No Man Is Free: Benzadmiral's Man from U.N.C.L.E. Reviews

What still draws people to "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." after 47 years?

2010-03-23T07:49:00.003-05:00

Welcome! If you've found this site through another, or via a search on "Man from U.N.C.L.E." or "Vaughn" or "McCallum," you've come to the right place.

What makes this series so special to me, after almost five decades?

In some ways, the same things that drew me to it at age 11: style, excitement, humor, likeable characters, the visual techniques like the act titles, whip pans, and fast cuts. U.N.C.L.E. holds up better in regard to pacing than many shows of that time period -- or in some cases, of today.

Of course, when you're 11, there's a lot you don't know about the world yet. You're eager to probe the adult mysteries. And U.N.C.L.E. provided my 11-year-old self with a window on an adult world that I found glamorous then, and enjoy now.

I'd like to think that even today, somewhere in New York and Paris and Buenos Aires, even in Tehran and Baghdad, there's a hidden chrome-and-gunmetal outpost staffed by dedicated men and women who stand between us and disaster, working to keep the world from tearing itself apart.

If our world isn't like MfU's (and I have to admit, sadly, that it's not), then, darnit, it should be!

I recommend that you start with the first episode here and work your way forward to the last episode and the 1983 reunion TV movie, "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair." Or you can start with the movie (click "Older posts" below) and work your way back in time.

Either way, I'm sure you'll become a major U.N.C.L.E. fan. Comments welcome. Enjoy!

(Pics drawn from various places around the Web. All credit to the original posters!)

"The Fifteen Years Later Affair," or Nostalgia Ain't What It Used to Be

2010-03-22T07:38:00.003-05:00

So our favorite TV agents, Solo and Illya, are back. From what I gather, fan opinions on this one are mixed, with “love” and “hate” running neck and neck. (Okay, “hate” surges ahead on the final turn by the clubhouse.) When "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E." first aired in the spring of 1983, I was working nights, and called in sick to watch it, since I had no VCR. For some reason -- probably the fact that Season One was a good 18 years in the past at that point -- I proclaimed that it was much like a first season show, which I wince to recall now that I’ve actually seen those episodes again. But “Fifteen Years” has more than a few points to enjoy.

First we have to get through the initial 45 minutes, in which we meet our villains (good), catch up with Solo (poor) and Illya (fun), get a cameo by a certain Aston Martin-driving British agent (gack!), and have our heroes meet again after 15 years (cool!).

What it suffers from most is a lack of . . . well, confidence. Yes, it appears cheap. The “new” U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters consists of a hallway with a new logo, a London club-style office for Sir John with a computer bank in it, and the new Heckler & Koch Special; and that’s about all. Sure, the original series had budget constraints too. Somehow, though, it made us believe in Sam Rolfe’s micro-world, tailor shop, reception room, steely corridors, and all. This production appears to be trying to convince us, and trying too hard.

I love the bit with Del Floria’s new owner. It echoes Solo’s confusion when he can’t get into HQ in Peter Allan Fields’s “Foxes and Hounds” in Season Two. But we needed to see the toy shop, see Solo enter the new complex and react to it. (I understand that was filmed, and cut for running time.)

Things accelerate right at the 45:00 mark, as Illya rappels down the hotel face to Thrushman Kemp’s window . . . and suddenly, despite the ravages of time on our heroes’ faces, it’s 1966 again and they are clicking on all cylinders. Illya’s hilarious-and-tense turn as a Russian immigrant phone tech as he rifles Kemp’s briefcase, and the scene in the computer room at HQ, as the beholstered Illya dials in to Thrush’s phone line and they analyze what they know, could both have come straight from the old days. “Illya . . .” (Solo's “Be careful” is implied.) “I will if you will.” And Illya’s turn as the Cockney pilot is another gem.

More good stuff: the casting of Patrick Macnee as the Command's new commander (though he has little screen time), and a nod to the gone-but-not-forgotten Mr. Waverly.

Oddly, Vaughn looks younger and trimmer in the bush jacket than he does in tuxedo or dark suit. In the “old days,” as Kowalski puts it, it was the reverse. Speaking of Kowalski, Tom Mason does a good if thankless job showing us how the quality of Command agents has declined since Solo and Illya’s heyday.

The climax at the dam, with Solo slipping in past the usual comatose Thrush guards and the task force bearing down in speedboats, is exciting, with a visual sweep we rarely got in the original series. (Though I question that the Command force would be able to pick off the defenders so easily. There was a reason those medieval fortresses proved popular.) Illya’s faceoff with Janus below the reactor in Chicago works well too. Yes, we saw this time-running-out payoff many times in the Sixties and Seventies, especially on “Star Trek,” but director Ray Austin handles the cuts well.

Long-time fan and pro technical wizard Bob Short -- who, thankfully, steered writer-producer Michael Sloan into giving the film what true U.N.C.L.E. flavor it often displays -- appears here, at 1:16:43, about to be slugged by Solo:

At the last, the quiet tag scene is a tribute to both actors and their characters.

One of the biggest complaints fans have about “Return” is that it reunites Solo and Illya, and then almost immediately sends them off in separate directions so they get little screen time together. However, as we’ve seen, this was a standard script ploy in the series, not always in poor episodes. Think of “Ultimate Computer,” “Nowhere,” “Four Steps,” “Prince of Darkness,” and “Master’s Touch.”

Verdict: Despite many old-style music cues and the whip-pan effect, despite some crafty lines, it’s not U.N.C.L.E. at its best. There are moments like the JB interlude that make us wince, and the slant is often more Bondian than it should be. And let’s be honest with ourselves. Vaughn and McCallum, though they’ve aged well, aren’t the youthful, dazzlingly good-looking guys we admired, and still do admire. This is disappointing, and may be at the core of why so many fans feel let down . . . but the script wisely acknowledges this and plays off it. Which, together with the humor, puts "Fifteen Years" head and shoulders above most "reunion" TV movies!

Memorable Lines:
Solo (at Caesar’s Palace, when his communicator suddenly sounds): “New battery . . . in my pacemaker.”

Solo (to New York cabbie): “Del Floria’s Tailor Shop, Second and Fortieth.”

Del Floria’s New Owner: “Your uncle used to live in the back of a tailor shop? Well, I guess apartments is pretty tough to find. Where do you live -- the basement of the Pan Am Building?”

Solo (to Illya): “How about a hot dog?”
Illya: “Not up to your usual culinary standards, is it?”

Solo: “[Sepheran’s plan] will totally destroy our energy program.”
Illya: “How’s he going to do that?”
Solo: “Well, that’s for us to find out. For the sake of the world.”
Illya: “Don’t throw ‘the world’ at me. . . . How often did we save it?”
Solo: “Constantly, as I recall.”

Illya (having agreed to work for the Command again): “You must have been pretty sure of your persuasive rhetoric.”
Solo: “No, just your sense of morality.”
Illya (wryly): “Oh, that old thing.”

Illya (as they stroll through the corridor of the new HQ): “[The agents are a]ll men. What happened to the beautiful girls who used to work for U.N.C.L.E.?”
Solo: “They’re in the U.N.C.L.E. Home.”

Solo (trying to be funny as Z introduces the explosive bullets): “Well, if the elevator doors don’t open on time, I promise to contain myself.” (She eyes him, deadpan) “What happened to the special U.N.C.L.E. guns we used to carry?”
Z (without missing a beat): “They’re in the special U.N.C.L.E. wing of the Smithsonian.”

Illya (as the phone tech, loudly, to Kemp): “Who you think you are, waving a gun at me? This is New York! And here we wave guns at each other! We don’t need foreigners coming to do it!”

Illya (as the outraged tech): “I tell you both! From telephone company you will be hearing!”

Innocent Pennington-Smythe (as he and Illya dangle from a pipe): “You’ve been in this situation before.”
Illya: “Frequently.”
P-S.: “How’d you get out of it then?”
Illya: “I carried an explosive charge in my watch.”
P-S.: “Where do you carry it now?”
Illya: “In my shoe.”
P-S. (astonished): “What’d they change it for?”
Illya: “Progress.”

Solo: “This all seemed a lot easier fifteen years ago.”
Illya (with a weary chuckle): “It was.”

(By the way, the screen grabs here are mine, so any complaints about the quality should come to me and not to Lisa!)

Summing Up: Season Four, The Awards

2010-03-12T07:45:00.003-06:00

On the whole, the back-to-basics approach from Season Four producer Anthony Spinner worked. (Given a choice between fluff like "Jingle Bells" and a dark-toned mystery like "J for Judas," I'll go for the latter every time.) Even the best episodes this year lacked some of the sparkle that graced the best of Seasons One and Two. But on Spinner's watch, U.N.C.L.E. regained much of its strength and occasionally prefigured the grimmer tone of today's movie and TV spy thrillers.

Now, my coveted Silver Communicator Awards. Feel free to join in with your own winners and losers:

Best in Show: "Summit Five," "Deadly Quest," "Maze"

Best Performance by Robert Vaughn: "Man from Thrush"

Best Performance by David McCallum: "Gurnius"

Most Important to the U.N.C.L.E. Universe: "Summit Five," "Survival School"

Best Innocent: Sheila van Tillson, "Deadly Quest" (the best of a rather dull lot)

Best Villains: Viktor Karmak, "Deadly Quest"; Harry Beldon, "Summit Five"

Most Colorful: "Prince of Darkness"

A for Atmosphere: "Deadly Quest"

And the Tarnished Medals go to:

Dullest: "Fiery Angel," "Gurnius"

Weakest: "Seven Wonders" (sadly, a poor final note for the series to go out on)

"The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, Part II" (ep. 4/16)

2010-03-12T07:41:00.000-06:00

"And now, the end is near;/ And so [we] face the final curtain . . ." The last episode of the series opens with George Fenneman, once Groucho Marx's announcer, summarizing the events of Part I.

More neat visual shots here: the conference room with the Himalayan peaks in the distance; a focus on first Kingsley, then the General, up through the glass table, so that the telephones seem to float in mid-air; again Kingsley's vast installation, invoking Shangri-La in "Lost Horizon"; the white-robed acolytes peering down at Solo.

Erikson's daughter Anna is a step above a lot of the blonde Innocents we've seen. Despite our being told she's a teenager, she seems older and more mature, at least in the scenes at Kingsley's installation, and is level-headed enough to shoot one of the white robe guys.

The scene where Solo attempts to convince the other experts to bail on Kingsley's plan is remarkable for the series. Like Captain Shark, the antagonist is not an evil monster, displaying his grandiose plan to Solo as a prelude to killing him. Kingsley the deluded idealist is trying to win Solo over to his side. It gives writer Hudis a chance to bring up some ethical questions.

As sometimes with the two-parters destined to be movies, though, we get very little actual time for Solo and Illya. I'd have liked to hear them talking in the guest quarters before Kingsley's men take them out to be gassed. Here, even more than in "Bridge of Lions," they seem like minor figures dwarfed by the titanic events roaring over their heads.

Something about the way Kingsley's and Erikson's hands scrabble over the white buttons on their control panel is almost funny -- which I'm sure the actors and director didn't intend.

Thankfully, the voiceover -- "The seemingly endless battle against evil . . . the battle ends once and for all in favor of good" -- that introduces the final scene is a quote from Kingsley to Solo, spoken earlier, as if Solo is remembering. Having a nameless narrator tell us this would have been awkward and confusing.

Verdict: Though a weak entry, vastly unlike any previous story, it makes a definite statement about the nature of man and leaves us with powerful images: the shattered control dome at 49:21, looking like a Forties cover for Astounding Science Fiction; the General an expressionless robot, waiting for orders (and reminding us of what humanity has escaped); the corpses in the control room; Kingsley tenderly arraying the body of the wife who has betrayed him . . .

Memorable Lines:
Kingsley: "General, you are a strange mixture. You pursue a merciful ideal . . . mercilessly."

Solo: "Your plan denies humanity its freedom to find its own way to better times. . . . Professor Garrow, you're a geneticist. Your life work is the biological improvement of man. Will you pervert that science into the creation of a -- a generation of robots?"

Kingsley: "Join us, leading a new world. Let there be eight wonders."
Solo: "In your new world, Kingsley, there won't be any wonder."

Margitta (to her husband): "Don't look so startled, Robert. Where else did you think I raised a hundred million dollars? An overdraft at a drive-in bank?"

Margitta: "Humanity is dirt. And it always will be."

General: "And don't call me Shirley."
(Oops, wrong movie --!)

"The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, Part I" (ep. 4/15)

2010-03-11T07:32:00.002-06:00

The penultimate episode . . . ah me, oh my . . .

Right at the start we plunge into a gunfight at Thrushman Webb's HQ. It takes a while to figure out what's going on, but scripter Norman Hudis and director Sutton Roley are painting on a big canvas here, so we need to be patient. In the meantime the story moves, and we get wonderful action shots like Webb's leap into the cockpit of Mrs. Kingsley's Jaguar E-Type.

At last, something we've wanted to see for so long: a regional U.N.C.L.E. officer, Grant, played here by Hugh Marlowe, with an exercise bike (?) in his office. He's completely unimpressed by the two hotshots from New York, huh?

Margitta Kingsley and Mr. Webb don't seem to have much to do with the installation behind the meat plant. They spend a lot of time lazing around Webb's red-carpeted office, smoking cigarettes and smiling suggestively to each other. Neat, though, when she plugs Mr. Veeth and Miss Carla from Thrush. That's one way of eliminating pesky competition.

When Solo and Illya approach the ship with Anna Erikson on board, and the officer with the deck machine gun shoots at them, it would have been smart of them to simply hang back astern. They'd have been shielded by the cabins and wheelhouse.

Another drunken ship captain, as in Hudis's Season Three "Bottle of Rum"! One point, though: He couldn't have touched the searing-hot barrel of the just-fired deck gun without burning his hand. What happened to him and his crew when Kingsley and Erikson left the ship? Also, where is the ship -- off Hong Kong? If Anna was in Berlin, it would have made more sense for her to fly directly to the vicinity of Kingsley's Seven Wonders installation, and for her father to meet her there.

The disappearances of Kingsley's other six Wonders, and the theft of personal items, harkens back to "The Shark Affair." Yes, why would you need a public-relations man? Once the world's been made docile, you won't have to convince people to buy, prefer, or vote for anything. You'll just tell 'em what you want 'em to do.

Smart, and pro-active, of Solo and Illya to co-opt Dr. Garrow. Unfortunately Kingsley sees through their plan.

The sequence as Solo's plane is hit and he bails out, and then staggers across the high desert, is exciting.

Verdict: One of the most vividly photographed episodes, almost humorless, considerably different in tone from everything that's gone before. (Cf. "Mad, Mad Tea Party" or "Ultimate Computer.")

Memorable Lines:

Illya: "How do you inject dignity into the word `help'?"

Steve Garrow: "It's Mr. Solo's plane. He must be dead."
Illya (clearly upset): "Listen, if you don't have anything positive to say, why don't you just keep quiet?"

"The Deep Six Affair" (ep. 4/14)

2010-03-10T08:16:00.001-06:00

The last stand-alone episode brings back scripter Leonard Stadd ("Maze") and character actor Alfred Ryder, this time as the clever, tricky Commander Krohler. "Deep Six" shows the series was really getting its legs under it and starting to take off again.

We open with Illya in Disguise as he shuffles in to retrieve those all-important submarine plans -- and there was something else, what was it? Oh yes, save Solo and top English agent Brian Morton. The flash dazzler Illya uses to get Solo and Morton out is great, as are his single-shot cane, their rescue by the chauffeur, and the squeals of horror from the London matrons as the Thrushes shoot at their fleeing Rolls.

Now I know a teeny bit about submarines. The best atomic subs of those days in our world could only do about 20 to 25 knots submerged, and their depth limits were around 1300 feet. This 60-knot new one sounds like the Starship Enterprise-D in comparison; no wonder Thrush wants it.

Why is Waverly dealing with Morton's resignation and checking out (read: trying to torpedo) his relationship with Laura Adams? Seems to me that's the job of either the London HQ chief (Morton's immediate boss) or the Continental Chief for Europe. Certainly someone would have been appointed by now to take over for Harry Beldon.

Morton comes off as rather impressed with himself, worse than Solo by a long shot, but strong and determined to rescue his fiancée. However, I can't see Waverly keeping him on, even in Antarctica, after what he's done. If Waverly

was ready to detrain George Dennell ("Waverly Ring") for a much smaller breach of security, I'd think he'd have shaken Morton's hand and said, "Do let us know how you're getting on in your future endeavors." (Yes, George's detraining was fake, but no one in that story seemed to think it was unwarranted -- which suggests it was standard procedure.)

This time out, the "What the heck is going on here?" occurs in Act I, as Illya, who apparently does not dislike cats, uses one to set up a diversion at the sub's shipyard. (And just how did he retrieve Puss after the alarums and excursions were over?)

The moment in the hotel room when Solo balks at Waverly's instructions to delve into Laura's personal life, like the clash between them in "Concrete Overcoat," is startling. Solo and Illya almost never question Waverly's orders. It's a pleasant surprise, too, as in "Bridge of Lions," to see Waverly come prepared with an escape device.

The entire sequence in which Morton photographs the sub plans and outmaneuvers Solo and Illya is well done. Not only is Solo not taken in by Morton, but Illya tumbles right away to Solo's bug-planting. Smart stuff.

Morton drives one of the most gorgeous autos ever made, a left-hand-drive Mercedes 220SE or 250SE convertible. We saw this one, or one like it, in "Round Table." An expensive collector's item now, it wasn't cheap even then. Unless he bought that beauty used, Morton must have some money of his own.

Nice that we actually get to see the sub everybody's been howling about. It's roomier than the Seaview -- that bridge is huge.

The odd thing about this story is that, in the end, there is no Innocent. Laura appears to be one until the end of Act III, when she reveals herself as a Thrush. Perhaps this is one of those odd cases, as Dr. Cindy has mentioned, where one of the agents, in this case Morton, moves into the Innocent role.

Verdict: A fast-paced pure spy story, with a McGuffin that recalls the Sherlock Holmes story "The Bruce-Partington Plans."

Memorable Lines:
Brian Morton (dryly, to Commander Krohler): "Undoubtedly your man got caught in the London traffic. It may be days before he arrives."

Solo: "Did you know I was the top U.N.C.L.E. agent in North America?"
(Cute -- but as Section Two, Number One, of course he would be considered the top agent!)

Waverly: "[Mr. Solo] has intelligence, verve, physical prowess; a kind of man most women would find very attractive."
Solo: "I thank you, sir."
Waverly: "But probably the worst possible candidate for marriage."
(Solo's discomfited look: priceless)

Illya (to Solo, as they sit alone in Waverly's office after the latter says that Command agents make poor marriage material): "We have each other. . . ."
(This would have made a good last line for the entire series!)

"The Maze Affair" (ep. 4/13)

2010-03-10T07:53:00.001-06:00

One of the best of this year, “Maze” is swift-paced and tricky: a reverse “Mission: Impossible” where we see just how clever Thrush can be, and with some real suspense at the climax.

The interior scenes at HQ are colorful, and really give us the impression we are looking at a busy nerve center. Plus the entire demolition sequence is quite futuristic-looking. Apparently bomb disposal is a new, or experimental, job for Illya, yet it matches with what we’ve been shown before.

Solo smartly circumvents the “security” at Febray Electronics and even checks the bona fides of the “generals.” When we look back, we realize Thrush must have arranged the weak defenses -- made them look good enough to pass, but not truly effective. The desk guard must really be dense, though, not to wonder at Solo showing up in a suit to check the A/C!

We have to ask just when Febray and Barnes put this plan together. No time elapses between the first attempt to bomb Command HQ and the mission involving the “molecutronic gun” (I wish they’d found a more elegant name for it!). So their scam must already have been in motion at the time of the abortive attempt, since during it Solo and Illya are in Waverly’s office discussing the gun. Yet the teaser scene with Barnes and his assistant implies they had a lot riding on this attempt, and they need to go back to the drawing board.

Second, Waverly might risk himself leading an assault force, but he certainly shouldn’t. A fleet admiral commanding an aircraft carrier doesn’t take a plane up himself.

Third, how did Thrush “find” Febray? Sure, they knew where he was; he was certainly reporting to them all along. But Barnes & Co. were pretending they didn’t know. How and why did Illya squeal? It’s never implied they tortured him or drugged him. Yet they must have, or he and Solo would have been wondering how Thrush located the good doctor.

The purpose of the dynamite Solo finds out in the desert is never explained. We needed a line from him: "So that's why you planted that dynamite -- to maintain the illusion that the gun actually worked."

Neat bits: Illya crossing his fingers as he waits for the immersed bomb to go off; his knocking in a code pattern on the hotel door; the shadowy lighting in Waverly’s office as they examine the desert map, and later in the lab; the leather-jacketed Illya paying only $1.94 to pump five or six (?) gallons of gas; and town names like Vinegar Wells and Gossamer Flats.

High marks to scripter Leonard Stadd for not having Barnes mention early on that there is a “Mr. Big” somewhere. It would have made us peer at and suspect all the guest characters, Febray included, and the revelation at the end of Act III would have been weakened.

Abbe Melton is cute, but it is rather coincidental that Solo runs into her; and worse, she has no function except to pretend to faint at Solo’s direction and provide him with a safety pin. Wouldn’t it have been neat if she’d been not a Daddy’s Princess but a tough-but-pretty rancher’s daughter who helps Solo survive the desert trek? (“Watch out for rattlers, Mr. Solo. Remember, they’re just as scared of you.”)

We don’t get to see Illya conclude that the gun is actually a bomb. We go from the staticky transmission, to Waverly suddenly ordering the demolition unit into action again. I’d have liked it if we’d seen Illya zero in on some flaw in Thrush’s plan (perhaps wondering how they located Febray, as above), and leap to defuse the bomb.

(Peculiar . . . Disc Five has only two titles on it. I suppose it’s so Disc Six can have both parts of “Seven Wonders” together -- but it reminds me of the night the last episode aired. Instead of June Foray telling us that “Our man from U.N.C.L.E. will be back in a moment with a look at next week’s show,” there was only silence. . . .)

Verdict: A twisty Season Two-like spy story with embedded surprises, a vivid look at HQ, and colorful desert locations to boot.

Memorable Lines:
Febray (examining Solo in exasperation): “Just who are you?”
Solo (levelly): “I’m Napoleon Solo . . . from U.N.C.L.E.”

Barnes: “Are you suggesting that we simply kill you, Mr. Solo?”
Solo: “Oh, no, no, no. You can just let me off at the next bus stop.”

Waverly (scooping up the locator pin): “Mr. Solo seems to have lost his tie tack. I hope the same

can’t be said of his life. . . .”

Febray: “. . . [T]hese childish games -- passing me off as a shah.”
Illya: “I once passed myself off as a Tibetan lama.”

Illya: “I always say, when you’re locked in an escape-proof room, it’s good to have a physicist with you."

Febray: “I don’t know how to get to the M-5, Kirk; I really . . . do not know.”
(Oops, wrong TV series)

"The Man from Thrush Affair" (ep. 4/12)

2010-03-09T08:24:00.001-06:00

This, the last Solo-only script and the first to dispense with even a mention of Illya since "Yellow Scarf," feels oddly rushed and first-draftish, but features a strong performance by Robert Vaughn as Solo carries off an undercover mission into the enemy camp. As in "Summit-Five," the agents must operate out of touch with Waverly.

The Season One flavor is here in the opener. We not only get an exotic scene in the Greek countryside involving a low-tech method of communication (the carrier pigeon), but we see two agents who are not Solo and Illya -- driving the U.N.C.L.E. car, no less. Moreover, they're not hapless. While they do die at the hands of Thrush, it's not before they get their information back to Waverly. And the steel-nerved driver roars right into the thugs' rifle fire (the car must have had an early version of run-flat tires!) and swings neatly around their roadblock. We get to see the car's high-tech weaponry, too.

Why couldn't we have had Illya in this one? It makes sense that Waverly would tap agent Andreas Petros for his knowledge, however imperfect, of the Irbos dialect. But we with inquiring minds want to know how this came about -- it suggests he has ties to the place. Solo also implies ("Welcome aboard, Andreas") that this is Petros's first mission, or first out of New York. Petros might well have been the Innocent in this story, if this mission were to cause a conflict with his past. But none of this is tackled.

Similarly, the relationship between locals Marnya and Marius is never explored. We needed a scene between them to show his hostility, and one later to show their rapprochement. (Well, okay, we get to see them embracing in Act IV.)

Interesting technology abounds, though. We have the invisible barrier; kudos to the actors for making it look tough to squirm underneath it. (About time that old acting exercise of miming being trapped in a glass box came in handy.) Plus the jamming field keeps our heroes from calling HQ. Then, in the Thrush complex, Filene's ID card operates doors and elevators, which we see every day now. Did our world have that so long ago?

The production staff had a lot of fun with the back of the Thrush ID card, didn't they? Exclamation points ("Death, Torture and Terror!") and the three-pronged optical illusion as one of the symbols.

An earthquake machine? Thrush tried that two years ago in Japan ("The Cherry Blossom Affair"), and it didn't work. And The Voice of Armageddon rushes to deliver his ultimatum to the world without even testing Killman's device? Killman, however, has neat character tags. He constantly refers to himself in the third person, cheerfully admits to being cruel, and loves the Lepidopterae.

We haven't seen this blur-out to show the passage of time in a while. It's also a superb touch that, when Solo and Andreas are burying their scuba suits, their hair is still wet. But they should have landed by night.

Solo's performance as efficiency expert Filene (no doubt named for the Boston department store) is the delight here. He's the perfect corporate drone, one of the fedora-topped, button-down Company Men who swarmed the halls of IBM and BBDO in those days. The bit where he faces the captured Andreas, and has to try to save him without blowing his cover, is terrific, as is his putting the pieces together about the earthquake machine. And for once, he's not rumbled instantly. Killman suspects he's not authentic Hierarchy, but is not sure, and Solo is only revealed by Thrush's examination of his voiceprint. His efficiency methods work well, even as we see that they are more humane -- putting the workers on shifts, for example, so they are rested. (Why is it necessary to have so many workers polishing things, though?)

Killman's blackmailing Solo, to continue with the project to save the lives of the islanders, works. Our Napoleon's sense of honor would never permit him to sacrifice the locals. But Solo doesn't seem to have much to actually, you know, do before the project is complete.

Verdict: Possibly rushed before the cameras before the script was really ready, the all-action climax and the tag scene seem hurried. If there was a story this year that deserved more time, this was it: to show us about Marnya and Marius, Andreas's connection (if any) with the islanders, and Solo's dilemma of having to appear to help Killman as he waits for a chance to sabotage the operation.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (as he and Andreas pause in their scuba gear): "Let's get out of these wet things and into a couple of dry hopsacks."
(Always suspected Solo was a Brooks Brothers man!)

"The Gurnius Affair" (ep. 4/11)

2010-03-08T07:28:00.000-06:00

This one, which reunites several character actors from previous seasons, is unfortunately rather uninspired, despite some startling visuals from director Barry Shear and an interesting, if heavy on the leering, performance from David McCallum as sadist Colonel Nexor. Still, it has its moments.

We pick up “somewhere in Europe.” Prison commandant Major Hartmann says he’s been there for 25 years, which puts it back to 1942 -- but Kragensburg from its name is probably in Germany or Austria. Was this a German POW camp, and the major was left in charge even after V-E Day? His security is lousy, too. Gurnius’s men didn’t need to use the mind-grabber; a single bazooka shell from the unguarded high ground would have taken out the fence, gate, and guard house. Maybe the reason no one’s escaped in 25 years is that it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge.

Will Kuluva’s von Etske does give off a paranoid vibe as he and Nexor approach the checkpoint. Nice touch, as is having Illya not be an instant expert on “orometchrome B.” But I’d think von Etske, when he meets “Nexor” later, would wonder why the colonel is not furious with him for grabbing the helicopter and leaving him behind.

If no one’s been allowed to see von Etske for a quarter of a century, how did he know Gurnius was going to break him out? And how is it that Illya-as-Nexor is able to speak German so well as to fool Gurnius, a “former Axis dictator,” and von Etske? We saw this Fourth Reich thing a lot on TV adventures in those days, and it was getting dull even then.

Too many cars: Solo and Illya arrive at the prison in a blue Triumph (?) roadster. Since Solo and Terry use, I think, an ancient Mercedes (one of their early postwar diesels?), possibly Terry’s car, Illya would have taken the roadster to the lab. But then Illya shows up at the helicopter rendezvous in a VW Bug!

On the good side, we have Barry Shear’s eye for the arresting visual: the stark dark U.N.C.L.E. interrogation room with its single bright overhead light as Waverly catechizes Illya-as-Nexor, and the fight in Solo’s hotel room with the shots through the slowly turning ceiling fan. Illya sensibly has the fogged film analyzed, which provides a lead to San Rico (a “humid country”! Ha!). The darkroom scene with Terry, as Solo and Illya find out what she knows yet reveal nothing themselves, is fun, as is Solo's outmaneuvering Terry when she tries to report the story -- and the sequence as they creep across the sunlit field, only to be brought up short by the machete-brandishing Indian.

There’s no surprise that the Indian is actually a Gurnius man -- Solo should have expected it. On top of that, we leave them at the end of Act II, about to be threatened, and come back to find the Indian is (pretending to be) an ally or a neutral. We missed something.

The famous, or infamous, sequence where Illya-as-Nexor is clearly torturing Solo (Solo: “Can’t stand much more . . .”) has given rise, I expect, to a thousand fan fiction scenes. Of course Illya had to make it look good for Gurnius and Brown. It would have been powerful to have some of the torture scene on camera, but no doubt the censors axed that. (Pun gleefully intended.) My question about the scene: Solo’s wired up to an electrical torture system, and Illya throws water on him???

When Illya steps up with the fake suicide pill and tells Solo to bite down on it, however, Solo hesitates not even a moment. He must trust Illya as much as Illya does him; recall Illya’s instant dismissal of the notion that Solo could be a Thrush double agent in “Summit-Five.”

Verdict: Not very original, but at least played straight, with Judy Carne, Macready, Ruskin, and Kuluva adding some spice.

Memorable Lines:
Waverly (to himself, on finding that Solo is in the company of Terry again): “Same one, hm?

Hmmm.”

Terry (ignoring the fact that Solo’s been attacked and nearly killed): “My camera’s broken.”
Solo (dryly): “I’m all right, thank you --”

Illya-as-Nexor: “You are not as young as you used to be, Mr. Solo.”
(Solo growls under his breath)

"The Survival School Affair" (ep. 4/10)

2010-03-08T07:24:00.002-06:00

This is Season Four's Illya Episode. In Season One's "Bow-Wow," Illya operated independently, yes; but here he is truly on his own, in a hunt for a concealed murderer/double agent.

See everything the well-constructed teaser does. It tells us where we are and what the Survival School is, and introduces us to Jules Cutter, who "takes his job a little too seriously." Then the security guy is murdered -- by someone he recognizes! -- and we wind up with a bikini-clad trainee holding a gun on Illya. Wow!

The Survival School itself is well drawn. We see multiple languages on the gate signs, the same kind of computer power HQ sports, and more. There are more than just two male trainees, and at least five female ones (who have, logically, their own barracks). The island, Cutter tells us, is 2000 miles from New York. This suggests that it's in the Caribbean, not the Pacific. Also, it's 700 miles from the shipping lanes? Hard to schedule a leave. I'd guess nobody is asked to be permanently assigned to the School, that staffers rotate, six months on and then off to a new posting.

Yes, Cutter is a bit of a blowhard, but only a bit. His job, like any good drill instructor, is not to coddle recruits, but to make them tough. It's not a nice counterintelligence world out there. (I suspect, though, that he's gone a little too long between vacations.) Charles McGraw's performance as Cutter is top-notch: He walks like a man with authority.

Richard Beymer ("West Side Story") makes a solid believable agent out of Harry Williams. When, wounded in Act IV, he inches himself up the wall to switch off the machine guns, he really looks like it takes everything he's got.

Along with the mystery's requisite three major suspects (and a minor one, Harry), we get information about Illya that we've long wished for. We hear he was in the class of '56 and that Cutter kept him an extra month to instruct the demolition class. This sort of thing backgrounds our characters and their world, making it and them three-dimensional.

Illya's reasoning in Act I, that the double agent must suspect he isn't graduating or he'd wait until he was inside the Command to steal its secrets, is neat. Waverly's line about "this threat to our very existence" is kind of stagey and awkward, however, like some of the "romantic" exchange between John and Melissa.

Melissa reminds me a little of Anne Francis as Honey West. During her training stalk, though, when she simply finds a revolver on the ground, shouldn't she check to be sure it's loaded? And I thought Section Twos weren't allowed to marry? If so, and Melissa was planning to marry John (before he was revealed), was she going to give up any shot at Enforcement? John implied that he sure wasn't.

After all the agents' reports about using access tunnels to get into Thrush bases, you'd think a Command installation would be the last place on earth to have such wide tunnels!

No, the revelation of John Saimes as the double agent is no thunderbolt, but it's plausible, and he's dispatched fittingly on the firing range we saw earlier, when he tried to kill Illya and Cutter. (The old Chekhov maxim: If you show a gun on stage in Act I, it needs to go off by the end of Act III.) Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen might have had Cutter as the prime mover behind the whole thing. While astonishing, that would have required a lot of work to make believable, and would have made Cutter much less memorable. It's a shame that Illya himself doesn't pinpoint the agent, though.

Verdict: Tight, fast, exciting; we don't miss Solo (well, not much) as we peer behind the curtain at how U.N.C.L.E. trains its agents; and we get a murder mystery too. A minor classic.

Memorable Lines:
Cutter: "[Hargrove] acts like a woman in love."
Illya: "And that's not in your manual of training."
Cutter: "Certainly not at this school."

Illya (to Harry): "Keep your communicator handy and let us know if you hear anyone approaching. It, ah, just might be a double agent coming to kill you."
Harry (wryly): "It's nice to know that somebody cares."

Harry (clasping his wounded shoulder): "Cutter's Survival School gets tougher every year."
Illya (flatly): "So does surviving."

Cutter (after heaving himself up from Illya's judo throw): "You should have done it in four [seconds]. I'm sure Mr. Solo could have."
Illya: "I'm sure he could. Though Mr. Solo has better things to do than play games."
(Cutter's reaction, and the way his men snap back to attention: priceless)

"The Fiery Angel Affair" (ep. 4/9)

2010-03-07T15:15:00.000-06:00

This, from a writer (John W. Bloch) we haven't seen since "Neptune" in Season One, is colorful, fast-moving, and features a tricky plot and characters modeled on the Perons of Argentina. (I can see it now: "The Fiery Angel Affair -- the Musical!")

Our Innocent this time, Angela of Querido, is essential to the plot. Madlyn Rhue as usual is effective, not heavy on the Latin accent. Her Angela, we're told, was "a dancing girl from the streets," as Eva Peron was a film and radio actress, and is beloved by the people of her country, as Eva apparently was. In the same line, her husband Abaca, a military man like Juan Peron, presides over a country clearly riddled with graft and corruption. Thrush is in there pitching as well, eager to grab Querido's oil.

Joe Sirola's Abaca is well done. His rattled-off Spanish phrases sound authentic, as does his Latin-accented English ("How can my own brother be so estupid?" and "You need no' be concerned").

If the storytelling has a flaw, it's that there are so many factions. Angela, Abaca and his brother, the Secret Three (occasionally, and confusingly, called "the junta"), and the unseen threat of Thrush -- it gets a little complicated. Of course, whenever I'm inclined to grump this year about a plot that's too complex or a tone that's too serious, I remember "Matterhorn," and all is sweetness and light again.

Rather odd that the bulletproof car would explode, not when the engine starts, but as it drives away.

Illya seems quite pleased with himself for his high-handed kidnapping of Angela, and for covering his tracks. At the same time, Solo seems disgruntled and unhappy with the entire mission.

It would have worked better if the Secret Three had worn masks under their cowls. The light is dim, but their faces and voices are recognizable. Vinay's ring is so obvious it seems like a red herring, though it's not. Nor is it very bright of their men to place high explosives next to hay!

Some more good detective work by Solo, as he goes undercover to get himself into the local jail and thence to the Secret Three, and some solid strategy ("If you're after the Three, get the Three, not the one"). We also get good deduction by Illya as he realizes that Abaca must be behind the attempt on Angela.

Illya makes a bad mistake when he underestimates Angela and lets her slip a message out. When Waverly reprimands him and takes him off the case, Illya does not argue or try to evade. I'm reminded of the Robert Conrad vehicle "A Man Called Sloane," a decade or so later, in which Sloane and his sidekick frequently double-talked and outmaneuvered their superior, played by Dan O'Herlihy. In contrast, Waverly is clearly The Boss.

I love that red-lit reflection of Waverly's face in the computer screen as he gets ready to lower the boom on Illya. Earlier, too, we have a couple of neat shots as Solo moves past the camera, and it shoots up past him into the sky.

Were the thugs attempting to kill Illya and Angela in Switzerland, or in Querido? If the former, they got back to Querido in time to save Solo awfully fast.

Verdict: Lacking a strong climax, it's no classic like "Deadly Quest" or "Summit-Five"; but our heroes are smart and professional (and fallible).

Memorable Lines:
Cab Driver: "Imagine, senor! It is Angela's birthday, and she gives to us a present! A, uh, a courthouse!"
Illya (dryly): "Every capital city should have one."

Solo (guying Illya about his newfound celebrity): "Bullfighters are out and Kuryakins are definitely in."

Abaca: "You spoke with [the Secret Three]. You must have some clues."
Solo: "Mm-hmm. One, a ring the size of an egg, in the shape of a bull's head . . . with ruby eyes."
Abaca: "Are you sure?"
Solo: "Well, it wasn't the kind of ring you'd find in cereal boxes."

"The Deadly Quest Affair" (ep. 4/8)

2010-03-07T15:10:00.001-06:00

When, a year or so back, Diana of RaspberryWorld asked the members of Channel_D for our recommendations for episodes to show a first-time viewer, this was my pick for Season Four. The first episode filmed this year, "Deadly Quest" (the sixth and last episode to use that adjective) has even more of the feel of Season One than does "Thrush Roulette" -- partly due to the use of that year's music, as Bill Koenig has noted. For danger, suspense, and Solo smarts, this is a true winner.

Again we find a hospital to be a slightly less than safe haven, as Illya is kidnapped by Viktor Karmak's thugs. Somebody at Arena must have had a bad experience during his tonsillectomy or prostate exam.

The shadowy former theatre contrasts sharply with the brightly-lit gas chamber where Illya is held; and the nighttime setting, the croaking mynah bird, and those scenes actually filmed at night set up the atmosphere beautifully. We also see Solo's wits at work: a chisel for a weapon, using the backhoe to clear the electric fence, and the current of the bulb wire to blast a hole in the ice house wall. Whether that last would really work, I don't know, but it's part of the essence of U.N.C.L.E., like his shaving can bomb in "Iowa Scuba."

Yes, this one separates Solo and Illya very early, so that they have only two scenes together; and Illya is not given much to do -- though his attempt to manipulate the glass to cut through his leather wrist bonds is edge-of-the-seat stuff. Unfortunately, the imprisonment of Illya is the linchpin of the plot. The captive must be someone Solo, and we, care about.

No, I don't suppose that even in 1967 so big an area of Manhattan would be condemned all at once. If they had set it in one of the other boroughs, it might have been more plausible. On the other hand, the first map slide in Waverly's office is correct in showing a simplified version of the streets around the Manhattan Bridge.

Marlyn Mason is lovely. Did we need her character, though? Well, we needed an Innocent, someone for Solo to converse with during the ordeal. Why not someone attractive? Plus she adds a little lightness to a heavy story, and her emeralds come in handy during Act IV.

Darren McGavin's Karmak is an over-the-top villain, true -- something about his boots, his stance, and his leopard reminds me, paradoxically, of the comic-book hero the Phantom. But he's a powerful and threatening presence. While you wouldn't call him noble by any means, he faces death in his own gas chamber on his feet and without begging or whimpering. (He's also one of the worst shots ever. He misses Solo across the width of an alley while using a telescopic sight? Or was he just playing with his quarry?)

I guess Karmak always intended to have Stefan pretend to betray him to Solo, to lead the agent to the ice house trap, and then dispose of Stefan afterward. Illya plants the seed of "A reward?" in Stefan's mind, and so he demands money from Solo (which he planned to conceal from Karmak) in the process of playing out Karmak's game.

Thompson has Solo say that "felinophobia" is "fear of cats." Isn't it "ailurophobia"? Similarly, his villain, Brach, uses "intractable" for "tractable" in "Green Opal."

Solo's darn lucky that Ying the leopard didn't disembowel him with its back claws while they were wrestling. And I don't think the big cat's fangs would have broken Solo's arm, as the tag scene implies; his arm would have been lacerated, and he'd probably need reconstructive surgery and physical rehab, too.

Verdict: For atmosphere, setting, and tension, as an old enemy hunts Solo through a dark urban landscape and time ticks away for a captured Illya, the halfway point of the final year is superb adventure.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (to Illya in his hospital bed): “. . . You have time for meditation! Fruit of the vine; flowers of the field; exquisite view --”
Illya (looking around at the sterile room): “What exquisite view?”
Solo (as an attractive nurse comes in): “That exquisite view.”

Solo (to Waverly): “What was left of Karmak was staked out in a jungle clearing for the scavenger ants. With scavenger ants, death is never slow . . . but it’s always certain.”

Solo (to Sheila): “Come on now, jump. You said you did some skydiving, didn’t you?”
Sheila: “Well, not exactly. I started to. I even went so far as to get a silver lame jumpsuit. But when I actually looked down out of the plane . . . acrophobia!”

"The Thrush Roulette Affair" (ep. 4/7)

2010-03-02T08:01:00.002-06:00

At last, an episode that could almost be a Season One! As I watched I kept imagining this one in black-and-white, with the martial first-season theme and the shattered glass intro. . . . On top of that we get an unusual Innocent (both male and middle-aged!), plus the twin delights of Solo playing private eye, and a historic battle between U.N.C.L.E.'s two top agents.

The opener is in two parts, so to speak, and the second follows from and amplifies the first. That establishing shot of New York must have been from the early to mid-Fifties; look at the taxicabs. And even I know that Lincoln Center is nowhere near the UN. Nice detail, though, that we're told Command HQ is near the UN building.

The target range scene moves the exposition out of Waverly's office for a change, and gives us a character bit for Waverly himself. Part of the fun is Solo's narrow-eyed reaction as Waverly aims. First he glances at the Old Man, then at the gun, and then at the end squints through the telescopic sight, as if wondering if it spoiled his own aim. Priceless.

Full marks to this episode for actually having Solo end his call to Waverly with "Over and out."

Uh, casino-goers . . . do ya think it might have been smarter to, I dunno, stay away from a club whose name means "A sight of Death"? Nice though to see that simply laid out in the episode. In a modern TV story, we'd have had an annoying scene where one agent explains the Greek origin of the word, and the other snickers at what a nerd the first agent is for knowing such things.

Taggart Coleman is invited to the Club, and then we find he and Monica the hostess used to be an item. At first this comes off like a throw-the-remote-across-the-room coincidence. Partridge, I think, implies the cause and effect were the reverse: When he, Partridge, found out his employee Monica had been involved with Coleman the millionaire -- as he says, it was public knowledge -- he made sure Coleman got an invitation. (The real coincidence is that Solo manages to snatch Coleman's invitation out of hundreds.)

Monica looks as though she'd rather be kissing a dead cod than Mr. Partridge. Can't say I blame her. Michael Rennie's blinded-by-ambition Partridge would probably be called a "perv" nowadays. Smooth, authoritative, positive he's thought of everything -- but watch how he cracks when Solo and the now-unbrainwashed Illya break loose. One question: He hasn't been conditioned, and yet he panics at what he knows are films of his greatest fear, trains hurtling toward him?

Got to love Dr. Ieato, though, with his psychological torture technique, and then we see him biting his nails -- and munching happily on a sandwich while he watches Illya shooting at Solo.

Again RV proves a superstar in the reaction department, when Coleman calls him "Bonaparte" the first time. (Solo to himself: "I'd love to maim this character, but we need him for the mission. . . .")

My only comment about the file cards on Solo and Illya, which have been discussed for decades, is that the cards look less like something spit out by an Ultimate Computer, and more as if a clerk had hand-printed them. Still fascinating, though.

The long sequence in which Solo and the brainwashed Illya battle each other is as startling in its way as the battle when Kirk goads Spock into fighting him in "This Side of Paradise."

The images of Solo and Illya, both clad in black, Solo hoisting the machine gun as they stride down the corridor -- stamp `em Iconic. We're outta here.

Verdict: An exciting story with a solid villain, a rare male Innocent, trivia about our heroes, and a plethora of scenes in which the guys have rarely looked better.

Memorable Lines:
Ambassador Vanderloon: "I've tasted your methods before. You are wasting your time if you think you can torture the information out of me.” [Proudly] “I was a silent guest of the Nazi experts for three years."

Solo (beating a quick retreat after the desk girl has taken his bribe, then called in the thugs): "I guess in the long run you can trust most women, anyway. . . ."

Coleman (to Solo): "Tune in yourself, man. Find out what's happening in your brain before you start messing around the other guy's."
Solo: "Do you always talk like a protest poster?"

"The Master's Touch Affair" (ep. 4/6)

2010-03-02T07:43:00.000-06:00

A neat little spy vs. spy tale, "Master's Touch" features tricky plotting, Jack Lord of "Hawaii Five-O" as a strong villain, an exotic setting, and a lovely Innocent whose presence is integral to the plot.

We start off in "Lisbon, Portugal," and the sign at the seaplane landing looks like Portuguese. Southern California doubles nicely for Portugal, too, as they are both close to the same Mediterranean-climate latitude.

While Solo -- and Illya, who seems an early Season One sidekick in this one -- seem at first helpless in the traps within traps Mandor engineers, they are not led as easily as they were by the conspirators in "'J' for Judas." Here, Solo sees through Mandor's ruse of capturing and then releasing Leslie the model. Though they're not in time to stop Mandor's killing Valandros, they do manage to get two of the three top Thrush names they need before Mandor dies.

The Thrush Ultimate Computer is truly advanced beyond 1967 (or today, for that matter). It takes the intel rattled off by Valandros, analyzes it, and provides instant feedback. On the other hand, their fax/printer technology is pretty primitive dot-matrix stuff. I imagine the Council ca. '68 wooing, or capturing, an engineer who has invented something he calls a "laser" printer.

I personally think that paisley pool coat, or whatever it's called, that Solo wears in Act II looks kind of silly, like that ascot that so often pops up whenever he wears a bush jacket (though not in this story).

Maybe it's because it stays buttoned all the time that he looks as if he's wearing pajamas.

It's true that we don't quite see why Valandros is "the one man in the world Mandor fears most," but (despite the cigar prop) he's not quite a buffoon, either. Seeing his outbursts of fury, you can imagine what a savage right-hand man he was for Mandor -- that Mandor fears death by torture at the man's hands should Valandros capture him, not Valandros's strategic ability or tactical skills; and that Valandros is no longer quite sane. . . .

Highlights: the hard look Solo gives Mandor when the latter tells him Valandros has captured Illya; Solo's "I'm going to repay you for this . . . personally"; David's mild clowning as the doped Illya; and the neat overhead shot as Solo shoots to detonate his explosive. The smart scene at Lisbon HQ between Solo and Waverly, too, stands in strong contrast to the goofy briefing scenes we had so much of last year. These guys mean business.

No, Miss Rogers. Dumping out the contents of your purse to show us the needle, pen gun, and spray gas doesn't impress anybody. How would she get to those things in a crisis? Better to show us a regulation Special in her purse, and tell us she's an expert with it.

R.I.P., Mr. Lynch. U.N.C.L.E. loses more helicopters . . . and pilots.

Verdict: Not only exciting, with Solo's one-man assault run to save Illya, it's graced by a pleasant final scene that could have come straight from Season One -- think of the charming tags to "Shark" and "Fiddlesticks."

Memorable lines:
Mandor: "Valandros is my creature. He was cruel; I made him monstrous. He was cunning; I made him brilliant. He had five senses; I gave him a sixth. No, Valandros is the one man who will finally hunt me down, Mr. Solo."

Solo (watching the little Sunbeam Alpine emerge from the big truck): "Is there another little car inside this one?"

Waverly: "This sprays a gas designed to curb one's aggressive instincts. Miss Rogers has had occasion to use it, how many times?"
Lisa: "Six.” [With a glance at Solo, who looks suitably abashed] “Well, only twice in the line of duty."

Waverly: "The names Mandor promised to give us? The Thrush leaders in London, New York, and Moscow?"
Solo: "I'm of the impression, sir, we'd have to get him up against a wall for those."
Waverly (with a cold gleam in his eye): "We will. At present, we'll play his game. You get Kuryakin out of there -- right away, if it's not too late already. After that, we'll settle accounts with Mandor."

Illya (doped, but trusting Solo to handle their escape): "Is my name Illya?"
Solo (gruffly): "Who cares? Move up, come on! Get your foot up!"

Illya (to Leslie): "The book lists all the bona fide millionaires in America and Europe." [As Leslie moves to kiss Napoleon] "He's not in it."

"The Prince of Darkness Affair, Part II" (ep. 4/5)

2010-03-01T07:52:00.003-06:00

The comic (Kathleen Freeman's Mom at the diner), the annoying (Annie), the implausible (the endless line of exact twin Aksoy brothers), and the exciting (the rocket hijacking, among other things) all mix in Part II.

Illya's reaction to Miss Annie, silently dumping her onto the receptionist, is perfect . . . and shows a lot more restraint than most people would have.

Bradford Dillman's narcissistic Sebastian is quite a creation. Clipped speech, a rigid worldview, "people" (read: manipulative) skills, fury when the slightest thing goes wrong, and no loyalty whatever to anyone but Sebastian. A cleanliness fetish too; note his gloves, and how he wipes off his microphone in Act IV.

Julie London's Mrs. Sebastian is on screen so little, you wonder why she's there. I think in the film version, she and Solo have a longer scene in Act IV? Smart of him to fake her into calling Sebastian so that they can trace the phone line. More good detective work earlier: Solo spots the maker of the closed-circuit system, and Illya runs the lead down. Both scenes remind us of the powerful organization behind our heroes.

Solo looks realistically dirty and banged up after he bails from his Valiant.

This is the first time in a while we've seen Illya in turtleneck, as he slides deftly into the theatre audience. I question the organization of the Third Way, though. With as many disciples as we saw in the theatre, you'd think somebody would have let something slip during the run-up to the big bang. The way to do it would be to have most of the faithful in the dark while they sent in their money, and have only a small inner circle who know what the real plan is. And when the Command was checking Sebastian out, shouldn't the activities (and obviously immense funding) of the Third Way have aroused their suspicions before they ever recruited him?

Peculiar indeed to see Solo with white hair. No wonder the team leader, who saw him back on that Aegean isle, didn't recognize him --!

Rather silly of the Feds to put the rocket at the very end of the train! Director Boris Sagal handles the entire rocket theft sequence well, however, giving it a sort of "How the West Was Won" feel, helped by exciting martial music (used again in Act IV) as Sebastian's cult members load the rocket into their truck.

What are Solo and the Third Way men playing? Poker? My notes from the CBN days say "pinochle," though I have no idea why.

Priceless, the double take that Illya does when he recognizes the white-haired Solo. Ditto for the exasperated look Solo gives the fourth Aksoy brother at the end. ("Not another one??!!??")

Why did the rocket blow up in flight? Because Waverly had its controlling computers destroyed? Personally I think he should have ordered them all carted to Command HQ in Los Angeles for study.

Turkey released Hugh and Ali on U.N.C.L.E.'s say-so?

Verdict: Despite some (well, okay -- a lot of) dangling issues and questions, it's just the sort of "big," world-spanning, fast-paced story that makes a colorful movie -- with a truly great tag exchange (below) that in just three lines encapsulates the entire spirit of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

Memorable Lines:
Mom: "You're too late for breakfast. And I ain't about to do any more cooking."
Solo (a murmur): "My misfortune."

Mom (grumbling): "'Turn on the set, Mom.' 'Keep a lookout in the back, Mom.' 'Keep `em covered, Mom.'"

Solo: "Anything new?"
Illya: "Not much. A revolution in the Orient; a multi-million-dollar train robbery in England; five kidnapped scientists; and a plan to melt the polar icecap."
Solo: "Good. I think I'll take the afternoon off."

"The Prince of Darkness Affair, Part I" (ep. 4/4)

2010-03-01T07:36:00.000-06:00

This, Dean Hargrove’s first script since Season Two and his last for the series, is big and bold and energetic. Bill Koenig tells us that this is the series' most expensive episode, and it shows. As they used to say in the old Hollywood studio days, “It’s all up there on the screen.”

The teaser is a gem in the MfU “What the heck is going on here?” tradition, as Solo and Illya -- looking realistically rumpled, sweaty, and dirty, and carrying Special carbines -- swoop in by copter to a village “somewhere in East Africa.” Yes, the pathways left by the thermal prism look oddly like red paint, but you can say that the “corrosive” chemical or physical reactions ignited by the prism leave a scarlet path instead of a charred black one. Anyway, it’s striking and scary.

Next we bounce to Greece, where Solo has come to engage the services of safecracker Luther Sebastian. The Third Way cult is important to the plot, as we will see.

Nice to see Waverly spearheading the operation aboard the plane. Clearly there isn’t time to drag Sebastian back to New York for briefing.

The subplot with Annie the Annoying is just that, though it does arise from U.N.C.L.E.’s involvement with Sebastian, and will provide Solo a complication later. Unfortunately the scene with Azalea shooting Hassan isn’t played for the excitement it could have yielded.

Don’t you just love Sebastian standing prettily by, patting his face with his kerchief, while Illya does all the hard work of subduing the guards? And don’t you just want to kick him, hard? The night scenes, as they travel the desert and the high rocks toward the estate, are well done. Good to hear the first-season music again during the minefield scene.

At Kharmusi’s, Solo changes from his banker grey pinstripe suit to a dark suit. Where was his suitcase? Perhaps after Azalea picked him up, they went back to the airport and got his things?

Sebastian’s safecracking scene reminds me strongly of an early episode of “It Takes a Thief,” in which Alexander Mundy lowers himself from a skylight to avoid floor alarms.

John Dehner’s Dr. Kharmusi is smart -- he tumbles to Solo and Illya’s coordinated plan -- but rather creepy. I get the impression that his conjugal relationship with Azalea is no longer, shall we say, complete (which might be part of why she turned to Sebastian) . . . and so Kharmusi finds young girls, such as his former students and Annie, much more fascinating than he should. Note the intent way he grips Annie’s hand and stares into her eyes (and later, that look of sly triumph as he dies). Brrrr.

The moment at 42:15, when Solo and Illya encounter each other around a corner and then cross-shoot the pursuing guards, is a classic of the show’s style.

If the destroyer Waverly’s on has time to fire a torpedo to stop the oncoming vessel, wouldn’t it have time to get out of the path of said vessel?

Verdict: Fast-moving, colorful, with an Innocent who turns out not to be and all the ingredients of solid U.N.C.L.E., it’s yet topped by a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (to Sebastian): “You’re wanted in seventeen countries on charges of felonies. Everything from grand theft --”
Sebastian: ‘Oh, no, no, no. Your bookkeeping is a little off. It’s twenty-two countries.”

Waverly (coldly, to Sebastian): “Besides your ill manners, which I now observe at first hand, our computers have shown you to be a most efficient criminally oriented mind, with advanced degrees in engineering, physics, and chemistry. Apparently you avoided the humanities.”

Illya: “If you’re in such a hurry, why don’t you go on ahead?” (As Sebastian moves to do so) “I’ll meet you on the other side of the minefield.”
Sebastian (pauses, steps back) “After you.”

Annie (eyeing Azalea): “And you must be [Dr. Kharmusi’s] kind-hearted nurse.”

Kharmusi (about Azalea’s defection): “I should have known never to trust a woman who is always on time. It always indicates a much deeper problem.”

Sebastian (annoyed, to Annie): “I don’t know who you are, but I have a feeling you probably deserve whatever happens to you.”

"The 'J' for Judas Affair" (ep. 4/3)

2010-02-26T15:49:00.000-06:00

This story by Norman Hudis (“Bottle of Rum,” “Five Daughters”) has even more of the classic Ellery Queen detective story air to it than did “Summit-Five.” The question of who wants to kill Mark Tenza the patriarchal industrialist (and his son -- but which one?), the red herrings of the identity of “J,” and the final double surprise have always impressed me. It’s also peculiar within the series format for not having an obvious Innocent, unless brother James qualifies.

An atmospheric opening in the Tenza family crypt (though Illya is suddenly a remarkably poor shot!) sets up the mystery, and we quickly see the dynamics of the Tenza family are ready-made for Thrush to exploit. Tenza’s expensive security forces aren’t very good, at least not against the clever Mr. Solo, and his and Illya’s tense expedition into the Tenza vault lifts this above the average TV cop story of the time.

A wonderful detail: As Solo leaves the Tangier airport, we see signs in English, French, and what I guess is Arabic. Plus the view from Mark Tenza’s villa looks convincingly exotic.

Security chief Dawson does some purty fair shootin’ there, when he kills the painter at that distance with such a short-barrelled pistol. Having him be a former cop is a neat touch, as it appears to set him above suspicion.

You have to wonder what Solo’s long plane ride with the elder Tenza was like. Probably Solo would prefer a nice visit to the dentist. And John Hoyt’s U.N.C.L.E. technician . . . well, you just want to smack him a good one, don’t you?

I know I’ve objected to the idea of a criminal mastermind masquerading as an everyday person before. In “King of Knaves” and “Hong Kong Shilling,” the mastermind works in a menial position unconnected with his own organization. Here, though, Olivia Wills is right on the spot, her fingers plying the strings of the company she’s trying to subvert for Thrush -- and, no doubt, pulling young Adam’s strings too.

Watching the story a second time, you see how neatly Adam, Olivia, and Dawson play Solo and Illya (who really should have been more suspicious, but hey, nobody’s perfect). Conflicts between any two of the conspirators are always played with Tenza staffers or one or both of our guys present; never do we see conspirators conversing alone. As for the gas “attack” on Olivia, no doubt Adam called her from the plant as soon as Solo and Illya bolted out the door, and she timed her moves accordingly.

