As a major-league Solo-phile, I've always found this Robert Towne script, the 11th filmed, to be one of my favorites. (Since the `80s, that is; I barely recall its first run.) It's the most Bond-like story of the series. If you were to trim out the humor -- say, Satine's fear of the kids -- you could imagine this as a Bond novella, with the ace British spy on the run in East Berlin and desperate to get back into the American sector with a microdot. Here we see, possibly more than in any other script, how Napoleon Solo stays on balance and twists events to his will -- in other words, why he is, and deserves to be, U.N.C.L.E.'s Chief Enforcement Agent.Bill Koenig mentions in his episode guide that Towne's "Mission: Impossible" movie script contains story elements from "Dove." An eastern European country, seen at night; someone is dumped off a bridge; the heroes move among diplomats at a party; and the climaxes involve trains. (I was on Channel_D when it was but a poor downtrodden mailing list, and I do believe I was the one who noted that when the movie came out in '96.) Of course it's perfectly okay for a writer to cannibalize his own work, as long as he does something different with it, and the Channel train climax of M:I is very unlike the "Von Ryan's Express" flavor here in "Dove."
As we saw in "Iowa Scuba" and "Neptune," the communicator must be linked to the electrical grid for power. Also as in those stories, Solo's gun is the Mark I Mauser Special, though in the first act he uses a P-38 with long silencer. Unusually, when he contacts Waverly after Satine dumps him off the Ramar Bridge, he uses the phrase "Open Red Line," then informs Waverly he's on the overseas relay. Nice touch, that New York is in daylight while Sernia, six to seven hours later in the Balkans, is dark.
The details of the Sernian government, bureaucracy, politics, etc., are well worked out and plausible. And the Jack E. Leonard-like Thrush, seen in shadow or with his back turned, is creepy. (Better still, though, if they'd had him seated in shadows in a dark office.)
There's a misty rain falling at the train station, and Solo's hair is damp. Nice detail! His gray suit is damp and wrinkled, too, after his dip in the river. Where did he get the dark suit, you ask? Maybe the American ambassador had an aide who was just Solo's size. Certainly the dark suit, and the dark trench coat we saw in "Finny Foot," work well in this grim, film noir-like atmosphere.
June Lockhart has always charmed me, both when I was a kid and now. This fell between her "Lassie" and
"Lost in Space" gigs. Though she's too cute to be entirely believable as a spinster, her scenes with Solo on the train are very affecting. ("Who's going to want to blow open my grave?") I wonder if Solo ever looked Miss Taub up afterward?It would be simpler to list the shows Ricardo Montalban wasn't in during the `60s and `70s. He was a rare thing back then, a successful ethnic actor who didn't anglicize his name.
It's not the same actor -- but doesn't Kirk, the blond teenager with the walkie-talkies, remind you of Eddie Haskell on "Leave It to Beaver"? The same smarmy passive-aggressiveness that makes you want to smack them both? "You want my dinner to get cold??!!" I'd have told him I didn't give a damn, and to get that *$%^%*&* walkie-talkie NOW!
You might ask, "What good would a picture of the dove do U.N.C.L.E.?" Well, with their advanced microphotography techniques, they could pull up at least half the names of the "countless Thrush agents" and their order of battle in Sernia. