Z.O.W.I.E.

Z.O.W.I.E. is the fictional not-so-secret service depicted in the movies Our Man Flint and In Like Flint. It is an acronym for Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage. While it is nominally the same agency, Z.O.W.I.E. is depicted differently in the two films. Oddly, the words intelligence and espionage mean generally the same thing and seem redundant.

In Our Man Flint, Z.O.W.I.E. appears to be a multi-national organization, reporting to a collection of representatives comparable to the United Nations Security Council. In this guise, individual secret agents are dispatched to handle particular cases. Agent 0008 and Derek Flint are notable agents. Though the work itself appears to be covert while in progress, the agents gain a certain amount of notoriety. In particular, Agent 0008 found himself the subject of a series of action novels. Agent 0008 appeared to resemble the contemporary James Bond actor Sean Connery

This is in stark contrast to the depiction of Z.O.W.I.E. in In Like Flint. In this film, Z.O.W.I.E. head Lloyd Cramden reports directly to the President of the United States, who relieves him of duty. In addition, the organization has a military hierarchy of officers, recruits through advertising campaigns, and presides over certain large-scale operations such as an orbital space platform. In the second film we see President Trent talking with other word leaders at the rocket silo, but it is unclear whether this relationship is the same as the first or not.

While these are not mutually-exclusive depictions, they form one of several significant points of discontinuity.

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