No, Chad Everett is no Paul Newman when it comes to acting chops, at least not here. However, his performance lends a convincing air to the story, in that you don’t suspect someone who appears so earnest and stodgy as part of a master plan to murder his father and brother. (I do laugh inappropriately, however, every time I watch him grinning like a big kid as he crawls through the palm fronds of his brother’s hut.)

Claude Woolman’s “J,” James Tenza, is impressive. His fiery take-no-prisoners manner with Solo and Illya suggests that he would have been exactly the right man to lead Tenza International (and may still be, now that the Thrush menace is gone).

Verdict: Though our heroes are intrepid, with their “Fiddlesticks”-type vaultcracking (highly illegal, Messrs. Solo and Kuryakin!), they are led a little too easily by the mastermind and her assistants. But how can you dismiss a mystery thriller in which the identity of the master criminal is withheld until the last few seconds -- and where the final shot and music combine so neatly?

Memorable Lines:
Adam Tenza: “Our security forces? When did Darien Dawson’s daredevils handle anything tougher than a factory hand forging an overtime claim?”

Solo (to Adam, about the elder Tenza): “He’s entitled to think and behave as he pleases. It’s a free country. Especially if you own most of it.”

Mark Tenza: “I’ll get [a plane]. I own an airline. Any other questions?”
Solo: “What do people get you for your birthday?”
(Thus demonstrating again that the Season Four shows were not devoid of humor)

James Tenza: “Does a man of peace have to wear a beard, tote a banner, look like he couldn’t fight?”

"The Test Tube Killer Affair" (ep. 4/2)

2010-02-26T08:56:00.007-06:00

Big-time MfU fan Marc Douglas of the Channel_D list e-mailed me last year to ask if he could be the one to review this smart, fast-paced episode. He covers all the bases for sure. Take it away, Marc!
**********************************************************************************

Hello All,

Paul was kind enough to let me step in this one time as "Test Tube Killer" is my favorite episode of the series and it also stands as one of the best hours of 60s television. And I'm sure we are all curious to see how Paul reacts to a review for a change :)

To start, this episode is an incredible 50 minutes of television and it shows off U.N.C.L.E. so well that I have used this episode on a few ex-girlfriends to give them the best example of the show that I would never shut up about since 1988.

One more thing before I begin...

"THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TWO-PARTER!"

The Teaser...

I forget who mentioned in their e-mail about a lack of budget and extras throughout the 4th season. TTK puts that argument to rest. Right from the beginning notes of Gerald Fried's score (possibly his best of the series) we see a crowded bazaar and you can just tell that something very serious is going to happen. Is the "Waverly Collection" line hokey? Maybe, but who cares. Once we see Martin pop Miguel and Illya chase off after him we know that we are going to be in for one hell of a ride.

The entire scene in the alleyway is incredible, from the gunplay, to the reaction shot of Solo and Illya and to the Fried score which moves the scene along. I can overlook them trying to stop the car by jumping on when before that, they were crouching behind the crates, exchanging gunfire and in fear of their lives. Something that was long gone in season 3 comes back with a vengeance.

So what is going on in that fencing school as the teaser ends? You know you want to find out.

Before I begin... Yes, the three guest star theme is a little weak.

ACT I...

Nice for a change that we don't start off in New York with Waverly sending off the boys. Also nice to see the UNCLE car get a good workout (even though footage is used from "Five Daughters" as Illya's hair and Solo's suit don't match the new footage). The scene in the fencing school is well done and sets up what is going to be a helluva ride for the rest of the show. Mr. Jones does a solid job as Martin and the beatdown he puts on number 7 is convincing. Good scene when he gets it on with Miss Lamb and the misogynistic dialog from Dr. Stoller. (Mr. Lukas seems to pause frequently when giving dialog.)

The U.N.C.L.E. theme used while Illya and Solo are driving is kick-ass (and yes, the first shot of the U.N.C.L.E. NY interior is from next week's show).

And yes, Barbara Moore still can not act; her saying, "Code Yellow" actually makes me cringe. But you get the idea that this is a new U.N.C.L.E. and we get to see a greater part of the inner workings that was not present since season 1.

Nice to see Solo still eyeing up the ladies when he sees Miss Lamb, but is it me or do two guys walking in for fencing lessons make the slash writers drool.

I like how they both react when the see Martin on the training film.

That's a big plane to only have Illya and Solo in it!

Lynn Loring actually does a good job with her role and another hour would have given us a chance for the love affair to develop more. I like how Martin avoids Hobson till he needs her.

Nice to see another vet from "Deadly Smorgasbord" show up along with Loring. The hotel employee who delivers the TV was an U.N.C.L.E. doctor in the former. And yes, the scene was done for laughs.

The bomb disarm was well done and shows the smarts of both men. Illya noticing the defect and Solo seeing that it is just glass. Shame they couldn't afford a new prop and used the communicator as a bomb detector as well. Must have been an upgrade. Just turn it upside down (good thing they didn't do that for season 3 as it would have gone off every week! "Har Har").

Shouldn't Martin have come from Guadalajara and not New York as Illya says on the phone?

ACT II...

Love the entire restaurant scene except for how long it takes Solo to get up off his ass after the waiter knocks him down and go to help Illya.

Again, a great job of showing the crowded restaurant really gives the episode life.

Fried's music, "Hot Plate” (which has a whole new meaning today), enhances the scene. You really get the feeling that Solo and Illya are a step behind as Waverly points out.

Like Solo's line about meeting over a bowl of soup. Though something seems forced about having Martin put a knife to Hobson's throat and then moments later, it's like nothing has happened

What the hell were those two idiots behind Waverly thinking they would find in the fencing masks.

Hey look, we're using the same set from "Deadly Smorgasbord" as an airport again.

Like how Martin escapes but why does he strip the maintenance worker since we never actually see him change clothes or go into disguise?

Like seeing Illya give Waverly a little lip back. (Why is he on the phone though, as we know those communicators can work after being doused in water.)

You can tell by Waverly's actions that he is concerned that Solo and Illya might actually fail the mission.

ACT III

Like how Solo lets Hobson escape. Third season he would have done a dumb thing like that. Now he has a reason.

Wish we would have see more than the radar used in the car, hell, Dancer and Slate used more of the car goodies then Solo or Illya ever did. Of course why in the hell would you drive a car that stands out like that if you were a secret agent?

Nice touch with the sign in the bookstore.

The entire alley scene, music, pacing, acting, is just one of the U.N.C.L.E. kick-ass moments. Great scene with the kiss and the reaction by Hobson. (Love that he tells her to shut up too. He could say that to Barbara Moore and make us all happier)

Solo and Illya look like they've had their asses kicked by Martin as they walk through the alley.

Again, as Hobson walks in the alleyway (Illya's eyes darting when they confront her as if he knows Martin is close), the music is just great and then the explosion and then Illya not taking the shot because he'd hit Hobson and then Illya's great line about sending Waverly a letter. You can tell he's pissed off now.

ACT IV...

One big laugh in this act and yeah, it's unintentional.

Hobson will kill now for Greg, again because we only have an hour, Greg falling in love with her seems rushed.

You really get the feel that U.N.C.L.E. is global the way they work with the police and with the other HQs.

Seeing Stavros get smacked around is always fun. (How did hell did he keep his hair while Telly looked like a stick of Ban Roll On since birth?)

So Solo knows Athens while Illya speaks Greek. (That's why they need each other)

Yeah, yeah, my ex laughed out loud when the helicopter exploded. (Christ, how cheap did that look!) I like the flamethrower though.

Loring does a good job showing fear of dying when she is trapped in the car. (Surprised that the censors let her say Thank God when Martin came back to rescue her)

I had no problem believing that Martin was actually on the dam even though it doesn't come close to matching the stock footage.

What happened to the other Test Tube Killers since not all of them were on the bus but yet at the end we see them all.

The music again enhances the scene when Solo and Illya are about to pounce on Martin. You also know that after Solo yells, "Martin, stop!" that they were going to kill him no matter what he did.

And yes, once again we see Bob do the old, fist pump when he shoots. There was no way in hell he'd of hit him in real life. I like how Martin makes sure to grab Hobson's hand before professing his love.

Stoller’s revelation that the female influence is stronger than he expected. (Well, no duh)

As Solo gets Hobson out of the car and tells her that Martin meant it when he said he loved her shows that compassionate side of Solo lost for a long time. You know Illya's not making that statement.

The music that plays as the bus goes down the hill as it passes the three, "incredible" knowing that 6 more Test Tube Killers are still on the loose. You would think that Solo or Illya would have picked up on Stoller's voice coming from the bus and even if they could not chase the bus, unload their guns into it.

Again, Fried did an incredible job with the soundtrack.

To conclude...

This should have been a two parter as I would have loved to have seen Martin toy with Illya and Solo more and see them get more pissed. Love the Waverly attitude in this one. I can watch this one over and over again and still be enthralled

Piss on NBC for not giving me 30 episodes like this.

I remember the ex saying that she liked the blonde guy when the show ended.

To me, this episode is U.N.C.L.E. (I know you all don't think that way).

A taut script with few errors and the ones we have are easy to dismiss as this simply is U.N.C.L.E.

Paul, if you don't mind, I'll let you pick the memorable quotes and again thanks for letting me do this one.

Marc

(If we gave ’em rankings this is an 11 out of 10!)

******************************************************************************

Kudos to Marc for a detailed, thorough review!

I've enjoyed this one since the CBN days because of the science-fictional idea, Greg's clever and workable subterfuges, and how professionally Solo coordinates the land and air search. As Marc says, we're shown clearly here that the Command consists of more than our three leads. We see the agent who is killed in the bazaar (I think he was an U.N.C.L.E. agent), and the exotic Greek (?) lady in the Athens office.

As he pointed out, too, it's neat to see Solo and Illya working with the local law enforcement people. Even with the locals' aid, Solo and Illya are not in complete control here. Good as they are, Greg is a jump ahead of them; the entire band of "test-tube killers" would have been a real challenge. Also, both Solo and Illya remain convincingly rumpled, after being soaked at the airport and covered in brick dust in the alley, all the way to the end.

The shot from this, where the dark-suited Solo crouches in the alley, gun in hand, that the DVD producers used on the episode menu for this disc, is a classic. If you want one of Solo and Illya together, Lisa has posted this stunner:

"The Summit-Five Affair" (ep. 4/1)

2010-02-26T07:47:00.005-06:00

In the fall of '67, yours truly (age fourteen) had just come off a summer of Ellery Queen's classic detective stories, and I was thrilled (and still am) to find "Summit-Five" resembled those novels: a locked room murder, a false solution (that turns out to be partly true!), good detective work by Solo and Illya, and at last the identity of the mastermind, all at a breakneck pace.

Right at the start we get the new look: Solo in a double-breasted suit and with the Napoleonic forelock not seen since the series' early days, Lisa Rogers's comm screen and the new "computer alley" outside Waverly's office, that electronic freeze barrier, etc. At the outset, too, we know this is no comedy; the music charges the scenes with tension. This is U.N.C.L.E. to Take Seriously.

Those polar map lights indicate that the other three continental headquarters are in New Delhi, Caracas, and Nairobi (though none of the chiefs in Act IV looks African; perhaps one is Egyptian).

Lisa's info scene in Waverly's office sets up a situation we often saw on "Star Trek," in which Kirk & Co. are prevented, by distance or forces natural or enemy, from communicating with base or their ship. This isolates our heroes from aid and raises the stakes. Here Illya operates under a similar communications restriction. (Lisa is much like the early Spock; I can hear him saying her line, "Personal histories have never been in my department.")

On top of all this, we get the flamboyant figure of sybarite Harry Beldon, "everything a cautious, unobtrusive, successful secret agent shouldn't be." We're told that Illya has worked with him. This gives him a history with the Command and serves to shift suspicion from him. If he'd been a new chief that none of them knew, he would have seemed more a suspect. His summation in Act I even gives him an air of the classic armchair detective.

It's a little unfair not to show us the U.N.C.L.E. Xeron Actuator, yet not tell us what it's for (if not for killing at a distance), and just who is allowed to use it. After all, while it has to be employed at close range, it's small enough to conceal on your person -- a covert and awfully murderous weapon for an organization that uses sleep darts instead of bullets where possible.

The episode is not completely humorless. Watch Solo's little spin on his heel at 10:53, as he muses on the "exciting" prospect of trailing Helga; Illya's dazed look after Solo has clipped him on the jaw in the cell; or Solo's fastidious reaction to the soaked and no doubt scummy Illya at the climax.

Solo's interrogation by Strothers (who enjoys this a bit too much, methinks) is mind-bending enough, with the disorienting lights and fisheye camera work. To see him cling to Strothers' leg and actually weep (and call for Illya!) is affecting, and the effect lingers even after we realize it's a ploy to take control of the chain of plot and counterplot.

I'm not sure Solo's conclusion from the lack of glasses in her purse, that Helga was kidnapped, holds. Helga and Beldon, the ones behind the plot, would probably have assembled the fake purse, and both knew of her myopia. But it is a good use of the negative or "What's missing?" clue.

This one contains one of the great and defining moments of loyalty in the Solo-Illya partnership. In Act III, it's all up to Illya; if he believes that the double agent could still be Solo, he's to call Summit Five off. And he says, "Don't be ridiculous," and strides without hesitation to the comm panel. In a word: Wow.

If the story lets us down anywhere, it's that Solo and Illya escape too easily from Beldon's elevator steam room. Given the strength of this story (and the fact that the tag is not annoyingly cute), we'll let that tiny thing go.

Verdict: A dazzling season opener, an important episode in the U.N.C.L.E. universe, a showcase for Robert Vaughn -- and a shout to the fans disaffected by last year's comedies: "We are so very back!"

Memorable Lines:
Harry Beldon (taking his leave of the ladies in the limo): "Ah, contessa, arrivederci! Arrivederci!

You will remember me to your husband!"

Strothers (interrogating a weakened Solo): "There was no security leak before your arrival at U.N.C.L.E. Berlin. Do you admit that?"
Solo (low and gasping, but perfectly clear): "No."
Strothers (gleefully): "It's an established fact! You can't deny it!"
Solo: "That isn't a fact. Only fact is that there was no security leak discovered before I came here."
(Excellent point. Even under pressure, the boy's always thinking!)

Next Post: A guest review!!

Summing Up: Season Three, the Awards

2010-02-25T09:08:00.001-06:00

I know, I know: "Awards? Why?"

Good point. This year gave us hardly anything worthy of the sort of laurels earned by the Season One gems like "Project Strigas" and "Fiddlesticks," or Season Two sparklers like "Ultimate Computer" and "Minus-X." The highlights of Season Three are, with a few exceptions, more a succession of clever scenes or memorable moments, rather than entire episodes. Still, we shall reward excellence, or at least above-averageness, whene'er we find it. Accordingly:

Best in Show: "Concrete Overcoat," "Thor," "Deadly Smorgasbord," "Galatea"

Best Villains: Sutro, "Her Master's Voice"; Strago and Miss Diketon, "Concrete Overcoat"

Worst Villain: Colonel Hamid, "Come with Me to the Casbah"

Best Innocents: Captain Morton, "Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum"; Stavros, "It's All Greek to Me"; Rosy and the Baroness, "Galatea"

Worst Innocent: All the innocents in "Hot Number." Every one of 'em. They can sit over there next to Nina of "Apple a Day" and Marvin Klump of "Matterhorn."

Silliest/Dumbest: "My Friend the Gorilla," "Abominable Snowman," "Jingle Bells," "Pop Art," "Hot Number". . . ah, the list goes on . . .

Funniest: "Pieces of Fate," "Sort of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful," "Super-Colossal"

Best Scenes and Shots Dept.:
-- The whole jail-cell and escape sequence in "Five Daughters, Part II";

-- the teaser, with Solo grumping about being yanked away from a date, in "Monks of St. Thomas";

-- one of the great defining Solo Moments in "Deadly Smorgasbord," when Beckman "fires" the SAD and gets only a stuffed snake, and Solo holds up his hands with a "For my next trick . . ." smile;

-- the night shot of Solo in "Jingle Bells," crouched on the rooftop with the yellow skylight behind him;

-- the scene in "Candidate's Wife" when Solo tells Irina, "Whatever happens, I'm on your side";

-- in "When in Roma," Illya, after reading young Sammy to sleep with a blood-and-thunder comic book, looks to see how the story comes out;

-- Illya swiftly plugging Sutro in "Her Master's Voice," and the hidden thug about to jump Solo in "Pop Art";

-- and the best, of course, is the moment in "Concrete Overcoat, Part II" in which Solo stands up to Waverly, determined to save Illya and Pia.

Field-strip, oil, reassemble, and load your Specials! Ensure your communicator is properly tuned for Channel D and local office frequencies! Onward and upward, to Season Four!

"The Cap and Gown Affair" (ep. 3/30)

2010-02-25T08:34:00.002-06:00

At last, here we are at the end of the long and dreaded Season Three, with "U.N.C.L.E. Visits Animal House," or "Spot the Real Dean Wormer!" It's kind of fun, though its main distinction is that the front cover of Ace novel # 23, and both covers of # 14, are drawn from it. (I just had to get that in.)

The teaser (as often happened this season) has a serious flavor, with the use of a dummy of Waverly giving us some authentic trickiness. Things quickly get a bit silly, however, with the students of Blair University apparently so bored, or easily led, that they join in on a protest announced like a meeting of the Spanish Club. (Oddly, nobody in that '32 Ford roadster seems actually to be speaking into the loudhailer mike.) Illya looks authentically scruffy, with a two-day growth of beard; he could have passed for a graduate student. Solo, though, the students would instantly have spotted as The Man. (To be fair, he's not trying to work undercover.)

Where exactly is Blair University supposed to be? Here's Illya in a sheep rancher coat and a sweater, Solo in a winter-weight wool suit, and students in Ozzie Nelson sweaters, all in April or May. It's "in the sticks," the head Thrush says. Rural New England, maybe?

The girls' dormitory sequence is funny. Okay, the pillow fight-and-feathers stuff is way too much, and the chase music is silly, but a coed using a book called "A History of Pacifism" to clobber people? Funny.

It's also a nice touch that Neary the psychology prof is not with Thrush and must be enticed/blackmailed into helping Trumbull and the false Dwight. Had Neary also been part of the satrap, it would have been a little too much.

The students are protesting U.N.C.L.E., and Waverly's honorary degree, because they've been incited by Thrush; okay. But why does our head Thrush think that "Dean Dwight" assassinating Waverly will lead to an investigation that will bring U.N.C.L.E. down? If his plan called for someone identified as a Command agent to kill Dwight (the real one), then certainly. With Dwight as the assassin, though, you'd expect any investigation to center on Wossamatta U. (Oops, I mean Blair.)

Things we learn: That Solo, as we always suspected, was named for that Corsican fellow, and that Illya has done some mountain climbing and did so on Mount Whitney.

While it's kind of over the top, the deadly teaching machine fits the setting: academics Neary and Dwight, student Minerva, and intellectual agent Mr. Kuryakin, all forced to take a final exam in which a passing grade means you get to go on breathing. I love how the academics immediately conclude the machine is wrong when it disagrees with them! One point: Each question seemed to take about a minute to deal with. If our heroes are facing question 336 in Act IV, they must have been stuck in that room, under tremendous tension, for over five hours! Since Waverly would have arrived around 10 a.m. (or are commencements held in the afternoon?), the false Dwight must have set them up in the death room at something like 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.

Also, wouldn't you think Waverly would be a bit -- heck, a lot! -- more suspicious that Solo and Illya are not there to greet him?

Verdict: A funny script -- not serious, though with some serious moments; the head Thrush's masquerading (a la "Mission: Impossible") as Dean Dwight and Trumbull's threatening of psych prof Neary are worthy of better treatment.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (as they flee the Thrush thugs): "In there."
Illya: "That's the girls' dorm."
Solo: "Is that bad?"

Solo (as the negligee-clad coeds fail to react to his and Illya's arrival in the dorm): "When I was in college, they used to scream."

Dean Dwight: "I think I am on the nerve of a vergous breakdown!"

Teaching Machine: "In what year did Napoleon Bonaparte die? Answer A: 1823; Answer B: 1821."
Illya: "Come on, Napoleon. You should know that."
Solo: "I was named for him; I wasn't at his funeral."

"The Five Daughters Affair, Part II" (ep. 3/29)

2010-02-25T08:13:00.003-06:00

Better than Part I, as it should be, this one starts with the strong cliffhanger that should have ended the previous hour and leaps from the Med to New York, from Japan to "the polar cap," and a fast-moving final act.

The cliffhanger is neatly done; Vaughn, McCallum, and Miss Kim keep their struggle with the ropes from looking easy, and we see Solo's hair ruffled by the wind from the open hatch. For some reason the closed captioning has Waverly describing the landing field at the Balearic Islands as "Her Majesty's" Landing Field Charlie, when he is clearly saying "Emergency." A nice touch, that it's dark in New York but daylight over the Med, which is six hours later . . . but Waverly must have come in to work before six a.m.!

We have to wonder why Randolph and his men (a) didn't take Solo along with Illya and Sandy, and (b) didn't kill Solo when they had him unconscious . . . and why Solo doesn't take the convertible. The cycle sequence is smooth, though, with Solo's hair ruffled again as he races to the ice house where Illya is being held.

The Japan sequence is colorful. Director Barry Shear really uses his sets, the crowded walkway in Tokyo, the local police station (with Japanese writing on the bulletin boards), and the temple gate with the wide expanse of night sky behind it. And Kim makes a lovely Japanese. But why does everyone act as if a geisha house is nothing more than a house of prostitution? Was that what most viewers would have believed back then?

Yet another fight scene with Randolph's karate squad makes our heroes seem rather hapless. What happened to their guns? True, they must have raced after Randolph and Sandy, and had little time -- but surely they could have stopped at a Command office on the way and re-armed?

We have to ask why Randolph would bring them to his headquarters; it makes as little sense as Goldfinger hiring James Bond to work for him. Nearly all the spy movies and TV shows of the time used that trope, though, didn't they? And there's the question of which polar cap Randolph means. The North Pole is a ready hop from Japan, but if you dig down too far into the ice you hit water, whereas the land-based South Pole is a heckuva long trip from Tokyo.

Then we get a fourth act that really shines. First Illya asks about how the project will affect the value of the world's gold, showing an economic sensibility. Then the sequence in their cell is a classic in tone and dialogue; for an instant you think you're watching a story from Dean Hargrove or Peter Allan Fields back in Season Two, like "Foxes and Hounds" or "Discotheque." The glances Solo and Illya exchange as they set up their escape are wonderful.

Finally we have the long chase sequence through the Thrush installation. While not the harrowing scene Solo's scramble through Vulcan's plant was, so long ago, it features that dazzling strobe-effect moment as they race through that sun-dappled corridor, backed by exciting music. That, my friends, is the visual style we expect of U.N.C.L.E.

How did they get back home from the polar cap? Well, we saw a plane landing, and we know both of our heroes have pilot training, so . . .

Even the sappy happy ending, with the three joint weddings, is all right here, as a similar scene was back in "Concrete Overcoat," because the scenes just before have been so strong.

Verdict: A slow beginning to the two-parter as a whole, but it pays off in the last act. "Karate Killers" must have done well at the box office.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (as he sags back, worn out, after turning off the ice chopper which is about to dismember Illya): "It's all go on this job, isn't it?"
Illya: "Isn't it just."

Illya (to Sandy, in Randolph's cell): "Graceful surrender seems to be the most dignified course left open to us."

Illya (to Solo): "What does the impetuous child [Sandy] expect us to do?"
Solo: "Escape -- with our customary ingenuity, bravado, flair, dash, et cetera, et cetera."
Illya: "Oh. Ah, yes. I'm supposed to say something very elliptically to you like, 'Pawn A to King's mate ploy,' and you understand what I mean, and we go into one of our daring escape routines."
Solo: "Mmm. Wouldn't that be nice. . . ."
(A scene in which they display all those attributes Solo mentions, and in spades)

"The Five Daughters Affair, Part I" (ep. 3/28)

2010-02-25T07:56:00.000-06:00

The second two-parter this year and eventually the series' sixth film is a grand improvement in tone and action over the campy episodes this season, with colorful characters and bigger-budget locations that fit the globe-spanning flavor of U.N.C.L.E. at its best.

The "Little Nelly" one-man helicopter in the teaser here preceded the release of the Bond film "You Only Live Twice," which features a similar device. The U.N.C.L.E. piranha-shaped car displays one of its drawbacks: The windows are apparently not removable, so that Solo has to lift a door to fire at the Thrush copters. (I'll bet they were glad to abandon it in the tunnel. No doubt it got flattened by the first eighteen-wheeler to come barreling through!)

Director Barry Shear ("Minus-X") gives us a shot of the gold-dappled retort, shattered on the lab floor, and cuts to it being examined by Waverly -- for once, not in the standard Waverly's office set. This one also features a strong detective element, as our heroes wing off to Italy, London, Switzerland (Austria?), and later Japan, to collect the pieces of True's formula. Now this is neat . . . but at every turn Solo and Illya are either a step behind our villain, Herbert Lom's smoothly Continental Randolph; or he swoops in and gets the drop on them with his karate henchmen. Every time. Wouldn't a plot within a plot, a red herring to send him off in the wrong direction, have been a good idea?

Joan Crawford, a star for something like forty years at this point, manages to make the early, rather clumsy stages of her scene with Randolph work. The segments with the daughters, except for Kim Darby's Sandy, all end predictably, with romantic fadeouts. As for Kim, whom I've adored since 1969's "True Grit," her Sandy is something like her Mattie Ross in that film, though Mattie is much more prideful and stiff-necked. Aside from wanting to visit Carnaby Street, Sandy is not developed much. I wish we could have had a quiet personal moment between her and Solo, perhaps on the night flight to Austria/Switzerland, like the charming scenes with Chris Larson back in "Finny Foot."

Boris Ingster, as we've seen before, is a better scripter ("Yellow Scarf," "Very Important Zombie,"and here with Norman Hudis) than a producer. The only hints here of his campy production style for the series are two silly fight scenes, at the palazzo with Telly Savalas and Diane McBain, and at the London nightclub with Jill Ireland's Imogen: Keystone Kops stuff with goofy or Top 40 music. Things improve; check out the professional lady Command agent who, while guarding Sandy, leaps into action and handles the thugs without breaking a sweat!

Only RV could make a dark polo shirt under a lighter sport jacket look not only good but stylish enough for GQ.

Tell me true: Did you expect the duck on the edge of the pool with the soaked Illya to screech "AF-LAC!!!"?

Other grand moments big and small: Solo using his hand as a foot rest to help Illya down from the skylight at the palazzo; the almost ballet-like attack by the skiing karate killers, schussing toward Solo and Illya to exciting music; and the snowfield fight scene, which everybody manages to keep from looking easy.

Verdict: Though it ends a little too soon, spoiling a great cliffhanger (we get that in Part II), it bounces along so energetically we're willing to suspend our disbelief.

Memorable Lines:
Amanda True: "After five marriages, if a woman hasn't, well, learned to appear to listen to a man without actually having heard one word, then she might just as well turn in her wedding rings."

Count de Fanzini: "Wife? I have no wife. . . . You ought to hear how she lies, how she cheats! How she tell me that her millions will restore the de Fanzinis to their rightful glory. But what does she bring on the wedding night, eh? Three Portuguese escudos and one Kennedy half-dollar!"

Contessa (to Solo): "Are you rich?"
Solo (with a smile): "No, Illya and I work, ah, very hard for our living."
Illya: "But mostly in the dark."

"The Apple a Day Affair" (ep. 3/27)

2010-02-24T08:03:00.002-06:00

“Super-Colossal,” move over. From the co-writer of “Hot Number,” this loony story is at least occasionally funny in the same way “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Green Acres” were: so silly you have to laugh.

The tone is set right away, with our Thrush defector sporting the same eyeglasses-and-nose Solo wore in “Deadly Toys,” and with hillbilly hoedown music on the soundtrack. The setting is effective, though I wonder why Waverly sends his two top men to meet and pay off a mere Thrush defector.

Illya appears to be even more multitalented than we thought: He’s not only the holder of a doctorate in physics, but an expert organic chemist as well.

Waverly seems to know an awful lot: not only Thrush’s intentions regarding a nuclear stockpile, but also, later, that Picks & Co. intend to ship their doctored apples out that night. The first time I saw this epic, I suspected we’d be told that Illya’s fellow captive, Gardner Brown, was the Command’s agent in place, feeding Waverly this intelligence . . . but alas, it was not to be.

As soon as Solo and Illya drive into Colonel Picks’s version of Hooterville (apropos, since Jeanine Riley was once a regular on that CBS show), the story trots out every cliché about poor Southerners: hound dogs, mushmouth accents, a sheriff on horseback, every male (no matter his age) called “boy,” and cute Nina’s shotgun-totin’ grandpappy, determined to keep her “pure.”

Three things stand out, however. First is Robert Emhardt’s performance as Col. Picks. He shifts without warning from easygoing drawl to startling whipcrack voice, and his mad piggy little eyes are often scary. Second is the nod to 1958's “The Defiant Ones,” with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as chained-together convicts on the run; I can’t imagine that casting a black actor to be chained up and work with Illya was a coincidence.

