo Vianello, so a parody of James Bond ended up with a parody of its own.