And come on; admit it. The shotgun wedding scene (yeah, I know, the third time in two years Solo’s been on the business end of a scattergun) is funny, especially once the damp and gasping Illya arrives to toss in his objections to the marriage. Hilarious.

Verdict: Erskine Caldwell would hang his head in shame. So do U.N.C.L.E. fans. But here and there, it’s funny.

Cute Lines:
Solo (to the Thrush defector): “I don’t suppose you’d care to take off your nose and stay awhile.”

Illya (as they drive the rented jeep into Purple Valley): “I have a feeling we’re not going to dispose of too many encyclopedias around here.”
Solo: “Now that’s not the right attitude for our gold-star salesman.”

Solo (after shoving on the mule’s hindquarters in an attempt to move it): “What does the manual say about moving a burro?”
Illya (deadpan): “Don’t push from behind.”

Nina: “Them dogs ruined your nice new suit.”
Solo: “That’s all right. It was almost a month old.”

Illya (improvising at Solo’s shotgun wedding): “I have to apologize for my brother-in-law here -- the father of my sister’s nine children. He does this all the time. . . . My sister put him on a spice-free diet, but it didn’t seem to help.”
Daddy Jo (startled): “Nine children?”
Illya (counting on his fingers): “Yes, there’s Robert, and Eunice, and Edward --”
(Nice nod to RV’s friends, the Kennedys)

"The When in Roma Affair" (ep. 3/26)

2010-02-24T07:50:00.000-06:00

What a pleasant change! The only produced MfU script written solely by a woman, it features a strong current of a serious plot that foreshadows the seriousness of Season Four to come. And after last week, it’s a relief that this one is not played for laughs.

We open up with a tour bus in Rome, featuring our Innocent, Darlene Sims of Omaha. (Why is she traveling with the Sparks family of Santa Monica?) We see Solo think fast and drop the atomizer with the nameless and never-described formula into Darlene’s bag. Two problems, however: He does it in sight of Bruno’s men, so it would hardly deceive them; and later, how does he know who Darlene is and where she’s from?

Vito must have spent quite a while working Solo over, as it gives Illya time to hop a plane for Rome. While we’re never told this, I suspect Solo was late getting back to his hotel after his “escape” because he went back to that bistro to pick up a lead on Darlene, met the tour bus driver, and found out her name and point of origin. Boy, he’s tough, huh?

If the Thrushes disarmed him, as you’d think they would, where did his gun and holster come from when he leaves in Act II? My view is that he left the rig in his room to begin with. Perhaps, when he left to get the atomizer, it was a situation where he judged that to be found wearing a Command gun would jeopardize the mission more than being without it.

Solo realizes that Bruno, Vito, & Co. let him go, and he checks the room for bugs. Not his fault that Vito is listening at his door (though Solo should really have taken Illya out onto the balcony to brief him). Also, Illya leaps to the false conclusion that the atomizer is in Darlene’s room because she’s at dinner. Wouldn’t Darlene have been just as likely to keep it in her purse?

Julie Sommars’s Darlene is much like her Mimi from “Foxes and Hounds,” but it works for this story. Had Darlene been more worldly, she’d have suspected the count of funny business right away.

The Act III business as Solo and Illya track the atomizer is designed to drive us out of our minds, and it would -- if the ultimate surprise hadn’t been telegraphed by the bit with Sammy and the maid. Good side: We at last get an “over and out” from Solo to Waverly to end a communicator transmission! Bad: Why would they bring the rest of the tour members with them to a dangerous confrontation at the palazzo?

Illya gets not only some nifty lines, but the charming gem when, after reading young Sammy to sleep with a blood-and-thunder comic book, “Captain Marvel and his Space Horse,” he looks to see how it comes out. (Cf. David McDaniel’s “Hollow Crown,” in which Illya is seen “shamelessly reading Spiderman.”)

Oddnesses abound. The music, and the tone of the villains’ dialogue, often seem less like MfU than like adventure series of the early Seventies. The villains here, Bruno and Vito, while dangerous, are not exotic or even colorful. And the lighting in many scenes is different, yellower somehow, though I can’t put my finger on it.

Also, no less than two Ace novel covers come from it, the cover of “Unfair Fare” (Illya on the checkered floor scrabbling for that revolver) and “Stone Cold Dead in the Market” (as our heroes prepare to do battle on the palazzo staircase).

Verdict: A strange, rather formulaic story, it at least features some danger and unusual locations (a Rome city dump? So much for the glamour of espionage!).

Memorable Lines:
Illya (to Waverly): “Am I to understand, sir, that the formula was hidden in the bottom of a perfume atomizer?”
Waverly: “Rather clever, don’t you think?”
Illya: “Mr. Solo must have smelled divine.”

Waverly: “You have your bags packed, I hope?”
Illya (stolidly): “I keep them packed, sir.”

Illya (sotto voce, as Solo reports on the failure of the mission to Waverly): “Do you think now is the time to tell him we wrecked the car?”

"The Hot Number Affair" (ep. 3/25)

2010-02-23T08:36:00.000-06:00

Oh, dear, dear, dear . . .

Kazoos on the soundtrack? "The Beat Goes On," and in practically every scene in which Sonny and Cher appear together, a Sonny and Cher song? Are we watching "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," or an early example of product placement?

Despite the horrible distraction of the kazoos, early on, and the S & C melodies throughout, the teaser has potential. The scene in France's dingy apartment/studio as Buuder and his henchman threaten him, and Solo and Illya's little scene with the grumpy manager, are effective. So, later, is the scene in Waverly's darkened office with Solo inspecting the details of the dress in the news article.

The concept that Thrush would commission a dress to encode their secret report is so far off base that . . . well, you come up with a simile or metaphor; my brain is too tired.

Why would Illya be upset when Solo suggests that he, Illya, pose as a fashion designer? Illya did it himself back in "Deadly Decoy." Perhaps, off screen, Solo has kidded him about it for the last two years, and Illya's had enough. Though we now know Illya decided to make that a second career after leaving the Command!

Joe Mantell comes across as a better villain here than he did in "Indian Affairs," a nasty little fireplug of a Thrush, willing to use a hot iron on two helpless old men. And Ned Glass and George Tobias (neighbor Abner on "Bewitched") are funny, two I've-seen-it-all-in-ladies'-dresses wholesalers who've never hit it big until now.

Why does Harry ask if Illya is Japanese? Not only (as he says later) does Illya not look Asian, no one has mentioned any connection with Japan before that moment. Since we get the bit where Illya bows and says "Hai!", I suspect there was a line in the original script that was cut.

Worse than that is Illya's walking into Buuder's shop after he's seen the tall dark henchman, Hardy -- who was there at Agnes Sue's. He'd know he'd be recognized. And while the nasal phone operator, and the comic routine about Andros, Zapata, and Bellport, are funny, they seem far out of place.

Watching this, you'd never know that Cher would develop into an acclaimed actress twenty years hence. She seems to drift through her scenes as if programmed.

Gems found among the dross: Solo and Illya using hand signals with each other before jumping the Thrushes; Illya speaking, hilariously but with no logic whatever, in a "Japanese" fashion; at 42:57, the "get ready" look that passes between the agents as they prepare to outmaneuver Jerry; and Illya's gymnastics on the dress rack, followed by the much-discussed revelation that he went to "the University of Georgia, in the Ukraine."

Verdict: With pedestrian direction (surprising from an old hand like George WaGGner), this is in some ways worse than "Gorilla" and scores below "Abominable Snowman." At least the latter had danger and some exotic flavor. As much as I hate to say it, "Batman" was (sometimes) better.

Cute Lines:
Illya (murmuring to Solo): "'Mr. Kuryakin of the Goldwood chain'?"
(Solo clears throat)
Illya: "Oy."

Harry Parkaginian (to his partner): "You wouldn't know a hot number if it jumped off the rack and hit you on the nose. You kept us out of knits, we missed the pants suit, the Sonny and Cher look passed us like a shot!"

Solo: "Is [Buuder] involved?"
Illya: "If he isn't, he's awfully hostile toward freelance designers."

Ramona (as Solo and Illya hurry toward her door): "What are you two, some kind of a team?"
Solo and Illya (together): "'Bye."

"The Matterhorn Affair" (ep. 3/24)

2010-02-23T08:14:00.001-06:00

My notes from the CBN days on this one say, "The kind of story that gave U.N.C.L.E. a bad name." Seeing it again now: check. Cute in places, and with a McGuffin that could have provided the driver for a decent story, it fails on both the cleverness and parody levels.

The opener is well-done, however, with our guys in Singapore to meet and pay off independent agent Fred Score, who gives us probably the clearest dying message in mystery history. If the Quasimodo project (there's your real title right there!) was so ultra-high priority, Solo and Illya should have reported in while in Singapore or on the plane instead of wasting time flying back to New York, and Waverly could have sent them straight through to California.

The U.N.C.L.E./UCLA gag is cute, but I think it would have been better if Solo or Illya had smiled at Heather's assumption. Illya's stone face in particular suggests he's heard this one too many times.

Bill Dana, you'll recall, was best known for his Jose Jimenez character in variety-show sketches and his self-titled series, which showcased Don Adams as dull-witted hotel detective Glick. Here he almost appears to be doing his gay character Bronco Brucie; Marvin makes some of the female Innocents look like Xena the Warrior Princess. At the end, I'll admit, his rebirth is motivated. Having your beloved sister threatened by criminals, it appears, is enough to put starch into the limpest spine.

Illya gives the name of his organization as ". . . Law Enforcement." On the other hand, the U.N.C.L.E. Special carbine makes a guest appearance. On the third hand, why don't the delirium-producing flowers get to Illya when he swoops in to rescue Marvin? Now that would have been funny!

Solo is too easily captured at Marvin's in Act III. Better if Heather had leaped toward the door, expecting Marvin; gun in hand, Solo lunges after her, but Howard the thug crashes in and seizes her, and Solo must surrender.

Twice we get a glimpse of the Solo warmth and charm as he draws Heather out on her lonely and self-sacrificing life, scenes which do work. However, compare Elaine and Solo in "Vulcan," or his scene with housewife Chris in "Green Opal."

How could this have been saved? Try a little cleverness. Fred Score's dossier, let's say, paints him as a lover of puzzles and mystery novels. His dying message is more cryptic, giving our men a puzzle: Find the right Marvin Klump. Fred would have to know about Sam Quartz -- we would be told they'd all gone to school together -- and we'd also be told he'd passed through Southern California on the way to Singapore, giving him a chance to stash the film. Most important, Solo and Illya would not have hared crazily off to Switzerland! Imagine that they get Marvin away from Backstreet and Beirut (who have captured Heather to make Marvin talk), then reason out where the "Matterhorn" in the puzzle-loving Score's message is really hidden. This would not only have been cleverer (though less colorful), it would have been cheaper to film!

I'd like to have several of those cars Quartz has on his lot. A Mercedes SL, a Thunderbird, a Caddy convertible --!

I didn't recognize Vito Scotti until he spoke. Usually in his multitudes of character appearances in the Sixties, he wore a mustache. His Beirut is a sort of Joel Cairo-ish cockroach, while Oscar Beregi's Rodney Backstreet is clearly named after Sydney Greenstreet. If, based on these names, scripter David Giler was trying for a parody of "Maltese Falcon," no cigar; "Get Smart" did it better.

Verdict: A script to hand a good writer and say, "This isn't working; fix it."

Cute Lines:
Illya: "[Quasimodo]'s a plan to develop a miniature atomic reactor."
Waverly: "And how did you come by that information, Mr. Kuryakin? Quasimodo is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world."
Illya: "Somebody from Intelligence mentioned it in the elevator on the way up this morning."

Solo: "Apparently Fred Score is working the back alleys for Backstreet."
(Illya's eye roll and turn away is funny, but it's not that bad a pun, is it?)

Beirut (asked by Marvin why they're threatening him): "Quasimodo."
Marvin: "Quasimodo? Oh, that must be one of those new Japanese jobs. Is that a six or an eight?"

"The Pieces of Fate Affair" (ep. 3/23)

2010-02-22T08:07:00.000-06:00

This, Harlan Ellison's second and last script for the series, is fun. Though it's a little simplistic in some of its details, and its pacing is oddly slow and measured, the Ellison Wonderland touch is evident in the great lines.

Theo Marcuse's Ellipsis Zark (cf. Count Zark of "Bat Cave"; it would have been interesting had they been related) is not as colorful, despite his Reynolds Wrap hand, as his Season Two characters Valetti and Rollo. Zark kills one of his henchmen, to show us how tough he is, and we find that he and Solo have encountered each other before; and that's all.

Nice detail, that April Dancer was an Enforcement agent in 1965. "Moonglow," which appeared to be her first mission, aired in 1966. If we take the view, as some fans do, that the events chronicled by the episode occurred earlier than the episode’s air date, then the previous year could be correct.

I loved having Mr. Waverly go undercover in the adventure, with his "Mission: Impossible"/DC Comics mask. Unfortunately it comes as no surprise. If they'd planted the character a little earlier, had another actor, not Carroll, dub the voice, and given some reason why Waverly was away from the office, we'd have had a thunderbolt for sure.

Despite the almost comic music, the sequence where a turtleneck-clad Illya and windbreaker-clad Solo take Jacqueline back from Thrush is well done, with a Season Two flavor.

Once again we are shown that Illya's English teachers were, well, English. He pronounces "clerks" in the British fashion, as "clarks."

Besides Zark and his punctuational first name, we get the strangest character names ever, in a series not noted for bland monikers: Oedipus Buck the bookseller, for instance, and Judith Merle (a play on the name of SF author and critic Judith Merrill, a friend of Ellison's -- the source of the legal flap that kept this episode off the air until the 1980s). "Jacqueline Midcult" is no doubt a play on best-selling author Jacqueline Susann of "Valley of the Dolls" fame. "Joe White," the abrasive interviewer in the teaser, is probably based on Joe Pyne, who pioneered the confrontational style of talk show and frequently insulted his "guests." Intriguing, too, that, in the episode, White's show is being broadcast live -- which would have been rare by 1967.

The names Charles and Jessie Coltrane sound horribly familiar, but I can't Google up anybody famous with those names, now or back then. (Except John Coltrane the jazz artist.) Leave it to Ellison to make you think he's working in a gag when he's really not.

Verdict: Despite slow pacing -- in some scenes it appears the actors are trying to remember their lines -- and a lack of real suspense, it features satire, colorful settings, and deft exchanges like those between Solo and Illya in Act IV. (Illya: "I wonder if I'm not in the wrong business.") This would have been a good "change-of-pace" story if sandwiched between strong episodes with danger, say "Concrete Overcoat" and "Thor," or between "Project Deephole" and "Very Important Zombie."

Memorable lines:
Announcer (at the Joe White show): "Joe will have as his guests . . . an American Nazi; a man who claims to have spent last weekend in a flying saucer . . ."
Solo: "That's what I like about Joe. He comes to grips with the burning issues of our times."

Zark (reminiscing): "When I was thirteen years old, I made my first genuinely original decision. I killed a playmate because he wouldn't trade me two bubblegum cards to complete my collection. . . . [T]here are two kinds of people in this world, Spinard . . . those with bubblegum cards, and those without."

Zark (to Judith Merle): "You usually work in bed?"
Judith (striking a languorous pose): "Only in the daytime."

Solo (in the "coal" cellar): "Well, we're not dead yet."
Illya (through his gag): "I'm overcome with awe at your grasp of the situation."

Solo: "If ten tons of coal comes down on us, it's likely to muss up my hair a little."
Illya: "It's unlikely."

Illya (as they sit in the Turkish bath): "Humor is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy."
Solo: "Pushkin?"
Illya: "My grandmother."
(A truly great exchange, character and humor at once)

Illya: "With a mentality like that [of a seven-year-old], she could really write a best-seller!"

Solo: "It took you long enough to get here; what took you so long?"
Illya (grimly): "Someday I'm going to leave you on your own, just to see how you do."
Solo (equally grimly): "Well, into each life a little rain must fall --"

"The Hula Doll Affair" (ep. 3/22)

2010-02-22T07:50:00.001-06:00

Here's another one that starts with a neat concept and veers off into the left field of comedy. "Hula Doll" features a dangerous McGuffin this time, with the ticking clock a good thriller needs, and has some funny if silly performances and ideas.

The 1954 movie "Executive Suite" must have been a partial inspiration for this. Not only are the brothers named "Sweet," but it also involves a power struggle for a top job in a huge corporation (in this case Thrush) and the question of how a board of directors will vote. (You'd think Thrush would maneuver more like the Corleones than like General Motors or IBM, though.)

Jan Murray I know mostly as a comedian, but his obsequious Simon Sweet would fit right into the group of slimy execs using Jack Lemmon's place for amours in "The Apartment." Pat Harrington Jr. is effective; his Peter is a cool schemer, vastly unlike the Italian dog expert and the “child of the casbah" he's played in earlier stories. (Uh, Costume Department, wouldn't that gray flannel suit he wears in Act I be awfully hot for a heat wave?) It's Patsy Kelly, though, as Mama Sweet/Thrush No. 26, who really hits it out of the park.

Yet another mention of a "Felton," in this case 555 Felton Ave. Plus we have a whole series of "spice" names, Oregano, Sweet, Thyme, and Cardamom (or Cardamon?). Most of these work, but "Oregano" is over the top. "Reggie," the nickname Peter Sweet calls the henchman, would have been fine, especially if his real name had been revealed later. ("He's called Oregano??!!")

There are several internal logic flaws here. The biggest is related to the ticking clock as the temp approaches 90, when the M-4 would explode. Even in the Sixties, I'm sure, most NYC public buildings were air-conditioned, and U.N.C.L.E. would know Thrush wouldn't be standing out on a

hot street corner with the explosive; so why are they worried about the heat wave? Now if Waverly had told us that Thrush does not know this property of the M-4 -- that, unaware, Thrush may cause an explosion -- then it would work. Certainly the Sweet brothers are not so thick as to leave a substance they know will explode in the vault when the A/C is turned off in the evening! (See the early "Mission: Impossible" episode "Snowball in Hell" for a serious way to deal with this.)

Two, Solo is decoyed too easily. No, he doesn't know it's Thrush's local satrap, but the Command is in the middle of a crisis. When the pencil vendor gives him the address, he should report to Waverly or Illya and tell them where he's going -- and ask for backup!

And three, I find it a little hard to believe that the brothers don't know their own mother is with Thrush. It's a comic notion, but a line from one of them about "So that's why you were always too busy to make it to any of our school plays!" would have cemented it.

Aside from that, I love the urgency of the "scramble" scene, in which Illya is working to determine the location of Thrush's HQ, and staffers continually move with purpose in and out of the scene. Illya spying on Mama Sweet from within Marge the redhead's closet, and the shivering Solo (a neat performance by RV), trapped in the lion's very mouth, moving swiftly to twist events in his favor, are other charms here. Del Floria has actual lines, too, and we find that his first name is not "Del" -- Solo calls him "Mr. Del Floria."

Verdict: Silly (check out the silent film-style music during the final chase through Thrush HQ!), but often funny.

Memorable Lines:
Illya (obviously impressed with Dark-haired Test Range Girl): "Are there many girls like you on our testing site?"
Girl (with a complacent smile): "No. I'm one of a kind."

Wendy Thyme: "I guess we're really in the soup, huh?"
Solo: "Well, if you like culinary metaphors, yes."

Peter Sweet: "As usual, dear brother, you have mouth enough for a glee club."

Mama Sweet/26: "A foul kettle of fish, this. Fortunately, the cat has arrived."

Illya (re: the hatred and rivalry between the Sweet brothers as they try to strangle each other): "Freud could have a picnic with those two."

Mama Sweet/26 (proudly): "I am a Thrushwoman first and a mother second. If at all."

Illya (surprised by the repainting of Del Floria's): "Will wonders never cease."
Solo: "I wonder if this means I'll get a new typewriter ribbon."
Illya: "Oh, you know Mr. Waverly. One thing at a time --"

"The It's All Greek to Me Affair" (ep. 3/21)

2010-02-19T07:58:00.001-06:00

My notes from the Eighties sum this one up with "Gawd!!" (yes, two exclamation points). It's a smidgen better than that, a comedy in which every step our heroes take gets them deeper and deeper into trouble, garnished with the colorful character of Stavros, the "terror of Thessaly (semi-retired)."

Illya, he of the steel-trap mind, forgets a password? But it's a neat interchange (see below), surpassed only by the memorable character of Illya's contact, the schoolteacher/exotic dancer agent, Miss Prendergast. Her few moments on screen remind us again that Solo and Illya are part of a far-flung organization, and that Waverly asks a lot of his men and women. (We never see her again; I hope Manolakas didn't kill her.)

Harold J. Stone's Stavros is a delight, an unashamed robber and paterfamilias, determined to protect his daughter -- and make a living -- no matter what. How interesting it would have been, though, if he had known Waverly in the days when the old gentleman was "an independent agent" in Greece!

Manolakas is a thug; he's no Brother Love or General Yokura; but you get the distinct impression he'd kill Nico, Kyra, and anybody else who got in his way without hesitation. At other times he seems given to bluster and vainglorious threats. He hardly deserves the knifing he gets from the Thrush chief -- unless he did kill Miss Prendergast.

"424046" is apparently Illya's serial number. Why would he not say "of the U.N.C.L.E.", or include his rank? And why does he not explain what Thrush is to Stavros and Kyra, who almost certainly would not have heard of it?

The page Kostas, the young shepherd, finds with the Command logo on it looks like a physics exam.

Illya says that Command agents don't carry a lot of cash; they use credit cards. Diner's Club or American Express?

"Megalopolis"? What does Solo mean when he says that to Kyra?

Verdict: A lightweight story in which Solo and Illya don't really solve the case; it features a lot of scenes of people standing and talking at each other, and has a far-too-comic climax. But Stavros's lines are often funny, and scripters Robert Hill and Eric Faust keep the complications coming at a fast clip.

Memorable Lines:
Illya (via communicator): "I think I've located my contact for tonight."
Solo (smiling at lovely brunette): "That makes two of us."

Illya: "How do you remember [the passwords]? Are you reading?"
Solo: "No, no. Are you kidding? I memorized all of Euripides when I was just a toddler."

Illya (captured, kneeling in the cave): "I have a great many sins for which to atone, you know."

Stavros (excitedly, to his daughter): "You're just in time. I'm about to murder your husband. Come and watch!"

Stavros (after Waverly has refused to ransom Illya): "What kind of friend and employer is that, I ask you?"
Illya (grimly): "Parsimonious."

Illya (re: the impressive approaching Cadillac): "Why is it [Thrush] always get[s] the bigger cars?"
Solo: "Well, when you're number two, you have to try harder."
(A play on the then-current Avis Rent-a-Car commercials)

Waverly: "Sic transit gloria."
Stavros: "Who is Gloria?"

"The Napoleon's Tomb Affair" (ep. 3/20)

2010-02-19T07:46:00.000-06:00

A fun little comedy, this is the first non-Thrush story in a while.

We open up with a scene that could have come from a Season One show, as Malanez and President Tunick arrive at a Paris hotel, and we see Illya undercover as a bellhop. The story swings left into comedy right away, though, as the President is humiliated instead of being the victim of an assassination attempt, and as Solo and Illya get knocked out during the scuffle on the stairs.

Why is Waverly always the one to brief our heroes, no matter what Command HQ they are in? Here he's in Paris; last week he briefed Solo in Hong Kong. You'd think the local chief would be the one to handle that. Waverly's going to expire of jet lag at this rate.

Apparently Tunick's country, Emertia, is a former African colony of France, no doubt having achieved its independence when so many others did in the Fifties and Sixties. We are never told why Waverly thinks that Malanez seizing power would cause "the whole of Africa [to] go up in flames."

The closes to the teaser (Tunick crying, "Frog!") and Act I (Illya getting pelted with salad fixings) are quite weak -- there is no sense of danger, nothing much to get a viewer to hang on. That at the end of II is suitable, but it's foolish of Solo to walk outside and let himself be knocked out by Edgar so easily. After all, there's been one attempt on his life already.

Joe Sirola's Malanez is quite the Mephistopheles; check out 14:43, when a little curl of hair suggests a devilish horn, and in Act II, his glee at Tunick's disappointment. Kurt Kasznar's Tunick is a big warm-hearted sort, a Francophone Ralph Kramden. Edgar (Ted Cassidy) is impressive, not only because of his height and basso voice, but because he's so methodical. See how he carefully sets up the boobytrap (shades of "Iowa Scuba," though this one is explosive/corrosive) in Solo's shower.

We see the U.N.C.L.E. car again, looking like a silver arrowhead. I suggest this means there were more than one! The vehicle we saw in "Take Me to Your Leader" was based apparently in Mississippi or Louisiana. Unless something required the Paris HQ to ship that one across the Atlantic, I'd think this one's assigned to the European Continental Chief, and the Paris office requested it for this, or an earlier, mission. (I wonder what the agents called it. "The special U.N.C.L.E. car" doesn't sound right. Maybe "The Sports Coffin"?)

The evening shots as Illya tails Edgar and Candyce through Paris are suitably atmospheric. And Solo's method for getting Edgar to talk is classic. (We'd call that "waterboarding" today.)

The sub-basement in the Hotel des Invalides would have been part of the building from the start. Malanez's line should have been, "We found this sub-basement in the plans, and built this device ourselves."

Charming points: Solo carefully does not seat himself before Waverly does; when Illya admits "This is my day to be dense," Solo smiles affectionately; shot by Edgar's dart, Illya has time to sniff it, realize he'll be out in ten seconds, and counts as he falls. This comes around full circle when he uses the same (?) dart on Edgar, and counts aloud until it takes effect on the big guy. The change in his voice as he squeaks, "Nine?" is hilarious, as is his shaking the communicators later to see, somehow, if they still work.

Verdict: Not too silly; pleasant, but a bit dull.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (to Illya, as they visit Napoleon's Tomb): "I trust you won't make any jokes about my name."
Illya: "Perish the thought . . . Napoleon."
(The look Solo gives Illya: priceless)

Tunick (on meeting Candyce): "My little zephyr of Elysium --"

Tunick (to the fake diplomat, Malanez's agent): "The only constant thing I have found in Paris is rudeness."
Diplomat: "That, sir, is a trait we reserve for visiting boors."

"The Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum Affair" (ep. 3/19)

2010-02-18T08:07:00.000-06:00

From Norman Hudis, who would later give us two of the best (including the last episode) in Season Four, this Illya-centered story is fun. Since there are no pirates in it, a better title would have been “The Star to Steer Her By Affair” or “The Tall Ship Affair.” However, Captain Morton the Masefield fan makes one of the most colorful innocents to show up this year. “Bottle of Rum” also features the best-wrought dialogue since “Candidate’s Wife.”

Like his Marcus Rudolph, the cowardly, raffish thief in Season One, Dan O’Herlihy’s Morton is vividly realized. The dynamic between Morton and Illya makes for sparks; each displays unspoken respect for the other, and Morton even declares that he thought of Illya as a son.

Also on the mark: Morton’s moment with the head Thrush, when the well-dressed thug doesn’t know who John Masefield was, and Morton closes his eyes in pain as if to say, “The Philistines I must deal with --!” Though I think the scene should have ended there, not with Morton explaining who he was.

The below-decks ship environment is well done; it looks greasy, paint-scabbed, battered and lived in. In wild contrast, the Hong Kong Command office Waverly is using looks like a hotel suite!

“Aha, 99! The old 'One of our men resembles and impersonates one of theirs’ trick!” At least this time the producers didn’t have Prof. Powers look almost exactly like Solo. There’s a resemblance (sleek dark hair, dark brows, prominent jaw, well-dressed) that would match up in a thumbnail description, but no more.

I don’t really think that engineer Scotty is a parody of, or even a nod to, our now-beloved Scots engineer on the then-new “Star Trek.” There’s a long tradition in English fiction and poetry of having a ship’s engineer be Scots (inspired, no doubt, by the large number of real-life ship’s engineers who hailed from Scotland), and naturally McPherson’s nickname among the crew would have been “Scotty.” That this Scotty is “in love” with his ship’s engines does resemble Trek’s Mr. Scott. However, that trait of his came out gradually, and wouldn’t have been so obvious to viewers of Trek by this point, only midway through Trek’s first season.

Needed: A line of dialogue from Illya explaining to Morton (and us) how he knows so much about a ship’s engine room that he can heroically shut off the steam leaks when the regular crew can’t. Also, if Miss Janus is going to bring Solo along on the plane, we need a reason why -- something he says he knows that they need to know, perhaps.

Highlights: Illya quoting Masefield’s “Cargoes” (I admit I had to look it up), and Morton calling the Thrush’s men “very petty officers.”

Why take a jet to rendezvous with a ship in midocean? Wouldn’t it make more sense to fly in one of those “flying boats” that could land and take off on water? Or if the budget wouldn’t run to that, perhaps a helicopter? The coordinates given are in the South China Sea, close enough to Hong Kong.

Wouldn’t it have been rather interesting to reverse the roles? To have Solo stuck aboard Morton’s ship, and Illya impersonating the tidal wave professor?

Verdict: Despite a poorly-handled climax on Solo’s side (let’s face it: That plane crash would have killed everybody aboard), “Bottle of Rum” presents a plausible story with a dramatic, almost tragic Innocent.

Memorable Lines:
Morton (to Scotty): “Get back to your engine, you haggis-bashing grease monkey.”

Morton: “ . . . I am the captain. And from the time of the Vikings down to this age of the atomic submarine, the captain is law, life, death, personified.”
Thrush Passenger: “He’s in the hold.”
Morton: “I don’t care if he’s in aspic!”

Hank (about Morton): “We’ve got a skipper that’d make Captain Bligh look like a bleeding heart!”

Jenny (to Solo-as-Powers): “We have time to . . . kill.”
Solo: “Well, leave us not waste it. Time and tidal wave wait for no man . . . or woman.”

Morton (to Illya): “Swab [the deck] until it’s as dry as your wit.”

Illya: “Hank -- do you have any explosives on board?”
Hank: “Sure. Cap’n Morton.”

"The Deadly Smorgasbord Affair" (ep. 3/18)

2010-02-18T07:42:00.001-06:00

Hola! Wow!

Pardon the outburst, but . . . at last a story worthy of U.N.C.L.E.! (At least for Solo fans.) Except for Illya's absence, it has most of the elements that made the series cook: a larger-than-life threat and villains, humor that (except for teaser and tag) doesn't get out of hand, a threat to a Command headquarters, and a smart hero who leads said villains a merry chase.

We open with Solo in his cold-weather car coat, which I want, from "Monks of St. Thomas." He's met by the kittenish and deadly Inga, played by Pamela Curran from "Do-It-Yourself Dreadful," whom I also want (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). Our man swiftly proves he deserves to be Chief Enforcement Agent; from the start he's not taken in by her beauty and sexual magnetism.

Nice touch, that they use the then-current Volvo, the 120 series or "Amazon," in at least two Stockholm scenes.

I don't know much about Swedish accents, but Lynn Loring's sounds exotic enough, and has the Scandinavian lilt.

The Suspended Animation Device, or SAD, is a neat SF concept, though it would have made more sense to have Dr. Nillson be a physicist, instead of an electronics prof. At this same time SF writer Larry Niven was writing his early Known Space stories of stasis fields, within which no time passes, and which appear as perfect spherical mirrors. If only Ingster & Co. had had the budget to have a shimmering field appear around each suspended target!

In the teaser, we see that the device can affect more than one person at a time; yet it's not an all-encompassing field, since Beckman's men walk into and out of it. Nor does it affect only living tissue, despite what Waverly says in Act I, as it suspends the dance music too. But what of energy? Could it suspend a fire, or an atomic blast?

I'm also positive that Rex Stout's orchid-fancying detective, Nero Wolfe, inspired villain Heinrich Beckman. Why else make him a flower aficionado? (The actor even looked like Stout!)

Good points: at 26:00, one of the great defining Solo Moments, when Beckman "fires" the SAD and
gets only a stuffed snake, and Solo holds up his hands with a "For my next trick . . ." smile. Plus we get background in that Solo has encountered, and trounced, Beckman before, a la Batman and the Joker; his proactive switcheroos with the device; one of the best act-ending hooks ever, as our suspended hero is dumped into near-freezing waters; and the plot point that the airline clerk is a fellow Command agent.

It seems odd that Solo is willing to leave the rescue of Dr. Nillson to the Oslo office. How does Inga know that Waverly will be in the Oslo offices? Solo wouldn't have told her! And when the bathrobe-clad Solo edges out to deal with Beckman and the Thrushes, you'd think the first thing he'd do is grab the Special from the frozen agent outside the door.

Good gags et al: Many others have noted the bit about Dr. A.C. Nillson's name. I'll just mention the scene in which Inga and Solo are nuzzling each other on the bed in his hotel room -- the cagelike golden bedstead echoing the scene in "Thunderball" when Bond seduces Fiona Volpe; and the mental image of Illya "breaking blubber" (well, you knew he couldn't simply be on vacation, right?).

Verdict: While no classic like "Never-Never" or "Minus-X," "Smorgasbord" is a highlight in an otherwise dreary/frothy/lightweight string of third-year episodes -- and a showcase for the talents of Robert Vaughn.

Memorable lines:
Solo: "By the way, where is Mr. Kuryakin?"
Waverly: "Mr. Kuryakin is busy masquerading as a notorious Siberian Eskimo, breaking blubber with a group of Thrush walrus hunters."
Solo (dryly): "He has all the fun missions."

Inga: "You do build a very good martini."
Solo: "It's part of U.N.C.L.E. training; it comes between cryptography and karate."
Inga (shifting about to bring her best assets to the fore): "Tell me, does your training include women?"
Solo: "It's under 'Field Experience.'"

"The Suburbia Affair" (ep. 3/17)

2010-02-17T08:34:00.002-06:00

What we have here, folks, is an out-and-out spy comedy. The McGuffin, Dr. Rutter's antimatter formula, is serious enough (though its "consequences" are never explained). And Thrush's use of the special lightbulbs to flush him out is interesting. But -- two "bachelors" living together, in suburbia, in 1967 . . . ya just know people will be gossiping at the local grocery . . . and then there's that ice cream grenade bit . . .

Peaceful Haven must be fairly close to New York, since Waverly arrives very soon after the bottle of milk explosion; Solo and Illya are still cleaning up. Yet we see mountains on the horizon in the outdoor scenes. Still, I like that Illya does not know what the mission is all about, thus giving Waverly and Solo a chance to explain to him and to us.

Victor Borge was a master entertainer. In this, which IMDb says was his last performance as an actor, his Willoughby/Dr. Rutter comes off as a shy, gentle fellow, the picture of a middle-aged bachelor or widower renting a room in someone's house, which would be good camouflage. Why does he think hiding in a suburban community would work better than vanishing into one of the world's large cities? Perhaps he's tried, and been flushed out of, New York or London. Of course, sending a letter postmarked "Peaceful Haven" is none too smart for someone who's been hiding successfully for a decade.

I also wonder why Betsy, who appears to be a model of mid-1960s propriety, isn't horrified when her lodger tells her he's a trigamist.

Having met a Danish music (and occasional math) teacher while looking for a Danish physicist, Solo and Illya should have known they'd acquired their target. So should Thrush; checking the subscription lists of physics journals to find Rutter, then inserting someone into the local post office to see who gets such a journal in Peaceful Haven, would have been a snap. Instead Thrush uses the roundabout method of the doctored lightbulbs. Then Illya kidnaps real estate hustler Barkley just because Betsy states that the Diamine is for him? No, it just won't do.

Good points: The way Solo and Illya draw their guns and prepare for another attack after the milk bottle incident; Solo's bugging the pharmacist's phone; his unwillingness to completely swallow that Barkley is their man; Solo and Illya, affected by the lights, snapping at each other in the kitchen (actually quite disturbing to watch!).

Good gags: Illya's baleful look when Barkley is showing them the rental house, and whenever Solo refers to his soufflé; Barkley's "Every house is a palace . . ." followed by the doorknob falling off; Illya in gun and holster, vacuuming and mopping; Barkley, under duress, writes the formula for computing interest on a 30-year mortgage; and the Gladys Kravitz-like neighbor watching Solo break into the Thrush den.

Reta Shaw's Miss Witherspoon is the image of the matronly teacher -- one who just happens to have a switch-knife concealed in her cane. She's Mother Fear with a more comic edge.

If Solo's cover was as a chemist, what was Illya's supposed to be?

Verdict: Only our guys could carry this off as well as they do. It's no pitch-perfect comedy, but it's loads of fun to watch the tough, well-trained men from U.N.C.L.E. borrowing eggs from their neighbor and mopping floors.

Memorable Lines:
Solo (to Illya, amid the wreckage of the "milk bottle" explosion): "I'm glad that we didn't take the cottage cheese."

Illya (to Waverly): "Napoleon and I have an arrangement. He does the cleaning, I do the cooking."
Waverly: "I had no idea Mr. Solo was so domesticated."
Solo: "Oh, yes. [To Illya] What are we having for dinner tonight, 'Mother'?"

Illya: "Here's a recipe for a Transylvanian soufflé. First, we steal two chickens --"
Solo: "I've heard it."

Cop One (to Cop Two, as they watch Solo and Illya on closed-circuit TV battling the Thrushes): "These movie fights always look fake."

"The Take Me to Your Leader Affair" (ep. 3/16)

2010-02-17T08:17:00.001-06:00

Here we are about halfway through Season Three. "Leader" has more holes in its plot than a target at the U.N.C.L.E. firing range, and suffers from No Money in the Budget Syndrome -- but it moves fast, and is notable for a few items.

We open up with Solo and Illya visiting yet another Caribbean island to see Dr. Cool, and encounter his daughter, Coco. She pops a paper bag at them -- and yet, these two experienced agents don't immediately whip out their guns?

This is the debut of the special U.N.C.L.E. car. A stubby little thing, wasn't it? Two things occur to me: If Sparrow Dynamics is located close to Louisiana (as it probably was, since Solo and Corinne drive from there to the Louisiana mansion in what seems to be a few hours), where did Solo pick the car up -- the New Orleans office? And since he rode with Corinne, the car is still back at Sparrow Dynamics. Somebody better go retrieve it.

Good points: The initial creepiness as what may be an alien spacecraft approaches the Earth; Solo uses the intelligence gathering of the Command (and doesn't cheapen the scene by flirting with Sharon); having henchman Kalmus be well-spoken, instead of a mere thug; Illya's neat deduction about the presence of a camera; and Waverly refusing to believe Dr. Cool's cover story about his daughter's disappearance, showing that he, Waverly, is no mug.

The No Money symptoms show up in several places. In the teaser, we first see Solo and Illya driving up to the observatory in what is clearly a shot spliced in from "Concrete Overcoat." Solo's suit there is dark; yet his suit is gray when they arrive. Late in the story, in a scene in the Command communications center, we get the same scene from "Bat Cave," redubbed. And Simon Sparrow's "space vehicle" looks like it was built in someone's backyard for a Mardi Gras float.

Casting Nancy Sinatra must have seemed like a brilliant move to attract younger viewers. She's decorative. But she's not very good. Better if they had cast, say, Susan Oliver from "Bow-Wow" and done away with the singing and guitar-playing entirely. Like most of us, I watched Whitney Blake on "Hazel" in the early Sixties . . . but I was too young to realize how lovely (and sexy!) she was. There's an attempt at giving her Corinne a motivation to help Solo and destroy Sparrow, the business about Sparrow having destroyed her former lover, but it's not followed up and seems flat.

Simon Sparrow = Howard Hughes? He's the best thing in the story, projecting that "sneer of cold command" right up to his death. If his craft had, say, a beam weapon that he could use to deflect anymilitary attacks that the combined nations threw at it, his plan might have had a chance. The silly idea that the Council of Nations, led by Mr. Mandu (an Asian, suggesting our world's U Thant of the UN), would simply roll over at the appearance of an "alien" spacecraft and whimper, "What are your terms?", spoils the whole thing.

Illya is amazing. Just how does one take the elastic out of one's underpants, without a knife and without removing one's pants first?

Woodrow Parfrey's Dr. Cool is quite unlike his earlier characters in "Project Strigas" and "Moonglow." He's not a weasel or a mad scientist, and seems more in control of his surroundings, despite having his daughter kidnapped.

Verdict: Another script with the germ of a good idea, spoiled by the attempt to be trendy rather than dangerous and exciting.

Memorable Lines:
Dr. Cool: "How much do you gentlemen know about radio astronomy?"
Solo: "Very little."
Illya: "A good deal."
(The look on Solo's face: priceless)

Coco: "You are clever, aren't you?"
Illya (impassively): "I'm trained for these things. . . . Why don't you put on those clothes? It's very

disturbing being locked in a room with you in that bikini, when I'm on duty."
Coco (pleased): "I didn't even think you noticed."
Illya (smiling): "I'm trained for these things."

Coco: "Do you want to be a nothing all your life?"
Illya: "I'm sorry, but you can't win me by flattery."

Sparrow (to the listening Earth): "We have considered your systems of government, and found them totally deficient and inoperable -- a fact borne out by your own inability to get along with each other."
(An echo of the moral lesson from "Day the Earth Stood Still"?)

"The Jingle Bells Affair" (ep. 3/15)

2010-02-17T08:02:00.000-06:00

This, MfU's Christmas episode, is a pleasant if treacly concoction. If it hadn't come right after two even sillier stories but instead had aired after "Concrete Overcoat," we might think of it as an aberration, or a change for the playful after a strong adventure. As it is, it comes off as little more than an extended commercial for Macy's.

We open up with recent footage of the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. (How recent? Well, Underdog's in it, and he was new as of '64 or '65.) Akim Tamiroff's Chairman Koz is a delight, a gruff, droll takeoff on Khrushchev (he even whips off a shoe and pounds a table with it, as old Nikita did at the UN in the Kennedy days). Clearly, from his remarks and those of his security chief Radish (? What a name!) about capitalism, his country is Communist, and big enough to be a concern to the West -- but it's never named. Illya's non-Western background is never mentioned, either. Think, though, of how much fun it would have been to see Illya speaking up for the capitalistic West to Koz, and grumping about it to Solo?

I want a topcoat like Solo's. Single-breasted but unbelted, its like was worn by hordes of adult men in the Fifties and Sixties. Nowadays, you can find wool blend topcoats, or trenchcoats and leather jackets, but nothing like this. (Gabardine, you think?) Illya's trench, on the other hand, looks like the one he wore way back in both "Odd Man" and "Adriatic Express."

The "Santa Claus school" scene at Priscilla's rundown mission is actually funny, mostly for Koz's wrangle with J. Pat O'Malley's O'Reilly, and for Solo and Illya as they shrug, settle back and watch Koz get himself into trouble. Yes, they should be actively breaking up the fight, but it's a comedy and we'll allow them a little leeway. However, Priscilla seems to have a bad case of forget-itis. Not until Koz removes the Santa Claus cap and beard does she recognize him. Yet she saw him earlier outside Macy's and in the store, and again close up at the mission before the gunfire started.

Speaking of Chief Radish, he and his ineffectual conspirator Pifnic are more silly than scary, as if they'd trained under Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Radish's long-winded speech to Solo and Illya when he has them prisoner in the poultry pen, I'd think, would be enough to make Illya switch proudly to capitalism.

The other problem with this story, beyond the sentimental Christmas fluff and having our heroes rescued by turkeys, is that Koz's change of heart toward the West after his car is blown up seconds after he left it, seems unmotivated. After all, he was furious at America after the last attempt on his life. And Solo and Illya don't actually rescue him; Koz, Priscilla, and the cowardly but sensible Pifnic leave the car before our heroes catch up to them.

The night shot of Solo in Act III, crouched on the rooftop with the yellow skylight behind him, is excellent, worthy of use in a better story.

Verdict: I suppose it'll put you in the Christmas mood, and it's kind of fun.

Cute (if hardly memorable) lines:
Solo (as they recognize Priscilla the Salvation Army lady at her mission): "That old folk rhyme -- I guess there's something to it."
Koz: "Yes. But there's another old folk rhyme, and it's got to do with your next step."
Illya (breaking in): "If you'll forgive me, sir, Mr. Napoleon here knows the next step."

Solo (to Priscilla): "How's your [shoe] heel?"
Priscilla (smiling): "Oh, it's you again."
Solo: "Must be kismet."
Illya (leaning in): "And an old folk rhyme."

O'Reilly (coaching Santa Claus student): "Now, this time, like your heart is full of love and mistletoe, and you're looking right into the bright blue eyes of this poor little kid that's just standin' there, pickin' his nose!"

Koz (under fire from Pifnic's men): "I will die with my boots on!"
Solo: "We've got an old folk rhyme too: 'He who fights and runs away/ Lives to fight another day!' Go on!"

Waverly (reading Solo and Illya the riot act): "I would suggest you call on Chairman Koz directly and apologize for what happened."
Solo: "Now?"
Waverly: "Yes, now. In the absence of efficiency, we are compelled to rely on charm."

Priscilla (as they trim the Christmas tree): "Oh, Mr. Solo, you are a gay one, aren't you?"
Solo: "Only on holidays."

"The My Friend the Gorilla Affair" (ep. 3/14)

2010-02-12T15:27:00.001-06:00

Nearly everything that could be said or written about this episode has already been said or written. Yes, it's bad. But . . .

. . . it could have been saved.

Now, before you knock over your coffee, jump out of your chair, and beat the cat, just hang on a moment. I'll explain.

"Gorilla," I think you'll admit, starts off fine. The first ten minutes set up a decent story, with a rogue scientist developing a race of super-soldiers in the African bush. We see Illya and the prince of the African country captured by a troop of them; then Solo has his final briefing from Waverly as Wanda inoculates him against everything but a flat tire. So far so good. (Late in the story, too, we have a solid moment, as Solo coolly faces down the rumpled professor.)

The story falls off the cliff, though, with the casting of the professor, who looks less like a dangerous fanatic than like the host of "Shock Theater" with Grade-Z horror flicks on Saturday afternoons; and when Solo, the expert in survival, wanders away from his jeep (without taking water or food!) and meets Xena's descendant, Girl. Okay. It's bad, and from here it gets worse.

Now what if, instead . . . we'd had a frame story?

We open with Waverly riding in his Chrysler sedan out to the New York suburbs. Via communicator, he speaks to Solo and Illya, who are nearing the climax of a mission in Africa. We never get many details, but it's clearly dangerous. Alex, however, is on his way to visit his grandchildren.

As usual on his visits, the little girl and boy demand a bedtime story. They've heard all the standards and want something new. Both are fond of Tarzan (the then-new Fall ‘66 NBC series) and Kipling's "Jungle Book." So Grandpa Alex spins a tale involving two top secret agents (he dubs them "Bonaparte" and "Pushkin") as they hunt a rogue scientist who is developing a race of super-soldiers in the African bush . . . and we watch as the tale unfolds, dissolving back in each act to Grandpa Alex and the kids.

This way, nearly all the stuff we wince at here, even Baby the gorilla, could have been cast as a bedtime story! Grandpa Alex ends with the elephant stampede which smashes the scientist's lab and forever buries his formula, saving the world. "Did you like that story?" "It was fun, Grandpa. I'm sleepy. G' night."

At his desk the next morning, Waverly takes a videoconference call from a banged-up Solo and Illya. "You gentlemen are rather the worse for wear, I see." "Well, sir, we had to, ah, subdue Professor Kenton's bodyguard."

Waverly chuckles. "Be glad, Mr. Kuryakin, that it wasn't a gorilla."

Puzzled, Solo and Illya stare at each other, as we FREEZE FRAME, ROLL CREDITS AND MUSIC. . . .

No, this wouldn't have made "Gorilla" a classic like "Never-Never." But it would have made it a romp with an excuse for the jungle clichés, even, maybe, for the bits with Solo Watusi-ing with Girl and Baby, and we might recall it today with some little fondness.

Verdict: What can I say? Boris Ingster and the two writers were smoking something they shouldn't have touched while working.

Memorable Lines (yes, there are a couple):

Blackburn (about his native bearers): "It's five o'clock! How can they grant independence to people who don't know when it's time for tea?"

Blackburn (about Marsha): "She has all the ingredients of being a lady, but unfortunately she keeps them well hidden."

Professor: "I hope you have vision enough to picture an entire army of men like Arunda here -- obeying my every command like a pack of trained hounds."
Solo: "It sounds impressive, if you're deciding to declare war on the Kennel Club."

"The Abominable Snowman Affair" (ep. 3/13)

2010-02-12T15:03:00.000-06:00

With this story we enter a dark period. As some fans have pointed out, Disc Five of the DVD set is devoted to episodes that would have hurt any series’ reputation, let alone one as high-flying as U.N.C.L.E.

We open with Illya at the frontier of Himalayan mountain country Ghupat, disguising himself -- not as a Sherpa, or a member of the Ghupat civil service, or anything that would let him pass, y’know, unnoticed -- but as a furry, Morlock-faced creature which, we can only guess, is supposed to be a yeti. This immediately gets him wounded by Calamity Rogers, who takes him for just such a creature. It’s as if I disguised myself as Bullwinkle J. Moose and then tried to sneak into Alaska during hunting season.

Comedy is difficult to carry off at the best of times, but even when your characters do loony things, they must still react in recognizable human ways. Okay, Calamity shoots what she thinks is an "abominable snowman." But when she finds Illya within the suit, why does she still suspect him of being the beast which killed her beloved husband? Unless she thinks that all the yeti in Ghupat are actually men in costumes, wouldn’t she realize that Illya is innocent of that crime?

The heck of it is, this script (by a fellow who, IMDb tells me, went on to write “Hard Rock Zombies” and produce several “Sleepaway Camp” films) has a good basic concept: that U.N.C.L.E., by virtue of its impeccable reputation, might be asked to function as a neutral observer to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, and stop any outside forces (e.g., Thrush) from seizing a country during such an unsettled time. Waverly could then send Solo and Illya, who find themselves amid palace intrigue a la "Dove" and "Secret Sceptre." But noooo --

David Sheiner’s Asian makeup, as Bill Koenig points out, may not be authentic, but he is scarcely recognizable as the same actor we’ve seen as a New Delhi cop and as a bald, tightly wrapped minion to Alexander the Greater. Something about the makeup suggests the Prime Minister survived a fire some years ago and had his face rebuilt (which would be odd enough -- where did the money come from?). He’s fierce and rather frightening.

I’m no geography wizard, but if there are high snowy mountains in a country, how close can a jungle be? Even if Ghupat were small, it would take Miss Palli a long while to get down to the jungle to feed the kid to "the" man-eating tiger. (Somehow, each time the minister says it, I imagine having a man-eating tiger was a requirement for Ghupat to join the UN, and when one dies another man-eater must be installed, like mascot Mike the Tiger at LSU football games.)

And why, oh, why, when the Prime Minister leaves them in the gong chamber, does Solo seize the great log and set it banging on the gong? Shouldn’t that have been the job of the Minister’s henchman? Does Solo want to start the torture as soon as possible? ("Hit me, beat me, make me write bad checks --")

Even the worst episode usually has something going for it. Here we learn that Solo is a Capricorn (born between Dec. 21 and Jan. 19) and that Illya is a Scorpio (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21). Astrology buffs, chime in: Do Capricorns and Scorpios normally make good partners?

Also, Solo does act professionally. He’s charming without swagger with Amra, and displays kindness when she needs it. Plus it’s neat, in the scene where the minister’s artisan walls them up, that they have a detonator, but nothing to detonate.

Verdict: Despite a kernel, the Ghupat Prime Minister’s intrigues, that could have made a fine story, “Snowman” stands as a poor production.

Memorable line:
Solo (to himself, at the lack of any response from Amra Palli to his charm): “I must be slipping. . . .”

"The Concrete Overcoat Affair, Part II" (ep. 3/12)

2010-02-12T08:25:00.001-06:00

As we'd hope, Part II sweeps forward from Part I and builds to an epic climax worthy of a thriller novel or a theatrical movie. Bill Koenig mentions that this was the most expensive hour of TV entertainment up to that time, and it shows.

I love that, when Solo seizes his chance to escape Strago and must leave Pia behind, he shouts to her, "I'll be back." And the next scene, as Waverly and Solo come into Del Floria's and clash at the door to the big guy's office over Solo's determination to rescue Pia and Illya, is justly famous as a Season One-like, truly human moment. A part of me wishes that Solo had not backed down, had fished out his credentials and tossed them onto the desk in front of Waverly and turned on his heel to go, only to be called back by Waverly . . . but the scene sings anyway. (And Waverly calls the Del Floria's staffer "Bill." How neat is that?)

How do Alex & Co. know what Thrush is up to vis-à-vis the Gulf Stream, though? At the end of Part I, they were still trying to find out what Strago needed heavy water for. Illya discovers a missile on the docks, but Miss Diketon captures him before he can report it; while Solo escapes Strago, he doesn't know about the missile; and in any case neither of them knows what the missile is for. How has Waverly divined the plot? (That's it -- he has a Delphic oracle concealed behind his comm console!)

Strago's island defenses are appropriately larger-than-life and science-fictional, as is the entire project to turn Greenland into Thrush's own tropical paradise. Hey, if you're gonna be evil, go all the way. It would be a letdown were Strago plotting merely to rob the Bank of England or something.

We should have seen Solo jumping up from the speedboat's wheel and staggering toward the stern in the instant before the speedboat blows; this would have made his escape a bit more plausible. He looks as much at home on the Stillettos' craft, in jacket and knit watch cap, as he did in the same outfit in "Shark."

Pia Monteri is no shrinking Innocent. She doesn't panic, dispatches Miss Diketon handily, and yet displays kindness to her former opponent. (Fan fiction suggestion: Following the success of April Dancer, Solo recruits Pia for Section Two!)

Miss Diketon's switching sides is well-motivated. It's not only to save her own neck (I'm sure she doesn't think she'll be merely transferred), but to revenge herself on Strago for spurning her. (Trivia: I read someplace, possibly in Jon Heitland's book, that Janet Leigh's kids were big U.N.C.L.E. fans and were thrilled to have their mom on the show. One of those kids went on to star in an U.N.C.L.E.-like thriller, too.)

Will Kuluva's Mr. Thaler is the perfect high-level bureaucrat: all starch and propriety until, away from the home office and his wife, it's time to go wild. One imagines him in Billy Wilder's "The Apartment," using Jack Lemmon's digs for his assignations and groping secretaries along with Fred MacMurray at the Christmas party.

The last two acts are remarkably exciting, with startling camera angles and a ticking clock like all good thrillers. And for once, I don't mind the light-hearted tag scene at the pizzeria (in Chicago, I presume). The previous hour has been so strong that we need a chuckle at the end.

Verdict: An odd mix (satire, drama, and a chick fight!) featuring a James Bondian threat and colorful sets like the control room and the red-lit conveyor tunnel, "Concrete Overcoat" is the most entertaining episode yet of Season Three.

Memorable Lines:
Waverly (to himself, as he lets Solo race after Pia and Illya): "Alexander Waverly. Hmf. Sentimental grandmother of the year --!"

Von Kronen (softly, to Miss Diketon): "I cannot forget how beautifully you tortured that U.N.C.L.E. agent. . . . I admire you very much. Bravo!"
Miss Diketon (clearly flattered): "Oh, that's awfully sweet. From a real professional like you!"

Mr. Thaler (Thrush's Man in the Green Hat): "Oh, the faithful Miss Diketon. More beautiful than ever. . . . You'd be a fortunate man, Strago, if you were human."

Mr. Thaler: "Well! We certainly can't have corruption in Thrush, can we? But don't transfer [Miss Diketon], Strago. Just kill her and have done with it, will you? Save all that annoying paperwork."

Illya (after being ambushed, by mistake, by Solo): "I bring Lucrezia Borgia, and you bring the Mafia. We're in great shape."

"The Concrete Overcoat Affair, Part I" (ep. 3/11)

2010-02-12T08:05:00.003-06:00

We can thank Norman Felton, as we do on so many levels, for his vision of releasing U.N.C.L.E. two-parters as movies; without that, and the corresponding bump in the budget, a "big" episode such as this wouldn't have been possible. It's an odd mix in places, this one, Peter Allan Fields's only script this year, and sometimes the pieces don't fit as smoothly as we'd like . . . but it works.

The opener to Act I, as the bandaged Solo and Illya make their way to Waverly's office, is iconic. (I'll bet new staffers are continually startled by seeing damaged Enforcement guys limping in to work.) Maybe I'm slow, but I suspect that the room where they meet Waverly is not his regular office, but a special map room -- perhaps something like Capt. Picard's "ready room." We've seen it before, and though it has windows and a couch along the rear wall, it seems smaller than the regular office, which appears in Act III.

I love Janet Leigh's sparkling, sadistic masochist, Miss Diketon, she of the thigh knife and misplaced affection for Jack Palance's Strago. It's in this story, too, that we have the famous brief torture scene, where Miss D. uses an ultrasonic whip (?) on the captured Illya. In his "Man from U.N.C.L.E. Book," Jon Heitland describes Miss D. as being somewhat masculine, but to me there's nothing at all masculine about her. Sick, yes; too sick even for Thrush, possibly; but masculine? Heck no.

Strago is hard to figure: a twitching bundle of savage neuroses and anxieties, nauseated by Miss Diketon's attentions yet inflamed by Pia the Innocent, as we'll see in Part II. (Disposing of a valuable trained man like Luger is rather wasteful of personnel, too, except that it impresses ex-Nazi Von Kronen.) Sometimes Palance's performance slips over the edge; but he must have had a lot of fun on this one, since so many of his roles have been of the quiet dangerous type.

Calling their country-to-be "Thrushland" makes it sound like an amusement park. ("Step right up, folks! Ask the Ultimate Computer a question, any question!")

As in "Deadly Goddess," Solo avoids a shotgun wedding; but here, he is not simply relieved to escape, but worried for Pia. Her branding as a "ruined" woman, he feels, is due to him, and he wants to go back, explain, and exonerate her.

He pronounces "gracias" with the Castilian "th," suggesting that he learned what Spanish he knows from actual Spaniards rather than in Latin America. It also sounds like he tells Illya "cow" instead of "ciao" -- a gag?

The big joke here is that Pia's American uncles, the Stilletto Brothers, would all fit neatly into a Warner's 1938 gangster flick -- except that they're all 60 or more. Eduardo Giannelli's "Fingers," in particular, has the true Mafioso flavor and could have stepped right out of "The Godfather" (which hadn't been written yet, of course).

Agreed, Nelson Riddle's music during the action at Strago's warehouse is far too "Batman"-like, as are a lot of moves (the "pineapple" bit, for example). This is balanced by the point that the Stiletto Brothers, who could have been played strictly for laughs, are clearly professional and deadly. Note Strago's warning about them to his men: ". . . During the Prohibition days, they could have and would have torn either one of you apart for the price of a cigar."

Verdict: Sharply directed by Joseph Sargent, who helmed several Season One and Two classics, it moves fast, makes good use of complex sets and colorful locations (e.g., the parade and the well-realized village of Taforna), and lacks only a stronger hook to bring us to Part II.

Memorable Lines:
Strago (chastising Miss Diketon): "The Uniform Code of Thrush Procedure states quite clearly that the relationship between a Thrush official and an employee must be kept on the highest level!"

Strago: "I can't tell you, Doctor, how much we've been looking forward to your arrival."
Von Kronen: "Ja. They've been looking forward to my arrival in Nuremberg, too. They're still looking."

Solo (sotto voce, on communicator, as Grandmama Monteri waves her shotgun): "Illya, come in, little friend. . . ."
Illya: "Yes, Napoleon. How is your burgeoning romance?"
Solo: "It threatens to burgeon too far."

Solo (to "Fingers" Stilletto, as they prepare for his wedding to Pia in Chicago): "I'm not Italian, you know."
Stilletto: "It's all right. Try to be proud anyway."

"The Off-Broadway Affair" (ep. 3/10)

2010-02-12T07:52:00.001-06:00

We're one-third of the way through Season Three, and with some exceptions (I'm looking at you, "Super-Colossal" and "Pop Art"), the scripts so far have not been as horrible as my memory painted them. This, Jerry McNeely's first story since "Bat Cave," has a private-eye flavor and takes some comic swipes at the self-involved world of the theatre. (I ought to know: Once upon a time, I was a drama major. Old joke: "How many actors does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Two. One to change it, and one to say, 'That should be me up there!'")

We open in a suitably stagey fashion, with Innocent Janet Jerrod (Shari Lewis) mouthing the lines and rehearsing the moves of the actress she's understudying. Our guys get drawn in via a phone call from Eileen, the soon-to-be-defunct actress. (I'd like to see U.N.C.L.E.'s listing in the phone book. Under "Agencies, Secret"? How'd she know to call U.N.C.L.E. instead of the cops or the FBI? And how did she get to Solo, who's pretty high up in the office hierarchy, so fast?)

McNeely tosses zingers about showbiz into the mix: the traditional opening-night ritual of waiting for the reviews; Janet's burbling excitement about the show being sold out, the day after she finds her cast mate dead; Janet's "I oughta be in pictures" audition on her date with Solo; Solo's line that audiences like what critics tell them to like; and director Winky's eagerness to curry critical favor by working the U.N.C.L.E.-Thrush battle into the show.

We also get a tricky plot switch like that of "Ultimate Computer." Leon Askin's Machina (a much more confident villain than his Mr. Elom in "Project Deephole") is a darned forward-looking executive, having that second tunnel and nerve center built despite Thrush complaints about cost overruns. Nice touch, too, that Machina, unlike so many Thrushes in recent episodes, doesn't immediately recognize Solo as a Command agent.

Solo's bracing in the alley by the two thugs, and his rejoinder, make me think of Chandler's Philip Marlowe. That his distress transmitter alerts U.N.C.L.E. -- and later, that Solo has agents in the audience -- reminds us again of the organization backing our heroes. Plus the fight scene by the Central Park lake, with Illya's frantic dive to Solo's rescue and the suspenseful moments as we wait to see them come up, rounds off a well-done sequence. (I know, the transmitter indicates Solo is on the West Side of Manhattan instead of "two blocks" from the East Forties location of HQ; and how did Illya get there so fast? But it is exciting.)

Odd Items Dept.: Why does Illya the Plumber discover an U.N.C.L.E. Special on the floor of the prop room? Strange that such a tough cookie as Linda the Thrush should be so panicked by a mouse. Machina admits the show will have to do without Illya; that'll leave a hole in the show he'll need to explain to Winky. And if Thrush has a "reactor" that can turn earth into "harmless gases," which sounds like cold fusion to me, they should be concentrating on that!

Verdict: "See it, by all means see it." The story eerily predicts how much our offices depend on computers today. Thus the danger from Thrush is believable; Solo and Illya reason clearly and proceed as good investigators should; and their antagonist is no mug, either. While some of the gags are over the top -- Illya not just playing the English horn, but winking at Solo while performing onstage; the melee at the climax -- it comes off well, with the humor confined to the jabs at showbiz denizens. (Besides, wasn't it a shame Shari Lewis's super-hotness was wasted on Lamb Chop for so many years?)

Memorable Lines:
Solo (about "The In-Out Show"): "The reviews aren't exactly boffo, are they?"
Illya: "'Boffo'?"
Solo: "Yes, that's 'box office' to foreigners."
(Rather a mean-spirited remark!)

Janet: "We are sold out for a month! Can you imagine?"
Solo: "Just think what you could do with lukewarm reviews."

Janet: "[Eileen] always said, 'The show must go on.' Always."
Solo: "She was quite a conversationalist."

Solo (to Illya, disguised as a plumber): "Do you know anything about plumbing?"
Illya: "Yes. You turn the tap counterclockwise for warm and clockwise for cool."
Solo: "That's very good. Uh . . . keep clockwise."

Solo: "There's a song in the show called `A Man Is a Horn' --"
Illya (as the horror of Solo's plan dawns on him): "Oh no. I categorically refuse."

Solo (as he rescues Illya): "The show just wouldn't be the same without you."
Illya: "It's nice to be missed."

Winky: "How would you two like to play yourselves in the show?"
Solo (dryly): "Don't call us . . ."
Illya (equally dryly): ". . . we'll call you."

"The Come With Me to the Casbah Affair" (ep. 3/9)

2010-02-11T15:24:00.000-06:00

A fun romp, “Casbah” is from the typewriter (among others’) of Robert Hill, and features a fast-moving story with humor.

The teaser is a bit silly, with Colonel Hamid recognizing Illya as a Command agent (how?), managing to miss Illya (and Solo, later) at a distance no greater than your average living room, and Illya getting clobbered by a jar of olive oil. Things pick up some after that. Except for the cheap ID card bit, Solo’s entrance to the casbah has a Season One flavor to it, reminding me of “Yellow Scarf.” The teeming bazaar and other casbah scenes are colorful. And he handles himself well throughout, with the authoritative Solo whipcrack voice at the climax. Yes, his impersonation of Pierrot for Ayesha’s benefit is played for laughs, and rather broad ones (that cigarette holder!), but it’s funny.

Waverly is from Boston? And why would he object to giving Pierrot what he wants (Janine), when it won’t cost U.N.C.L.E. anything to achieve their objective?

Nice Touch Dept.: The taxi Solo takes to the casbah entrance looks like a (very old) Citroen, a French vehicle which fits Algeria’s history.

That Ali is about to give Illya a “shot” is quite ominous . . . yet nothing comes of it. To balance that, the scene in which Illya is willing to march out of the hospital sans clothes is a gem.

Hill includes several nods to classic movies, especially “Algiers” (1938). In it Charles Boyer plays thief Pepe le Moko (Pat Harrington Jr.’s “child of the casbah,” Pierrot La Mouche, has the same initials), and in it Boyer is reputed to say to Hedy Lamarr, “Come with me to the casbah.” (Illya gets to say it here.) Hamid’s lady friend Ayesha is named either after one of Mohammed’s wives, or after “She” in H. Rider Haggard’s novel of that name.

Apparently this was to be a return of Hill’s Colonel Hubris from “Deadly Goddess,” and when Victor Buono proved unavailable, the producers renamed the character. If so, they also rewrote him, for Hamid, a comic figure, has none of Hubris’s mad élan, and presents only a sanitized threat. Hamid and Ali (also a knife man, like Hubris’s thug Malik) have more in common with Laurel and Hardy than they do Caspar Gutman and Joel Cairo of “Maltese Falcon” fame. And without a strong antagonist, the story is weakened. It’s understandable why Thrush has “dishonorably discharged” Hamid for “gross incompetence.” (Though I’d have thought such a discharge would usually come via an assassin’s bullet.)

No cause for alarm, viewers: It’s Abbe Lane making that steam rise out of your set. According to IMDb, she was once declared too sexy for Italian TV, and NBC forced her to “cover up” for an appearance on Jackie Gleason. Fortunately, by the time of MfU, things had loosened up. She makes a superb belly dancer, and a better operative than Hamid and Ali combined.

Is Pierrot contemptible for using a child as a shield, or merely so desperate he’s out of his mind? (Luckily for him, Janine never sees him do it.)

If UN.C.L.E. so badly needs the code book to get a jump on Thrush’s plans, why is Waverly so quick to dismiss its value? And how can Waverly read it so easily?

Verdict: With some comic elements that leap over the top, hurt by the lack of real villainy, “Casbah” still is an entertaining spy vs. spy tale, with continual obstacles for our heroes and a neat Houdini turn for Illya. Like most of Hill’s scripts, it’s given an emotional dimension -- here, by Pierrot’s infatuation with Janine.

Memorable lines:
Janine (at her bistro): “Can I get you anything?”
Illya: “Yes; I’ll have one rakat loo-koom.”
Janine (bellowing to the cook): “One Number Three, over easy!”

Solo (to the “blind” beggar): “How did you know my name?”
Beggar: “How does the crane know when summer comes to the north? How does the arrow know how to sink into the heart of its target? . . . I was told what you look like.”

Nurse (to Illya, as she massages his back): “How is your blood?”
Illya (deadpan): “Racing.”

Solo (via communicator): “I need you immediately.”
Illya: “Napoleon. My pores are still open.”

Solo: “I’m counting on you . . . effendi.”
Illya: “Don’t you always?”

Solo (donning Pierrot’s glasses to impersonate him): “I think you ought to have your eyes examined.”
Pierrot (squinting): “They’re not my glasses. I stole them.”

Illya (to hotel clerk): “Would you call us a taxi, please?”
Clerk: “Are you leaving so soon?”
Illya: “Yes, I’m afraid we have to. You see, the young lady, she has a . . . PTA meeting.”
(Illya’s “How about that -- it worked” look as the clerk leaves: priceless)

"The Candidate's Wife Affair" (ep. 3/8)

2010-02-11T08:21:00.001-06:00

This one marks the return of scripter Robert Hill, who gave us such neat dialogue in "Deadly Toys" and "Adriatic Express." "Candidate's Wife" features a host of good elements and scenes, which sit oddly with the bits that don't work, as we'll see.

As we open and find Solo guarding Senator Bryant's wife, we have to ask: Why is U.N.C.L.E. doing the Secret Service's job? We needed a line or two from Waverly in Act I, in which we learn that the Service is asking the Command for help -- that the Service has intelligence indicating that the shadowy entity known as Thrush has a finger in this pie.

Wouldn't it have been smart to have a woman agent (like, say, April Dancer?) backing Solo, so that she could follow Mrs. Bryant in to the ladies' room and the salon? And shouldn't he have either mentioned or displayed the audiograms to Bryant as evidence of his wild-sounding assertion?

Richard Anderson is the perfect image of a presidential candidate, isn't he? Larry D. Mann, too, is great casting as Fairbanks, the cynical politico and veteran of smoke-filled rooms. That he's behind the plot is no real surprise, but the character, especially when talking with Solo in Act III, has a solid authority and believability to him.

Dr. Caxton, the champagne-swilling, "Jabberwocky"-quoting giggler, seems unreliable; I wouldn't hire him to park my car. Perhaps Thrush needed a way to get to a presidential candidate in a hurry, and Caxton's was the only project they had in the pipeline. If it had succeeded, I'll bet Thrush would have promoted the more ruthless Signe to run things.

Good stuff: Having the Bryants be newlyweds is a smart touch, so that Bryant is still learning about his new wife, and the substitution has a chance to work. The revelation that Illya is the chauffeur in Act II; his cat-burglaring around the salon, intercut with Solo's dealing with the sleepy Irina; Illya's vivid reference to his earlier sally there, when he "flushed the old dears in hair curlers"; and his smile when Solo compliments him ("That's what you do best") all click.

One scene in particular is fine work. After Irina the ringer has saved Solo from a plunge off the balcony, he tells her seriously, ". . . anyone who saves my life the way you did . . . whatever happens, I want you to know I'm on your side." This strongly echoes a scene in Raymond Chandler's 1930s novelette "Red Wind," in which a woman saves private eye Philip Marlowe's life. He tells her much the same, and at the end allows her to keep her illusions about a former lover by concealing that the guy was "[j]ust another four-flusher." If only we could have had a similar tag scene here! "You saved my life last night and we had a moment, but it was just a moment. . . ."

Bad stuff: Besides the weirdness that this story apparently takes place in 1967, not a U.S. presidential election year, and the absence of the Secret Service, there's a major issue. Solo and Illya want to confirm that the real Mrs. Bryant has been kidnapped, and a ringer put in her place. The truth serum pills don't work. So, while Irina is sleeping, why not take her fingerprints and run them through their own computers or those of the FBI? Any sensible cop would do that first thing. It wouldn't have changed the plot; simply tell us Mrs. Bryant's prints, and Irina's, aren't on file, and Solo will still need another way to prove or disprove the substitution.

Verdict: Good in many places, featuring some fun detective work and dialogue. It's spoiled mostly by some illogic that could have been fixed, a silly tag with "hip" phrases, and a complete disregard for the emotional connection established between Solo and Irina.

Memorable Lines:
Signe (at the salon, to Solo): "Gentlemen are not allowed beyond these portals, sir."
Solo: "Well, I'm no gentleman; I'm the press."

Solo: "I didn't leave [Mrs. Bryant's] side except . . . once I . . . well, to put on a little smock at the beauty parlor."
Illya (sourly): "You must have looked divine."

Illya (in the limo, as Irina cuddles with Solo): "Napoleon, really. Don't you ever turn it off?"
Solo: "Well, it's not my fault. When you've got it, you've got it. I've got it."

Illya (to Solo): "You Prince Charmings are all alike. I've always told you one day your devastating charm would backfire."

Solo (re: Arnold's house): "Atavistic old place. I suppose it's a throwback to the days of ward heelers and brass spittoons."

Irina: "Mr. Solo, yours is a strange world. Living with all this deceit and violence has done something to you."
Solo: "You're right. It's taught me to trust no one. [Pause] Not even myself. Especially with you."

Solo: "Sometimes the long arm of serendipity outsmarts us all."
(How an "arm" can outsmart anyone, I don't know, but as delivered by RV, it somehow works)

"The Thor Affair" (ep. 3/7)

2010-02-11T08:05:00.001-06:00

See, Season Three wasn’t a total wasteland! This has a Season Two feel, while giving us some deft lines, a plausible (if a little kooky) reason to involve the Innocent, and a non-Thrush threat. (Nothing wrong with Thrush. It’s merely a treat to have another kind of antagonist now and then.)

The opening shot of Solo and Illya in the train compartment is from “Adriatic Express.” Solo’s communicator, round watch, and suit (which is slightly darker than in the remaining scenes), and Illya’s rope, all give it away.

Illya, somebody should have taught you not to pick up the assassin’s rifle! Something tells me that he and Solo would have had a heckuva time explaining who they are and what they’re doing there. Telling us about that would have made for a much better scene with Waverly than the business about the expense accounts.

Bernard Fox must have loved the call to work MfU. Twice, as thorough Thrush Jordin in Season Two, and here as Brutus Thor (what a Fleming-esque villain name!), he got a chance to stretch his acting muscles beyond his usual comic-opera Englishman like Dr. Bombay on “Bewitched.” While the script tells us little about Thor beyond implying that his family has been in munitions for some time, Fox rounds him out as a man too much impressed with his own cleverness, with a self-satisfied smirk and a self-assured manner.

Arthur Batanides turned up everywhere in the ‘60s, even on “Star Trek.” Here his swarthy, Satanic Kiru is an effective assassin, undercut a little by his “none too bright thug” scenes with Thor. (How neat it would have been if he’d been a more sinister presence, and a real threat to Illya at the climax!) But Harry Davis is a dignified delight as the Gandhi-like president of, presumably, India. Dr. Diljohn is rather heroic; when Kiru has fired at Nahdi, Diljohn steps in front of him as a shield.

I admit it: Nellie is a bit annoying, a cross between Doris Day and Lavinia, the schoolteacher in “Girls of Nazarone.” Even Solo and Illya look upset with her at times. But her tooth business acts as an important element, giving us the surprising “Quick! Back to the hotel!” scene in her cab, after which she hurls Solo’s overnight bag off the balcony. Her kookiness gives Illya a springboard for some smart comments, and she’s no helpless bystander during the fights, either.

I’m sure you all caught the tips of the hat to “It Happened One Night” . . . and the butler named “Rhett” . . . and the “LBJ = HHH = H2 = RFK” on the chalkboard during the tag.

If Nahdi is sensitive to cat dander in the open air, as we see in the teaser, he’d have had a similar violent reaction to Thor’s Siamese the moment he stepped into the house. And what if Nahdi flipped through the pages of his speech even once before the actual conference?

At the conference, I think, Solo, as the security agent from the Command, should have been roving around (with Nellie in tow), keeping an eye out for Thor’s moves.

Verdict: The story hustles, our heroes are professional, Thor’s goal is believable, and the humor is kept generally to the right places. Even the bullet-firing toys, which could have come off as silly, fit with the earlier toy motif set up with Thor in Act II; and Nellie’s tooth, Thor’s cat, and his wrist radio all play a role at the climax. Good stuff.

Memorable lines:
Illya: “Thrush would never have missed. The whole thing smacks of amateurs.”
Waverly: “Amateurs, Mr. Kuryakin, are sometimes harder to deal with than professionals.”

Illya (regarding the customs officers): “They always have to mess up your shirts.”
Solo: “How else would you know you’ve crossed a new frontier?”

Desk Clerk (explaining the shortage of rooms): “This happens every time we have one of these dreadful peace conferences.”
Illya: “Yes, the prospect of world peace is a pretty terrifying thought.”

Illya (amused at the news that munitions king Thor is putting Nahdi up): “Disarmament conferences make strange bedfellows.”

Solo (to Nellie): “Believe me, we’re only interested in your tooth.”
Illya (presumably deadpan -- we don’t see his face): “And nothing but the tooth.”

Illya (after a Houdini-like escape and a battle with Thor’s men): “I suggest we repair to the hotel for repairs.”

"The Pop Art Affair" (ep. 3/6)

2010-02-10T15:56:00.002-06:00

To quote incomparable short-story writer Dorothy Parker in a different context:

"Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, dear, dear, dear. . . . I'd love to waltz with you. I'd love to be in a midnight fire at sea."

Not that I'd wish a fire at sea on anyone, but it might be more exciting than this. "Pop Art" starts off decently, with Solo and Waverly golfing (why do people wear sweaters to golf in warm weather?). My inner hamster sprang off his wheel, though, and scurried madly for cover at the sight of Illya, clad in black suit and tie, acting as caddy. And then a rocket in the golf bag, and a hiccup gas . . . oh, dear . . .

That's not to say you couldn't hiccup yourself to death. If you can't get your breath, you'll eventually asphyxiate, I guess. The thought, as you're helplessly hiccuping, that it's such a silly and undignified way to go, would be mortifying. But the effect on the audience is what counts here, and it is too silly. One imagines a "Batman" with Dick Grayson going undercover, or attempting to, at a Gotham City coffeehouse, and Bruce Wayne playing "private eye" after he's captured.

Ah, the "with-it" slang . . . a mixture of what was by this time dated beat slang, and what writers Shanus and Ramrus thought were current hippie-isms. David's Illya at least has the grace to look uncomfortable with the slang he's tossing around, when he's not looking like he knows he's putting us on. And Robert's Solo looks rather nauseated at several points. Illya's extempore "happening" poem is funny, though, as is Sylvia's charcoal sketch of the "brooding" Russian agent.

Even the worst MfU script can have some little thing on the ball, and this has several. First is the potential edge-of-the-chair moment as Solo is within feet of the captured Illya, who can't make his partner hear him through the soundproofed painting. Second, Solo's psychological attack on Mari, using her weakness, fear of looking old, to get to her. Third, and best, is the moment at the climax when one of the longhaired thugs is about to pounce on Solo. Sensibly, Illya doesn't bother yelling, "Napoleon, look out!" He shoots the thug and is done with him. Oh, and four, when Illya surges through the door of Sylvia's pad (above), armed and in a ready-for-anything crouch.

I like the dark wet street when Illya crosses from the coffeehouse to the gallery in Act I. It actually looks much like what I recall of the area around Washington Square when I visited NYC back in '98.

Harmonica Lake? Was somebody having fun with the name of the `40s starlet, Veronica Lake?

Pointing out logical holes in this story is like mentioning paint flaws on a car that's on fire, but don't you think Sylvia's parents are far too old -- that they should have been written as grandparents? How, in the course of one day or so, did little Sylvia manage to have the pendant duplicated? And what happened with world-famous model Mari after Solo disarmed her?

Verdict: Neither funny nor exciting, it's a testament to the folly of allowing anyone, from the producer's nephew to the best boys, input into a script. "Hey, we have some neat footage of a balloon we could use --"

Memorable lines:
Sylvia (to Illya): "Hi! Would you care for a portrait?"
Illya: "No thank you. I have one."

Sylvia: "You have really got brooding eyes. Almost like a Dostoyevsky character."
Illya (deadpan, as usual): "You don't say."

Solo (to the embubbled Illya): "I hope you scrubbed behind your ears. Isn't it a little early for your Saturday night bath?"
(Funnier, says I, if these lines had been reversed)

"The Monks of St. Thomas Affair" (ep. 3/5)

2010-02-10T10:19:00.002-06:00

What a pleasant surprise! We seem to bounce this season between the decent-to-good (“Her Master’s Voice,” “Galatea”) and the bad (“Dreadful,” “Super-Colossal”). Here we swing away from the dumb side yet again to a pleasant, fast-moving story (the first filmed this season).

We open with terrific byplay and banter between Solo and Illya, reminiscent of the give-and-take David McDaniel wrote for them in his Ace novels. I suspect this has or will inspire endless fanfic, thanks in part to the patient “I knew he was going to say that” smile on Illya’s face. Truly this is one of the best scenes between them since the early days.

A motion detector to turn on the sprinkler system? Did those exist in our world back then? The sharply-directed teaser ends with a superb hook, as Dr. Lambert’s study explodes with them in it. With teasers like this and the one in “Minus-X” where Solo is apparently about to be run over, we never see how our heroes avoid being killed. Instead Act I opens with a discussion of said escape. It does make the stories move -- but just once I’d like to see the immediate followup.

Illya reports about the “cathode tube” for the laser -- but whom is he reporting to? I wish they’d kept the idea of a case officer, like “Channel D,” Heather, or the raven-haired Sarah, to act as liaison for them on a mission.

Despite the fact that Paris and Zurich are only about 650 klicks apart, not the 1342 given here, there’s at least a nod given to the natural difficulties such as the curvature of the earth. So Thrush is simply establishing their ability to unleash global terror? Much scarier than demands for gold. The populace in those European capitals would never know when their beloved museum or church would burst into flame.

At first I thought Solo’s green hat was a Tyrolean, the kind young Manhattan executives wore in the early Sixties until they realized they looked like ninnies. With his car coat and raincoat, his velour stingy-brim fedora looks good, and fits the Alpine setting. In fact Solo shines all through this story. When he steps into his room at the inn and confronts the thug rifling his suitcase, he once again is that dangerous gent framed by bulletproof glass from Season One.

Illya’s star rides high in this one too. Deftly he slips out of the Thrushes’ Renault Dauphine (why didn’t the back seat Thrush shoot him? Probably didn’t believe what he was seeing!), and later cat-burglars his way up and into the monastery. At 10:19, note his exasperation at his tip from Dolby when he’s acting as a porter, and earlier, the “Not likely” look he gives Solo at Waverly’s idea that visiting a monastery might be good for Napoleon’s soul.

Aside from the ascetic-looking Abbot Simon (he’s no Brother Love, but he is effective) and his plug-uglies, the monks are lovable, comic figures. Brother Peter is played by Henry Calvin, the roly-poly Sergeant Garcia on “Zorro,” who worked with RV some seven years back.

Solo’s disguising himself and Andrea as monks was bound to fail; Simon or one of his acolytes would eventually notice two new “members,” as they do. Solo probably knew that, and the ploy was only intended to get them across the court and deep into the monastery.

At 11 a.m. in Paris and Zurich, it’s 5 a.m. in New York (despite the sunlight outside Waverly’s office). If he got a flight at 6 a.m. EDT, could he have made it to Paris by 4:30 or so their time? And once there, why doesn’t he evacuate the Louvre? Still, the deadline gives us the ticking clock all good thrillers need.

As for Andrea, it’s nice to have an Innocent who isn’t ditzy and who has a life before the adventure begins. And her little scene with Solo in the dungeon is charming (though I don’t believe she’s never been kissed!). But . . . “Adolf”? Has anybody in Europe named their son that since 1945?

Tag scene: far too cute. Better to have returned to the matter of Solo’s interrupted date, and steak, from the teaser.

Verdict: While some elements are hard to swallow, Solo and Illya are professional, and they and the villains never clown like “Batman” or “Get Smart” characters -- a breath of fresh air after last week’s epic fail.

Memorable Lines:
Illya (after Solo has listed the gastronomic, and other, delights he’d been about to enjoy when Waverly called): “There’s a can of root beer in the glove compartment.”
Solo: “Thank you. You’ve made my evening.”

Andrea: “Who are you? Do you always listen in on personal telephone calls?”
Solo: “Oh, yes. Telephone conversations, monasteries, keyholes --”

Illya (after hopping off the baggage van and complaining about the lack of heat in the luggage compartment of the plane): “Is this any way to run an airline?”
(A wink, naturally, to the National Airlines commercials of the time: “You bet it is!”)

Andrea (about fiancé Adolf): “If you mention the Beatles to him, he thinks of insects.”
Solo (dryly): “Well?”

"The Super-Colossal Affair" (ep. 3/4)

2010-02-10T07:59:00.001-06:00

"Do you solemnly swear on your ergonomic keyboard to refrain from using the words 'stink,' 'stink bomb,' 'stinkeroo,' or any other combination of said word during your review?"

"I do."

"Proceed."

"But Your Honor, it's funny!"

From the opener, with Illya in bushy-bearded disguise, it bounces from one Borscht Belt gag and in-joke (the "little old winemaker" line was a wink to the then-current Italian Swiss Colony commercials) to another. It's always fun watching Hollywood kid itself, isn't it? Veteran character actor J. Carrol Naish makes a superb Mafioso, though from the quality of his underlings I'd guess Uncle Giuliano's Syndicate could have used a bailout from Thrush.

I know all the Illya fangirls are busy enjoying him in his tight white T-shirt as the pool repairman. And as for us guys, well, there was just nobody like Carol Wayne. No, she wasn't Kate Hepburn or Bette Davis, but her comic Marilyn Monroe shtick was a classic. (Could her name here, Ginger LaVeer, be a pun on "ginger beer"?) Only she, and maybe her contemporary Tina Louise as a more famous Ginger, could put a smart little spin on lines like hers to Illya, "I hope the pool gets broken again soon."

Shelley Berman was also one of the best. At times his director, Sheldon Veblen, seems almost human.

Though I'm not sure why Waverly's casino scenes need to be in Act IV at all, Barry Shear's direction makes them, and everything else, move handily. Strangely, there are several points in the DVD where the next scene cuts in abruptly, as if something has been snipped out.

Cringeworthy stuff: Solo slapping Illya's cast-off beard on his head and covering both with a scarf to pass as a peasant woman; later, Illya batting his lashes back at Ginger in her dressing room. Then there's the comic fight scene on the bedroom set, though as some have commented, if you turn off the music the fight seems more serious. (Okay, not with Ginger squeaking "Help!" and Veblen trying to direct in the midst of it.) And Waverly comes to Vegas, alone, and drives himself down the Strip?

Another element I've noticed, here and back into Season Two, is that Solo, Illya, and Waverly rarely sign off their communications to each other, no "Yes, sir. Solo out" or the like. How is the person on the other end supposed to know you haven't been kidnapped by enemy forces?

I'm no chemist, though I was married to one once. What is "dimethyl chloral fluoride"? I thought the main ingredient in skunk spray was butyl mercaptan.

The sedan parked in Giuliano's court, and racing past the flower cart, is the Mercedes sedan that came out in 1965. Yet the one we see heading down the road away from the flower cart is the model that preceded it, the 1960-64 "Fintail," a Benz we've seen numerous times on the series. Probably an insert shot.

According to the dates in Jon's book, this was the last Season Three episode to be rerun before the more serious Season Four started. What a contrast in tone --!

Verdict: To paraphrase Mr. Spock again (and I'll want to do that a lot this season), It's Not U.N.C.L.E. As We Know It, Captain. A silly Gold Key-ish comic book, it yet sports well-timed gags, takes, and bits of business, and gives Robert and David a chance to clown a little. (At 18:10, for instance, Robert has Solo do a creditable Brando voice!) Just take a deep breath, go to your Happy Place, think of it as an hour-long "Get Smart," and you'll be fine.

Memorable/ Funny Lines:
Solo: "Well, if there's a burial plot afoot, sir, Illya and I will uncover it."
Illya: "Would you mind keeping me out of your morbid puns, please?"

Illya (glancing at a photo of Cariago): "Nasty looking bird."
Solo (deftly snagging the photo as Illya swirls it through the air to him): "Where does it nest?"
Waverly: "It's migratory. I believe it propagates in Beverly Hills."
(A solid exchange worthy of a serious story)

Ginger (to Cariago): "Even the pool repairman was nicer to me than you are!"
Solo (in the surveillance van, to Illya): "How much nicer?"
Ginger (on radio): "A lot nicer!"
Illya: "She's exaggerating."
Solo: "Mm-hmm. . . ."

Veblen (to his actor): "Beautiful, Twill, magnificent. You filled that scene with all the emotion of a fire hydrant."

Veblen (to Harry, as his men impound the film equipment): "You want me to cut out my heart, so you can take that too?"
Harry: "Uh, no, that won't be necessary. The orders specify only negotiable items."

Ginger (waxing lyrical to Veblen): "I've seen every movie you've ever made. I've seen 'Gone with the Wind' four times."
Veblen: "Glad you liked it. I was twelve years old when it was made."
Ginger (eyes wide): "Really? I would have never guessed."

Solo (sotto voce to Illya, over canapés and champagne): "I think I'm beginning to enjoy the [Syndicate] family life."
Illya: "You haven't met all your in-laws yet."

"The Galatea Affair" (ep. 3/3)

2010-02-10T07:45:00.000-06:00

Watching this one when it was new, we probably forgave ourselves for thinking, after “Dreadful,” that Season Three was off to a bad start. “Galatea” (interesting that the dialogue references her, but not Pygmalion) has the feel of a Season Two entry, while being the only time Illya was ever partnered for a full episode by a Command agent other than Solo.

Venice (no title card, but what else can it be?) is our setting as Solo, with Illya as his gondolier, spies on Thrush courier Baroness de Chasseur, which my French dictionary says means “Hunter.” Unfortunately Solo sticks out, not just because of the binoculars, but because he’s alone. He should have had April Dancer or another female agent along for cover.

“Mister Thirty,” hey? “30” was the code newspaper reporters used to mark the end of a story, at least in movies on the Late Show. This suggests that the natty security chief made his reputation ending people’s lives.

The detail of steel shutters on Waverly’s windows is a good one, in case the complex ever receives a frontal attack.

This, as Bill Koenig has said, is possibly the story which best showcases Noel Harrison’s Mark Slate. Harrison is nobody’s Olivier, but here he gives Slate a professional, authoritative air, especially at the climax. That goofy caplike thing he wears in Act III and IV, well, you can toss it on the bonfire you’ve got going with Solo’s Indian Army helmet and other lids. (Don’t forget to add Mark’s pink Carnaby Street shirt. Somehow it makes him look unreliable.)

Here we delight as Joan Collins plays Bronx sweetheart Rosy Shlagenheimer, and the Baroness Bibi, and then Bibi playing Rosy playing Bibi! The casting layers an in-joke on top of that, the obvious one that young Harrison plays Henry Higgins to Rosy’s Eliza -- and it was Noel’s father Rex who created the “My Fair Lady” role. In a clever reversal from MFL, “Higgins” (Slate) doesn’t think he or Rosy can accomplish the job, while “Col. Pickering” (Waverly) is positive he can. Despite the title, though, the education of Rosy is only a small part of the story.

Pounding manners and a new accent into Rosy’s skull would take time. If the opener is one of the quarterly meetings the Baroness undertakes, then the next one wouldn’t be for some three months in the future. But we have little indication that close to three months passes. Besides, did Solo spend that entire time in the hospital? Nice if, at some point, we could have had a reference to his getting back in training after two weeks on antibiotics.

Illya seems out of character here. True, we see him enthusiastically chowing down in that Hamburg dive. (I’m not sure I’d want to eat anything prepared that close to a live horse.) But I don’t think he’d adopt a Bronx accent in that scene. Plus, twice he calls Olaf, the Baron’s retainer, “Sunshine.” That’s a Solo-style remark. Our Illya would say to the glowering thug, “You’re such a cheerful creature” or “Thank you for bringing a ray of sunshine into my life.” (Olaf looks weirdly like Jerry Stiller, don’t you think? I kept expecting him to break into a Frank Costanza riff.)

The Hamburg dive looks authentically smoky and dingy, the kind of joint, I’d guess, where the young Beatles often played.

Something about the steady way Illya assesses Bibi/Rosy/Bibi early in Act III makes me think he’s tumbled to the Baron’s substitution, but we see later he hasn’t.

It scarcely comes as a surprise that the Baron is the hidden figure, the Thrush treasurer. We see him ruling Olaf with a steel fist, tracking down Slate and keeping an eye on him via the maid, building a plan to circumvent Slate and Illya’s play with Rosy, and lying to Bibi (“We are both captives of Thrush”) to get her to cooperate. It would have been neat to have the hidden mastermind turn out to be someone we never suspected, but this makes a good deal of sense.

The tag, with Solo swooping in to take Bibi out to lunch, reinforces his reputation as the best there is at what he does. However, it cheapens the relationship, whatever it was, that seemed to be developing between Bibi and Mark, making Bibi look as flighty in her elegant way as Rosy is in hers.

Verdict: Without the Solo-Illya dynamic, this one seems odd (and you have to ask how Mark can be so energetic moments after being “mildly tranquilized”). But scripter Jackson Gillis, an old hand whose credits go back to the George Reeves “Superman,” delivers a better script than you’d think, with tricky plot switches and a good villain revealed and killed at the end.

Memorable Lines:
Illya (overhearing Rosy at work): “Speaks English.”
Slate: “English??”
Illya: “They call it Bronx.”

Baron de Chasseur (levelly): “Bibi’s last instructor played a bit too close to the net. I’m sure you would never make such a mistake.”

Slate (in a murmur meant only for Illya, as Solo strolls off with the Baroness): “Napoleon doesn’t waste any time, does he?”
Illya (grimly diving into his paperwork): “Yes. It’s just like he’s never been away.”

"The Sort of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful Affair" (ep. 3/2)

2010-02-09T08:05:00.000-06:00

With this one, a Harlan Ellison script (!), we are skating on thin ice. Any misstep could send us plunging into the dark Silly depths, and sometimes we can see how eroded the ice is. But -- it's often quite funny. And as with "Indian Affairs," the bones of a serious plot poke out here and there, too.

It opens with atmosphere, as Solo (wearing his shoulder rig outside his windbreaker, as he did way back in "Fiddlesticks") breaks into a Thrush-front pawn shop, only to fight for his life with the first of the Thrush cyborgs. Good stuff: We see him reload. The bad, of course, is the Karloff-as-monster pose of the A-77 fembot, who seems too easy to dodge, and the save-money-at-all-costs shooting day for night when Solo emerges. Directed differently, with the A-77 kept more to the shadows and simply striding purposefully like Schwarzenegger's original Terminator -- and with less comic music -- this could have been exciting. (Kind of scary to think we might have some of James Cameron's inspiration for the Terminator right here.)

The idea that Thrush, despite their assets (that $1.6 billion = $10.6 billion in 2008), must float a loan from a Swiss bank, is the sort of imaginative springboard you'd expect from the series and from Ellison. In contrast, why do both Waverly and Illya refuse to believe their top agent and friend, respectively, after all the wild things they've seen in the Command's service? But then this scene, and the characters' byplay, are going for laughs.

Our blonde Innocent, Andy, is Jeannine Riley, most famous for her role on "Petticoat Junction." We can understand her taking off after her late roommate Muriel, though she'd certainly be fired from the commercial and lose more income than Muriel owed her. That giant phone bill ($1300 smackers today) sounds like a clue . . . but it's never mentioned again. I'm certain that Ellison, when he has Waverly murmur at Solo, "Cease the flummery," is tipping his cap to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries.

The U.N.C.L.E. medical examiner looks like he's having fun delivering lines like "This cupcake hasn't got an appendix." So this A-77 was Muriel, the original. Are the others pure robots? Or did Pertwee tack together some more human pieces with his colloid plastics and circuits? Lack of body parts would be a serious bottleneck in producing the robot soldiers. (Well, maybe not for Thrush.)

The captain of Thrush industry, Mr. Lash, is played by Barry Atwater, who holds a special place in all "Star Trek" fans' hearts as the famous Vulcan Surak. Here his delivery and mannerisms seem terribly inhuman, so much that I thought he would be revealed as a robot himself. Some of that scenery he chewed up in Act II may have given him heartburn.

Woodrow Parfrey is fun to watch as the absent-minded if cliché professor. (His answering machine is interesting; did those exist in our world then?) Also, Pamela Curran's Margo has a nice chemistry with Solo as he beams the Solo Charm right at her. Not to mention the comic turn by Madame Hecubah the fortune teller, which wouldn't have been out of place in a private-eye story. Solo's ploy of wishing to join Thrush, in order to get closer to Miss Margo and thus to the heart of the operation, is smart, too.

Nomination for Worst Line in the Series: Solo's "Call me Nappy." It's supposed to be funny, but . . . good grief. Imagine the howls of laughter in England, where a "nappy" is a diaper.

Nice Detail Dept.: Solo uses a code name, "Sheep's Clothing"; Waverly arrives armed with the U.N.C.L.E. Special carbine.

Verdict: This isn't U.N.C.L.E. as we know it, Jim. Had it not been for the change in tone this year, this episode could have been an interesting and more believable SF story with some clever lines and good action scenes.

(More) Funny Lines (than Usual):
Solo (attempting to explain his experience with the A-77 to Illya): "She just twisted the head off [the dummy] and walked away."
Illya: "No offense, Napoleon, but she probably thought the dummy was you."
Solo: "That's not funny. It's true!"
Illya: (oddly dismissively): "After you put two full clips of bullets into her? Seems reasonable. She did it in a fit of pique."

Waverly (at Illya's reading of Thrush billion-dollar balance sheet): "I think we can dispense with the tone of naked greed, Mr. Kuryakin."
(If Illya is a good party-line Communist, wouldn't he be disgusted instead?)

Medical Examiner (about the A-77): "A living creature with artificial parts. A composite; something Burke and Hare might have gathered in graveyards if this were Edinburgh, eighteenth century. A sort of do-it-yourself dreadful!"

Toeffler: "Punctuality is the blood and gristle of our [banking] business."

Madame Hecubah: "That'll be a finif, five bucks. [At Andy's protest] I'm tellin' ya the past, ain't I?"

Illya: "Miss Francis and I were detained by the Thrush Welcome Wagon."
Solo: "Ah, you've been captured."
Illya: "It's amazing how you grasp the picture with such unerring clarity."

Solo (to Margot): "Do you think I want to be a white-collar worker all my life? An appraiser for foreign banks -- a toady for totallers?"

Waverly (to technician Miss Townsend, re: her umbrage over Solo): "Triangulation, Miss Townsend, not alienation of affections."

"The Her Master's Voice Affair" (ep. 3/1)

2010-02-09T07:49:00.004-06:00

And so we kick off the dreaded-by-many, yet still-loved, Season Three: a whole new approach to the stories, the theme song, and the characters -- "playful," as the author of the season's liner notes puts it. Since I haven't rewatched most of these since the CBN era, most of the good and bad will be new to me.

"Her Master's Voice" -- a play on the old RCA Victor logo of the little dog listening to "His Master's Voice" -- starts with our man Solo, wearing a stingy-brim fedora. (He would look good in the right hat -- say, a Bogart-ish fedora!) Despite his calling cab driver Illya "stiff" and "Spike" for some reason, the teaser, like most of the action scenes in this one, is not played for laughs, and feels like a Season Two entry. I do wonder why Thrush makes their move on the same morning that Matsu returns; did they expect him to arrive much later?

In Act I we get some cool background on Illya: black belt in judo (the look on Solo's face tells us he doesn't have one), et al. He must have been a child prodigy to get all that in as well as Survival School and three years or so, now, with the Command. But what leads Waverly to conclude that Miki's school needs to be investigated?

Again we have a kind of Season One or Two flavor, as Solo takes on a cover identity at the school. (Better still, says I, if he'd taken a cover name as well. By this time, the moment a Thrush reports his name to Central, somebody's gonna recognize it.) Despite that British Imperial tropical helmet, which ought to be burned, he's the perfect confidential secretary, with an "American by birth, but don't hold it against me, I'm really a subject of the Queen, don't y' know" air.

Why does no one ask just why Joseph Ruskin's Mephisto-bearded villain, Sutro, has endowed the school so handsomely? He needed a line about "My daughter once attended Partridge," etc. Otherwise, by our standards today, he seems a bit of a perv, what?

"Next time, Mr. Solo, if you haven't checked your entire quarters for bugs, don't call your partner until you do." "Ah, yes, sir. . . ." "To be fair, sir, Mr. Solo was under scrutiny by everyone at the Academy. He would have had a hard time calling in via communicator without being spotted." "Hmf. True, of course. Just be careful in future, won't you?"

Let's not give Illya an F for not recognizing Record Delivery Guy as the inside milkman. Remember, he never saw that one's face.

Solo moves fast in getting next to Miss Verity, don't he? True, she's been surrounded by girls, and the sluglike Duane, for two years, but even so, that's quick work, boy.

Nicely creepy, the scene with the "sleepwalking" Verity stalking Solo with the axe. Though why would Solo leave his door unlocked in enemy country? It could have been Gratz coming after him. Besides, if Sutro and Partridge wanted to get Solo off the premises, all they had to do was command Verity -- or worse, one of the girls -- to tiptoe into his room and start screaming. That they could have hushed up; an axe murder, not so much.

Good stuff: Solo's one-upmanship with Duane in collaring his own bag; his verbal thrusts and ripostes with Sutro at the pool; his detective work as he questions Verity; the charming/annoying bits with Illya and Miki ("If you do have to fire a gun, please remember to take the safety catch off first"), including a mention of my favorite war, the Second Punic; and another comment about expense accounts, which Miki overhears and then needles Illya about. (He should have spanked her, and much sooner.) Naturally we have the self-referential bit of Illya and Miki watching what is clearly "Girl from . . ." on TV.

At the climax, however, there's nothing playful, with Solo being hunted like a fox by a pack of the hypnotized schoolgirls. Neat to see Waverly tossing that Jaguar E-Type around like Stirling Moss, but the "rush hour" gag is too silly. Illya should have assembled a team, landed a Command helicopter on the playing field, and stormed the place. As for Illya the fast and ruthless, he has as little hesitation in shooting Sutro, twice, as he did with Col. Morgan in "Secret Sceptre."

Verdict: Effectively directed by Barry Shear, fraught with more danger and with a more plausible threat (not Thrush) than many episodes this year, it sports a raft of funny lines and character moments for our Dynamic Duo.

Memorable lines:
Solo (rather snidely, about Illya's Ph.D. from Cambridge): "Dead languages, wasn't it?"

Dr. Matsu (to Illya, re: the revelation that the Russian holds a Ph.D.): "I didn't know we were colleagues."
Illya: "Well, of course, I'll have to brush up on my new maths."

Waverly: "You, Mr. Solo, will check into the matter of the school. The Partridge Academy for Young Ladies." (At Solo's look) "Young ladies, Mr. Solo. Somewhat younger than you're accustomed to."

Solo: "The maharani has just turned sixteen. My, my, how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I took little Gigi on her first tiger hunt."

Summing Up: Season Two

2010-02-08T08:31:00.004-06:00

In his "The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Book," Jon Heitland points out that ". . . the stories of the second season stand on their own. Though they lacked Sam Rolfe's touch, they nevertheless adhered to the U.N.C.L.E. formula of adventure with humor. The plots were not to be taken too seriously, but the villains still exuded menace." True enough; when it came time to list honors for this season, I found that, while not always up to the quality of Season One, Two has almost too many charms to count. I wound up with a lot of ties!

Now, my coveted Silver Communicator Awards for Season Two. Feel free to join in with your own winners and losers:

Best in Show: "Ultimate Computer," "Alexander the Greater," "Re-Collectors"

Best Performance by Robert Vaughn: "Nowhere"

Best Performance by David McCallum: "Ultimate Computer," "Arabian"

Most Important to the U.N.C.L.E. Universe: "Waverly Ring," "Nowhere"

Best Innocent: Buzz Conway, "Project Deephole"

Best Villains: Victor Marton ("Foxes and Hounds"), Vincent Carver ("Discotheque"), Mother Fear and Captain Jenks ("Children's Day"), Arthur Rollo ("Minus-X")

Most Delightful Stories: "Foxes and Hounds," "Ultimate Computer," "Adriatic Express," "Minus-X"

A for Atmosphere: "Very Important Zombie"
And the Tarnished Medals go to:
Dullest: "Round Table"
Silliest: "Yukon," "Foreign Legion," "Indian Affairs"

Onward to Season Three!

"The Indian Affairs Affair" (ep. 2/30)

2010-02-08T08:14:00.001-06:00

Here we are at the close of Season Two, which fielded 30 episodes to Season One's 29. I gather Dean Hargrove's "Indian Affairs" is considered yet another silly story, which it is. And yet, and yet . . .

. . . there's the skeleton of a serious plot here, poking out through the tongue-in-cheekiness. Thrush's "transistorized" hydrogen bomb poses a real threat, and Mr. Yamaha could have been an effective if mannered villain. (I suspect Hargrove made the mastermind Japanese as a sly dig about transistor radios from Japan.) The kidnapping of the chief's daughter to insure his cooperation and that of his tribe is a good, if standard, Thrush ploy. Solo's spiking of L.C. Carson's guns at the climax by seeing through the courier setup has the authentic U.N.C.L.E. flavor (though it could have been filmed more suspensefully). Plus the idea of seasoned world travelers Solo and Illya dropping into the middle of yet another culture and finding themselves at sea would have been a hoot -- the kicker being that the culture exists right within the borders of the U.S.

Instead, in 50 minutes we get nearly every Hollywood cliché about American Indians, from "How!" and "scalped" to headbands on the braves, "Indian uprising," "redskins," "war dances," and the bigoted white man who calls Charisma "squaw." Now, Hargrove is lampooning most of these clichés, of course. The young Cardiak (!) braves use motorbikes instead of war ponies; they attack the circled vehicles, only these are cars instead of wagons, and the heroes are attacking the villains; and, in possibly the funniest bit, a brave threatens the staked-out Illya with giant red ants, only to be told there aren't any giant red ants to be found.

All this, however, loses ground when confronted with things like a brave using a cigar store Indian as cover to trail Solo like a Warner Brothers cartoon; and Illya, "disguised" as an Indian, looking more like Prince Valiant than like any of the Cardiaks. We have to wonder why nobody in Thrush noticed Illya's blue eyes, too. At least "Hombre," in this same period, explains Paul Newman's baby blues: He plays a white raised by Apaches.

Good stuff: a guest appearance by the U.N.C.L.E. Special carbine; Solo's communicator dart; his thoughtful planting of a homer on Charisma (though deliberately allowing her to be kidnapped by

Thrush is too much); Illya's rattletrap loaner truck from the Tulsa office; and, as mentioned, Solo's outmaneuvering of Carson regarding the couriers and the bomb.

Diving through a closed window to rescue Charisma, while cool-looking, wasn't necessary, Mr. Solo. There was an iron garden chair right there you could have used. And Princess Charisma, there's only one proper response to a villain telling you a gun's not loaded: Pull the trigger!

Yes, that guy playing Ralph, Carson's aide, who smiles beatifically in Act IV at the idea of burning their captives to death: That's Nick Colasanto, known to us two decades hence as "Coach" on "Cheers."

Imagine, if you will, that Sam Rolfe had been producing, and he sent Hargrove's script back for a major rewrite. Envision a story featuring the Navajo in New Mexico/Arizona, with our guys having to convince a clan on the Big Rez that they are there to help (picture Solo and Illya in a sweat-lodge ceremony!). Yamaha as chief villain. Illya the disguise master, with bronzed skin, contacts, jeans and boots, and a black wig, actually blending in with the Indians. Solo, minus suit and tie, driving a battered pickup and masquerading as a BIA agent. And a nail-biter of a climax, in which Solo or Illya, or both, must outguess Yamaha's moves regarding which briefcase has the bomb --! Would have been neat, huh?

Verdict: My notes from the CBN days say, "The plot is fairly serious -- it's the tone and the jokes that make it funny." True . . . though it's neither serious enough nor funny enough to make it a classic.

Memorable lines:
Ralph: "Why can't you just talk to [your chief] over this phone?"
Illya (as a Cardiak Indian): "The voice can be recorded. I have been personally tricked that way by the telephone company many times."

Illya (to Ralph, after a long series in "sign" language): "Would you like for me to repeat that?"

Illya: "Communicator dart. Fired it through the window, I suppose."
Chief Highcloud: "Yes."
Illya: "My friend is always showing off."

"The Minus-X Affair" (ep. 2/29)

2010-02-08T07:59:00.000-06:00

This one, as Bill Koenig notes on his site, should have been the last episode this year; it would have ended Season Two on a strong note. Peter Allan Fields's "Minus-X" is a favorite of mine, for the plausible SF plot, Barry Shear's sharp direction, the "Goldfinger" flavor, and an Innocent who is drawn in because of her unknowing link to Thrush.

We open with a weird scene, as Waverly, Solo, and Illya observe Louis, one of their fellow agents, in the grip of what we'll later learn is Plus-X. Louis knows them; Solo identifies himself and Illya by their first names. There are more than five senses, really: the sense of your own position in space, where your limbs are in relation to your body and each other, et al. The amplification of so much input, as well as that of smell, hearing, etc., would be likely to drive you mad. Imagine being able to hear your own muscles working! (For an example of how the super-magnification of just one sense, smell, could smash civilization, see Spider Robinson's SF novel Telempath.)

Wheels within wheels here. We presume, after we learn (surprise!) that Prof. Stemmler is a Thrush, that the attempt on her lab foiled by our heroes was a ruse. After Louis escaped, Rollo would know the Command would check out Stemmler, and had her prepared with the story of the "break-in." His men then pretended to steal her equipment to conceal her Thrush status. Later he uses Leslie to get Stemmler out from under the eye of U.N.C.L.E.

Theo Marcuse's spats-wearing, cane-twirling Arthur Rollo is much like his dandified killer, Valetti, from "Re-Collectors." However, he gives Rollo an evil jollity that Valetti did not have. I imagine him collecting Sevres porcelain and eighteenth-century paintings (and perhaps underage girls). Watch his sheer enjoyment and anticipation as he briefs his men. His dynamic with Eve Arden's Stemmler sings, too. Probably they've clashed many times during this project; yet they are on a first-name basis themselves. They are, as Rollo points out, part of the culture that is Thrush.

Barry Shear's direction here is superb. As Louis races out of the frame, we cut to a lab mouse emerging into a maze. Later, as party girl Leslie drops a glass, a hard cut shows us Stemmler sweeping up broken glass in her lab.

I love Illya's "Well played. Point to you" nod to the Thrush trumpet player after the latter shoots him with the dart, and Stemmler's unhesitating stride to the door when Rollo delivers his ultimatum.

"Apples, and cookies, and cinnamon toast . . ." Robert Vaughn must have had loads of fun as Solo pretends to be a slobbering five-year-old. When Solo shoots trumpet player Whittaker, though, it's with three Luger slugs, not with a sleep dart. However charming Solo may be, he's still a pro.

Illya snipes at Solo and grumbles at him when the older agent asks about his headache. Yet their teamwork when they assault Rollo's plant, especially in the scene where Illya volunteers to "take out the garbage" and Solo salutes him British Army style, is classic.

If the story falls down at all, it's in the last ten minutes. We never see Rollo and his team steal the data they came for -- and if the team members have memorized the circuits, plans, and whatnot, why transmit the data cards? (As a backup, in case one or more of the team were killed?) What was that power room where Solo and Illya face Rollo and his men? The team seems rather easily knocked out for temporary supermen, too. However, the rare unhappy ending, as Rollo shoots Stemmler before dying himself, saves the scene.

I love Sharon Farrell's brittle Leslie, she of the bitterness and febrile gaiety. Her lines at the tag, though, don't convince me that her mother's death has really gotten through to her. A line about, "She must have loved me; she died for me," would have done it. (Solo, thankfully, does not come on to her, not she to him -- a flashback to Season One's flavor.) If Leslie was depressed, an emotional after-effect of Plus-X, will the surviving team members defect from Thrush in remorse? And what is the after-effect of a dose of Minus-X? Do you giggle too easily at reruns of "The Partridge Family"?

Verdict: A suspenseful "Goldfinger" for the small screen, though it could have used another quarter hour of screen time: to explore the effects of Plus- and Minus-X, to show us Rollo and his men actually stealing their data, and most important, to fill out the bitter dynamic between Dr. Stemmler and her wayward daughter.

Memorable lines:
Lillian Stemmler (on Rollo's ultimatum): "The girl is my daughter, Mr. Solo. A stranger, perhaps, but nevertheless my daughter. . . . You may shoot me if you like. That will stop me."

Stemmler: "By the time you reach your adversaries [at the plutonium plant], Mister Rollo, they will be dumber than a box of rocks."

Leslie (gaily, bitterly): "And these Neanderthal friends of yours with their muscles and their guns? They a part of your salon of Nobel prizewinners, Mother?"

Rollo (to Stemmler): "We don't like each other much, huh? But we are Thrush. Above all, my dear . . . we are Thrush."

"The Bat Cave Affair" (ep. 2/28)

2010-02-05T09:00:00.001-06:00

Jerry McNeely's second script for the series is a fan favorite, apparently for the campy tone and for Martin Landau's intentionally theatrical performance as Count Zark. It bounces neatly from the Ozarks to two locations in Spain, and then to Transylvania (which in the MfU world seems to be only a short motorbike ride from Vienna) while confronting our heroes with a world-sized threat.

We open up with a colorful, and distinctly odd, setting for our urban sophisticate Solo, a farm "somewhere in the Ozarks." We get "an easy country charm," as John Denver sang, from Clemency McGill -- the "Petticoat Junction" stereotype of rural folk which prevailed on TV in those days. There's also a distinct Peter Lorre vibe from Mr. Transom, and, thank goodness, a solid reason for Solo to be there: Clemency, apparently, "foresaw" (thanks to Thrush's comb transmitter) the planting of a bomb at the United Nations. The teaser ends with Illya doffing a battered Borsalino and dodging a live bull in the ring in sunny Madrid. What's not to like?

At HQ, as well as at her home in the Ozarks, Clemency's ability to ID the hidden pictures depends on Transom, the Thrush plant, being able to "send" the message somehow to her comb transmitter. (I'll leave the exact method as an exercise for the student.) But Transom does not see the picture of Waverly's nephew, and therefore cannot prime Clemency's response. Her "knowing way" must be a real if erratic psi power, which probably is why Thrush selected her to start with.

We get to see the U.N.C.L.E. commissary, which, oddly, has what looks like a window. The blue tables make it look a lot less institutional, somehow.

For some reason Vaughn's Solo fumbles for words throughout the story. Almost the first moment when he seems himself is when he puts a swift bullet/sleep dart into Zark's hulking henchman. The first? At 41:21, revel in his "We go this-a-way" gesture. Ah, Martha, the boy's got such style.

Clearly Illya does not care for bats at all. Understandable; by the '60s we knew the little darlings can carry rabies (though, Wikipedia tells me, not so much in Western Europe). I wish we'd had more comments like Illya's statement that the piranhas in the castle moat wouldn't be able to live in the Rumanian climate. If Solo, say, had remarked that Zark, clearly insane, is gambling that he can collect the billion before Thrush Central squashes him, it would have pushed the whole thing back over the spoof line and made it somewhat more plausible.

Mr. Redline of our Easily Corrected Corrections Department informs me that when Illya says Chiroptera is "Latin for 'a bat,'" he really should have said it was Greek. Also, when Count Zark says that bats use radar, he should have said sonar. Well, maybe that one wouldn't be so easily fixed; the entire story depends on the notion that bats are furry little radar transmitters.

"I Should Have Demanded Gold" Dept.: Aside from the radar/sonar stuff, and the massive task of "altering" (how? Selective breeding?) the emissions of a horde of bats, Zark's plot would indeed induce chaos. However, even if he got the billion in "assorted currencies" and aborted Night Flight, the ensuing loss of consumer and investor confidence in air travel (remember, people were starting to panic) might well have led to a stock market crash. Imagine Zark trying to explain to Thrush Central why his one billion bucks is now worth only about fifty million. "I screwed up" won't cut it.

You know it's a real crisis when Enforcement guys like Badge 26, at the start of Act IV, are on communications duty.

On the plane to Europe, Solo and Clemency have just finished watching "One Spy Too Many" (the movie version of "Alexander the Greater"), to which Solo says that spy movies are light entertainment, but rather far-fetched. (OSTM hadn't been released yet, so it was an in-joke the audience wasn't expected to catch.)

Verdict: Rein in your critical faculties and just enjoy. It's a romp in which the gag depends on no one actually saying the words "Count Dracula."

Memorable lines:
Waverly (to Solo, re: Clemency): "Keep a close eye on her, will you? . . . Not too close."

Clemency: "Well, shoot fire and save the matches --"

Count Zark (as Dracula-ish as Lugosi at his best): "I am . . . Zark. Count Ladislaus Zark. You have heard of me, of course."
Illya (poker-faced): "Well, there's something familiar about you, but just what it is escapes me for the moment."
Zark: "You have shattered my ego! I have fantasies of U.N.C.L.E. issuing orders: 'Get Zark at any price!' And here you haven't even heard of me!"

Zark (explaining the psi powers hoax): "All we need to do is program our computers to the desired thought patterns, and microwave them directly to the subject. The marvelous thing about it is that Miss McGill doesn't suspect a thing! Isn't it marvelous?"
Illya (flatly): "It's difficult for me to restrain my admiration."

Waverly: "Of course it's regrettable if the people panic [over Night Flight]. To paraphrase Marie-Antoinette, 'Let them drive cars.' "

"The Round Table Affair" (ep. 2/27)

2010-02-05T08:38:00.000-06:00

Partial transcript of a phone conversation made by Norman Felton, February 1966:

“Sarah, get me Mr. Ingster, please. . . . Boris! Boris, what do you mean by this, this script? . . . What script do I mean? You mad Russian, this thing called ‘The Round Table Affair,’ that’s what! You’re telling me you actually accepted this? . . . What’s wrong with it? Boris, it’s not only silly, but it isn’t even funny. And there’s nothing much for Bob and David to do in it! . . . Don’t try that. I know Bob Hill, he’s done some good work for us, and as for an old hand like Hank Slesar to turn in such a -- What? Slesar said he owed us a third script, but nobody told him it had to be a good one? Now you listen to me, Boris -- Boris?”

Well, maybe it went something like that. “Round Table” is the poorest story yet out of both seasons. To give it credit, it begins with a sharply filmed car chase, as Illya, piloting the Sunbeam Tiger we’ve seen before, races after wanted criminal Lucho Nostra in his Jaguar E-Type. It winds up with our favorite Russian agent headed to the local hoosegow. The concept is a good one (I suspect this was Slesar’s idea), a country lacking any extradition treaties which then becomes a haven for gangsters and criminals of all stripes. The basic conflict between the thugs as led by blackmailing pig Artie King, Vicky the young Grand Duchess, and her regent, Prince Fredrick of the expensive tastes, has potential. One imagines Solo and Illya mounting a clever ruse to sow dissension among the crooks and to get them to flee on their own across the border, where they can be arrested.

Unfortunately, the story degenerates into silliness about the time Solo pops that gray John Steed-ish bowler on his head. (Of the other lids sported by Solo in this one, the less said, the better.) Aside from a lack of drama or danger, its own illogic torpedoes it. For one thing, if Uncle Freddie must act as regent, then Vicky -- as reinforced by her schoolgirl status -- is not yet of legal age. It would do Solo no good whatever to enlist her aid, since she wouldn’t be able to issue any legal edicts. Even if she could, why would our crafty heroes march up to the criminals and tell them they’re about to be evicted? This is like Hannibal of Carthage informing his Roman general opponent of his strategy for tomorrow’s battle!

Artie’s total change of heart toward the duchess and his marriage to her is completely unmotivated, even for a comedy. Nostra (longtime heavy Bruce Gordon, who I’ve always thought should have played Senator Joseph McCarthy at some point), is mostly bluster. He threatens people, but we never see him, or any of the criminals, do anything nasty. And as anyone who’s read any military history knows, suits of plate armor were very heavy. Artie, being younger, might have lasted for a few sword-swings, but Nostra would have collapsed long before.

Aside from the beautiful black E-Type and the red Tiger, the other gem for car buffs is the white Mercedes in which Solo drives the young duchess to Ingolstein. Some of the most beautiful cars ever produced by Mercedes-Benz, the “fintail” coupes and convertibles (1962-1971) were expensive then, and are collectors’ items today. When you find yourself marveling over the cars in a story rather than the humans, something’s wrong.

Verdict: “I’m quite disappointed in you, Messrs. Ingster, Hill, and Slesar. Go to your rooms and think about what you did.”

Memorable line:
Nostra (as Artie, clad as the White Knight, rides in): “What is this, a commercial or something?”
(A wink to the Ajax “White Knight”/”Stronger than dirt!” commercials of the time)

"The Project Deephole Affair" (ep. 2/26)

2010-02-05T08:24:00.004-06:00

This one has been a favorite of mine since the CBN days. A crisp Dean Hargrove story that feels like a Season One, a real threat, fantastic villains (one of whom has a history with Solo!), and a refreshing male Innocent who is drawn into the story not only because he is a bystander, but also because he's a bit of a weasel.

A fast-moving teaser brings us to HQ's infirmary, where Illya, over Buzz's unconscious body, fills us in on Mr. Conway's sad history. Jack Weston's Buzz is no criminal. He's a "Guys and Dolls" figure, the horse player who is positive the next race will bring him the big payoff, who proves himself bright and brave when the chips are down . . . and yet doesn't change his ways once the adventure is over.

What I enjoy about Solo's plot to use Buzz as a decoy is that our guys are being proactive in leading Thrush down the garden path. Is it unethical of them to drag Buzz into this? Well, it's not as if Buzz turns himself in to the police when he finds the cash and fine clothes, and the "body" in the closet! And, as Solo points out, they are protecting him by involving him.

The dynamic between Narcissus and sun-hating Marvin Elom (veteran character actor Leon Askin; you'll recognize him from "Hogan's Heroes") is interesting. He drools over her; she clearly thinks of him as just a stepping-stone in her Thrush career. For Narcissus, other people are only valuable as they enhance her image of herself. You'd think anyone who is as obsessed with her own appearance as the Divine Miss N. wouldn't smoke. Yellows the teeth, you know.

Narcissus brushes right by Illya at the SF airport. He doesn't seem to know her (though she must know him, since later Thrush follows him to the garage rendezvous). In that scene, though, Solo walks right by her! He couldn't fail to recognize her; he dealt with her in Portofino in 1962. Why wouldn't he mention her presence to Illya?

The "drone control" Narcissus uses to control the rental car with Buzz in it makes for an exciting sequence on the freeway. Apparently Solo has encountered it before. Or maybe the Command has similar devices?

Another nice element here is the sense that Thrush has agents everywhere, at the garage and the seemingly-innocent lobby girl at the Elom Industries office building. Not everyone is a Thrush, however; see the insurance guys who just happen to be in the elevator with Illya. Thrush is not all-knowing or all-powerful, thank goodness.

Part of the earthquake footage must be from the 1964 Good Friday quake in Alaska; see "Anchorage" on one sign. And Elom says his people created that carnage. Brrr. (I agree the drill isn't very convincing. Maybe Elom & Co. are using quadrillenium drill bits instead of diamond.)

The quiet scene between Solo and Narcissus reminds me of Solo's tete-a-tete with Serena back in "Double." But why does Narcissus agree to take Solo through the Elom security? A line from Solo would have set it up: "You'd best get me through. If I fail, I won't be there to save your skin; Mr. Elom will think you betrayed him anyway; and missing your next pedicure appointment will be the least of your problems." Personally I think he should clip her a good one on the jaw when she screams to alert Leon.

Verdict: One of the best adventures of Season Two, and on a level with many winners from Season One.

Memorable lines:
Illya (watching via video bug as Buzz awakes in the hotel room): "Napoleon, I think it is time to deliver unto 'Dr. Remington' a change of apparel."

Solo: "How was the flight?"
Illya: "Second class."
Solo: "Snob."
(Free champagne on the flight? It didn't look that second-class to me. Illya's been spoiled by all this capitalist decadence!)

Buzz (as they drive on the San Francisco freeway): "Isn't this a roundabout way of going downtown?"
Solo: "I thought you might like to see our air pollution."

Buzz (exasperated): "You've got a lot of nerve, y'know?"
Solo (serenely): "Thank you."

Mr. Elom: "It's very appropriate that I use California, the land of sunshine -- where those disgusting people mechanically expose themselves to poisonous sunlight, in a foolish desire to fry their
skins brown."
(A villain with an emotional motive for his evil plot. Neat!)

Buzz (dazedly, re: Solo and Illya): "Boy, they work fast."

Solo: "So you suppose [the finance company] will ever catch [Buzz]?"
Illya: "Probably. Their manhunt procedures are modeled after ours, remember?"

"The King of Diamonds Affair" (ep. 2/25)

2010-02-04T08:14:00.001-06:00

Actor's actor Ricardo Montalban passed away in January of 2009. We remember him now chiefly as "Khan" in the second "Star Trek" film; but he was also that rarity in his time, the successful ethnic actor who never Anglicized his name. "King" delivers one of his flamboyant (but never over the top) performances, plus neat direction (Joseph Sargent) that makes this feel a bit like "See Paris and Die" from Season One.

We open in a teashop in Soho, where an aspiring actress bites into a diamond in her Pogue's Pudding. (Three or four hundred pounds is a small fortune? Well, maybe to the patrons of the teashop. Thirty or forty thousand would be more up my alley.) Next Solo and Illya pop out of a presumably rented Jaguar (?) (and a left-drive model at that). Illya's interrogation technique seems to involve moving, unsmiling, right into his victim's personal space, doesn't it? But why are the Family after Solo and Illya? The news about the diamonds is already out; killing them won't put the genie back in the bottle. It would make more sense to silence the actress!

We've seen Waverly in video conference with his agents before, but this scene, while working in the exposition about the diamonds, gives us an important point about the Command. As Waverly says, chasing diamond smugglers is not their business -- but the stability of the world economy is. Note the silent byplay between Solo and Illya, as the local staff lady shifts her attentions between them.

Montalban's Rafael Delgado, thief extraordinaire, dominates this episode. His casual assumption that he'll go right back to caper-pulling as soon as he gets out of prison, his amusement at stringing Solo and Illya along, his vanity and tendency to refer to himself in the third person, all make him a colorful antagonist/antihero, like Dan O'Herlihy's Rudolph back in "Fiddlesticks." In contrast, Larry D. Mann's Blodgett, the true villain, is rather dull, as is Victoria the Innocent.

Then we get real business, with our guys in coveralls and caps pulling a daring daylight reconnaissance at the Peacock establishment. I find it a little hard to swallow (okay, a lot) that Peacock's wouldn't own the foundation beneath their vault and have security men or systems there . . . but we'll go with it, just as we do with the villain's plan in Doyle's "Red-Headed League."

The Family -- or at least Blodgett and Knox -- speak in lower-class English accents, but they seem to be Italian. Certainly Blodgett rattles off some Italian insults (porco: "pig"?). (Speaking of languages, the language in Rio is not Spanish, as used in Acts III and IV. It's Portuguese.)

At first I wondered why Blodgett and Delgado take Solo and Victoria along to Brazil. On their arrival, it becomes clear: They don't know! Blodgett shoots Freddie, his mole within Pogue's, before Freddie could tell them he'd loaded the two into one of the crates. But why wouldn't Delgado & Co. hear Solo chatting with Victoria and reporting to Waverly? Better if the crate had been in a separate compartment.

Hard to believe that one of The Family didn't notice Illya clinging to the side of the building sooner, or that they failed to dispatch him permanently. Better if he could have scurried up and gotten away by springing from roof to roof. (It is funny, though, to see his hands alone emerge from the drift of newspapers to answer his communicator.) And while the Rio office scene is both well-done (for its glimpse of the multi-ethnic staff) and puzzling (fans? Doesn't the Rio office have A/C?), what purpose does Illya's cold serve? I kept expecting him to be hiding, only to have a violent sneeze give him away.

It's true, we're never told how Delgado spirited the uncut diamonds away from Blodgett. But the hint that he will tell them later, and then his death before he can finish the tale, work well enough.

At the end, the script both giveth and taketh away. The presence of Waverly, sporting a crisp Panama, comes as a charming surprise. But we needed a better fadeout line than Solo's "Huh!"

Verdict: Despite some flaws (a little hard to kill all the Family members with three cannon shots, don't you think? And Blodgett's demise is too cartoon-like), this non-Thrush story is well-paced, with plot complications released bit by bit. But then, I'm fond of stories which involve U.N.C.L.E. because of a criminal's mistake, as here, or an accident, as in "Finny Foot."

Memorable lines:
Illya (to Solo, as they creep through the tunnels beneath Peacock's): "If you must get us lost, could you do it a bit faster?"

Delgado (furiously, to Blodgett): "You miserable bungler. You think you can get along without Delgado! You can't even lick a postage stamp without falling on your face!"

Senhor Rafini: "I wish I were twenty years younger. I'd be tempted to go along with you [on the raid up the Amazon]."
Illya (sniffling): "If I were twenty years older, I'd be more than tempted to stay."

Victoria: "I'm only sorry [the late] Mr. Delgado can't be here with us."
Solo: "Well, if I were in charge, I'd double the guard at the Pearly Gates."
Illya (darkly): "Where he's taken up residence, I don't think they have that kind of architecture."

"The Nowhere Affair" (ep. 2/24)

2010-02-04T07:52:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time on the Channel_D Yahoo! Group, we compiled a list of "essential" MfU: those episodes which are original, well-written, or important to the MfU universe. Dr. Cindy Walker suggested adding this one, and I agree. It provides an original twist to the ancient wheeze of amnesia, some clever lines -- and a window of understanding into the character of Napoleon Solo.

Scripter Robert Hill opens with the elegant figure of Solo, in a modern Chrysler ragtop, picking his way across the Nevada desert in a sandstorm. Next we get J. Pat O'Malley (who in the `60s was the Go-To Guy when you needed an Old Coot) as "The Old Prospector," the episode's Innocent, looking like Walter Huston in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." He must really be attached to Sophie the mule. Nowadays prospectors would drive a Jeep or a truck. But it helps set up the surreal contrasts here. On the one hand, the tumbleweed-swept ghost town and the black-clad Thrush cowboys; on the other, the ultra-modern Thrush computer installation. The name of the town, the odd angles on Solo in the teaser, and the stage-like computer room later all create a flavor of disorientation. This foreshadows and echoes the disconnection of Solo from the world of U.N.C.L.E.

I do wonder, though, how the Thrush cowboy knows who Solo is. And there seems to be one too many watches -- the one Illya finds behind the saloon painting (?), and the one Solo finds with the map in it.

About David Sheiner's Parviz in "Alexander the Greater," I wrote, "You get the impression that he is tightly wrapped . . . and if things get beyond him, like a deep-sea fish brought to the surface, he'll explode." Here, as impatient Thrush project leader Longolius, he does great work showing us that explosion of rage as Mara fails him and Solo breaks loose to smash his plans.

Lou Jacobi's Tertunian is clearly unenthused about helping Thrush, excited by the capabilities of his computers, and amused by Longolius's growing exasperation. (Though why would he have developed a truth serum, as Longolius says? He's a cyberneticist!)

Okay, let's tackle the central problem here. Though Diana Hyland's Mara is charming and good-looking enough, the script never gives us much reason why she would be the perfect match for Solo. A woman who could get "distracted by differential calculus" seems an odd match for a "swinger" like Solo (and hasn't that term changed meaning in forty years!). Take into account, though, that 48 minutes isn't enough time to tell this sort of story and have an action-adventure plot. We've been spoiled by multi-episode story arcs in modern shows, in which the characters' background is shown in flashbacks, and we can see their relationships grow. What we see here is a kind of shorthand, a short story rather than a novelette or novel.

Robert Vaughn's performance is terrific: comic when Solo first wakes, almost shy and frightened when he comes to Mara's room, and at the climax, snarling in anger. We've seen Solo irritated, urgent under pressure, and pretending to be a "homicidal maniac" to get a Thrush to talk . . . but never this kind of fury. That it's clearly fueled by Mara's betrayal provides us a clue to his personality. And that shot of Solo as he ranges through the computer room, gun in hand, the tiger loose and intent on ravaging the Thrush base, is iconic.

For his part, Illya has several character-defining moments: his ignoring the Old Prospector as he searches the mule's saddlebags; his polite "Excuse me, Madam" to the painting of the lady in the saloon; and his gleeful laugh as the dynamite brings down the Thrush setup.

You'd think Waverly would have sent both Solo and Illya on such a big job, to retrieve the map and get Tertunian out. I think it just emphasizes the reason for the show's title. You might need an entire squad of FBI or CIA agents for a job like this, but you only need one man from U.N.C.L.E. As a former boss of mine, a one-time Army sergeant, used to say, "One riot, one Ranger --"

Verdict: Though it lacks background on Solo and Mara to make us believe they would fall in love (and for that matter on the Old Prospector, to let us see why he has chosen such a life), this one is, considering the constraints of the times, an U.N.C.L.E. classic.

Memorable lines:
Illya: "Oh! That's the new capsule the research boys were bragging about in the cafeteria!"
Waverly (sternly): "Were they! It was supposed to be top-secret."
(The chastened look on Illya's face: priceless)

Solo (on being told his name, after taking Capsule B): "There hasn't been anybody named Napoleon since the Battle of Waterloo!"

Mara (examining Solo's fascinatingly thick dossier): "He's classified here as a `swinger.' What's that?"
Longolius: "A manic-depressive who is never depressed."

Tertunian: "I thought all Thrush girls went through some course of, uh, an elementary man-woman relationship. What's it called?"
Mara: "I had measles that semester. I meant to make it up, but somehow I got distracted by differential calculus."

Illya (to Waverly, about the source of the radioactivity in the saloon): "It appears to be coming from a lady's abdomen, sir."

"The Moonglow Affair" (ep. 2/23)

2010-02-04T07:26:00.001-06:00

What a difference a week makes! Unlike "Foreign Legion," the pilot for "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." is vivid, colorful (with more expensive sets), and fast-moving, all thanks to Dean Hargrove at the typewriter and Joseph Sargent behind the camera -- the combo who gave us "Never-Never" and "Alexander the Greater." Ah, if only the series had been like this . . .

We open with Illya looking like a Russian wolfhound despite his well-cut tuxedo (and later, taking a characteristic chance to eat and drink). He uses the cigarette case communicator to call Solo, I suppose, because someone murmuring into his pen would be kind of conspicuous at a party. For his part, Solo slides into the Thrush installation much as he did aboard Gervase Ravel's yacht in "Quadripartite." Nice detail: When Illya fires at Andy the scientist, we see the splatter of tranquilizer powder on the door.

We see that U.N.C.L.E. HQ has its own infirmary, which makes sense, and that they have specialists from other countries. However, I can't believe that they have enough room to give each Enforcement agent an office the size of April's. Supervisors, perhaps, and certainly Solo's office -- but you'd think the rest would have to make do with desks in a bullpen.

From Slate's reaction when he, and we, meet April, it's clear the idea of a woman Enforcement agent is new to him. We've seen female Command personnel in the field in support roles, though -- in "Vulcan," the agent-in-place who lays the groundwork for Solo and Elaine; and the underestimated Sarah, who teamed with Solo in "Love."

Okay, let's get into it. Mary Ann Mobley makes a very different April Dancer from that played by Stefanie Powers (from what I remember, and from what Jon's book tells us). She's good-natured and smart as a roomful of whips. Her skills as shown here are less athletic than Stefanie-as-April, more suited to cunning undercover work and manipulation, like Barbara Bain on "Mission: Impossible." There's an old saying involving flies, honey, and vinegar, and April clearly knows it and lives by it. Note how much info she gets out of Andy by charming him. But she neither kowtows to Slate nor, refreshingly, tries to dominate him. The series would have been much more vigorous had they kept this older mentor/new agent dynamic.

The description of the quartzite radiation projector ("throwing [human sensory systems] into imbalance") sounds as if it induces synesthesia -- the condition where a person "sees" sounds, "tastes" shapes, etc. In Act IV, the distortions in color and sound from April's point of view bear this out. However, Solo and Illya react more as if they're severely drunk.

Slate's taking the German's place on Andy's scuba team makes for a very exciting sequence. The intriguing thing about the Thrush plot is that they intend to disable both the U.S. and Russian moon projects to make room for their own. Thrush: Your Equal Opportunity Saboteur.

Standout performances: Woodrow Parfrey's Andy as he gleefully frazzles Solo's senses with his ray; Mary Carver's resentful, passive-aggressive Jean Caresse (" . . . it's your poor, frail little sister"); Kevin McCarthy's sleazy if capable Thrush businessman, ignoring his sister's advice, ultimately to his downfall; and Norman Fell's bemused, phlegmatic, professional Mark Slate. (I love that his Plymouth looks like a car pool vehicle.)

I do wonder why Caresse thinks a woman would want lipstick which glows in the dark. And the gag about Slate being out of shape (implying that it's just because he's 40) is a little tiresome, but you'll notice that, after her first gaffe, April never kids him about it. The tag scene implies that Waverly, while he surely knows Slate is 40, is willing to ignore it for the sake of a successful agent pairing.

Verdict: Again, if only the series had simply gone with the dynamics and characters set forth here and with this sort of energy, I suspect many of us fans wouldn't wince whenever we hear the words "Girl from U.N.C.L.E."

Memorable lines:
Andy: "The United States government has so little imagination. Always putting their secret laboratories under basketball gymnasiums."

Caresse (to April, as she fiddles with the model rocket on his table): "It actually works. The button activates it."
April: "That sounds dangerous."
Caresse (smiling): "Yes; we're considering a line of children's toys."

Andy (gasping, staggering in wearing his scuba suit): "Just try to get a taxi wearing one of these --!"

(Interestingly, Solo and Illya have no verbal exchanges at all. Illya calls Solo by communicator, but he doesn't reply. And a record is set: Aside from some mutters and gasps in the infirmary in Act I, Solo has only three spoken lines!)

"The Foreign Legion Affair" (ep. 2/22)

2010-02-03T07:52:00.003-06:00

Here we are in the home stretch of the sophomore season. "Foreign Legion" betrays a certain weariness on the part of everyone involved, and a too-strong tendency toward broad comedy in what should be an adventure series spiced with humor. It features both good moments, mostly from David's performance and that of noted stage actor Howard Da Silva, and bad.

We open with Illya, who wisely masks his blond hair with a skull cap as he maneuvers through the casbah somewhere in the Sudan. The opening scenes, as he breaks into a Thrush enclave and cracks the safe to steal something called the Triad, are exciting -- though I wonder why, even rushed as he was, he would leave the safe door open. If he'd shut it, the Thrushes might have concluded he'd never had timeto get into the safe.

This episode's mix of good and bad begins with the moment when, snugly aboard the charter plane to Cairo, Illya identifies himself as "Number Two, Section One." That must have come as a shock to Waverly. Illya's scene with Barbara the air hostess is a delight ("You would love Bob if you knew him the way I do." Illya, dryly: "Somehow I don't think that would be entirely possible"). Then he allows himself to be taken by the Thrushes (despite Barbara's warning gasp) and stripped to his skivvies, but then recovers miraculously in time to dive out the hatch with Barbara and their shared parachute.

Waverly says that Illya reported in at six p.m. New York time. Khartoum, the logical place for Illya to have boarded the plane, is seven hours later, or 2 a.m. Check. But could a small twin-engine plane of the time make it to Casablanca without refueling? If they're only 300 klicks from Marrakesh when Illya and Barbara bail out, why does the scene seem as though it all happens just after the plane has taken off? It takes a while to fly ca. 2500 miles. The script should have had them take off from Algeria or Mauretania.

I can just imagine the squeals of delight emitted by all the Illya fangirls, then and now, as he travels through the desert in his Fruit of the Looms.

Why, sez I, would Solo, the chief of Section Two, not know what Thrush's Triad was, and what his own section had arranged regarding it? (I know, this had to be brought out for the audience, but Solo should have been reporting to Waverly instead of the other way around.)

From this point things get pretty silly, with Solo, supposedly the best of the best U.N.C.L.E. has, getting caught like a trainee by Thrushman Bey. Da Silva gives a wonderful performance as the disgraced, sun-addled, but dedicated Captain Calhoun. Calhoun is treated with respect during the quiet backstory scene in Act III, but even that can't save things. The scene between Illya and Rupert Crosse's Corporal Remy, in which Illya goes down the list of possible contact methods ("Wireless telegraphy? . . . Crystal set? . . . Carrier pigeons?") is more like a "Would you believe . . .?" exchange on "Get Smart." And the appearance of Macushla, Calhoun's lost love, doesn't come out of left field; it wasn't even inside the stadium!

Verdict: Maybe there's something about adventures set in the Sahara or Arabia that makes them so tough to write believably. "Arabian," earlier this season, could have been fixed. "Foreign Legion" couldn't.

Memorable, or at least funny, lines:

Barbara: "Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee, tea, milk? A hot toddy?"
Illya (deadpan): "Borscht."
Barbara (without missing a beat): "Cabbage or beet?"

Captain Calhoun (roaring at Illya): "How many pieces of silver did [Ali Ka-Bar] pay to buy your soul, Judas?"
(In character, but still a neat in-joke; as we know, David played Judas in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" the year before)

Barbara (in shock): "Camel? I'm eating a camel?"
Calhoun: "I must confess we don't dine this well usually."

Barbara (outraged): "Confinement? I'm not even married!"
(I'm curious: Would anybody younger than 40 get this joke? That meaning of the word has faded away)

Solo: "Illya! Illya, we're here!"
Illya (irritably): "You're five minutes late! You know, you're getting completely undependable!"
Solo: "I go 300 miles across a steaming desert and this is the thanks I get?"

"The Bridge of Lions Affair, Part II" (ep. 2/21)

2010-02-03T07:38:00.001-06:00

Part II picks up as it should, with the cliffhanger, as Solo and Illya manage to survive, barely, by wedging the wooden grates under the descending wine press.

The latest test cat, which Corvy placed in the machine in Part I, was turned into a kitten in minutes -- Illya arrived only moments after De Sala & Co. left. Yet here we see that, more logically, the process takes time to teach the body how to repair and rejuvenate itself. If the process works so differently on cats, why would Gritzky have used them so often as test subjects? Or is it merely that it takes minutes for a cat, an hour or two to reduce a human to childhood and death, as we see later?

At the start of Act I here, Sir Norman comes out of Gritzky's machine still looking the 80 or so we know him to be. Yet at the end of Part I, we saw Sir Norman come out looking 50 -- a continuity error that I hope was corrected in the film version.

Jordin the efficient Thrush is on his mettle here. Of course, if he were really as professional as all that, when Solo says that Illya is dead, Jordin would have put a bullet in him to make sure. "Can't hurt him, what? He's already dead." Yet his careful disarming of Solo is a model for Thrush field operatives everywhere. If not for Illya, Solo would have had little chance to survive. I wonder if the scene would have worked even better had we thought Illya was actually dead until his surprise reappearance?

Solo and Illya were running a step behind when they let Jordin get to Gritzky first. Knowing Madame De Sala was in this up to her coiffure, they should have tailed her, or staked out her Paris salon.

The scene in Act II between Sir Norman and De Sala, now Lady Swickert, is a neat reversal of what she considered their former roles. Now she has the power over him, as he obsessively examines himself in the hand mirror for (re-emerging) signs of age.

Jordin's plan is more subtle than a simple theft of the rejuvenation process. He knows Thrush's scientists, once they know it's possible, can probably duplicate the process -- or failing that, they can screw the necessary info out of Gritzky. His goal is something higher: to leave Sir Norman in place and use him to Thrush's ends. (Though he states at the climax in the lab that he and he alone, not Thrush, will be the sole possessor of the process. Was he planning on striking out on his own?)

Once again we see why Waverly deserves to be primus inter pares in Section One. He's as well-equipped as his agents with gadgets -- in other words, he came prepared to the party! -- and as quick on the uptake when it comes to action. Act IV belongs to him and his unflappable manner and clever dialogue, as much as to Sir Norman as he heroically tries to warn his confreres about the danger of Thrush.

Illya's defeat of the chauffeur Fleeton, and using him as a stepping stone to scale the estate wall, is another fun highlight.

The revelation that Gritzky himself, even though he knew the risks, was willing to rejuvenate himself back to boyhood and death, is startling (though it would have been more effective had the costume people not put a mustache on the kid actor!).

If Gritzky's notes are in code, wouldn't he have put the note about booby-trapping the machine in code as well? Or did he slip in the Sixties equivalent of a yellow Post-It for Illya to read?

Verdict: Part II stands as better-paced than Part I. Both Jordin's subtler plan, to leave Sir Norman in place as a Thrush tool, and the peculiar relationship between Sir Norman and his wife, lift this story above a simple "Thrush steals/develops something dangerous; Solo and Illya get it back/destroy it."

Memorable lines:
Jordin: "Seventy-three percent of all accidents happen in the home. Very rarely do you see somebody who dies in a wine vat."

Solo (as he lifts the mannequin Illya is mistakenly gripping off of him): "Have you been introduced?"

Waverly (unflappably, trouncing Jordin despite the latter's gun): "Yes, apologies, apologies. But when one has good manners, there's no need to apologize."

Waverly (to Nurse Sweet, as Solo prepares their explosive escape): "If you and I are wise, like Lot's wife, we'd better not look."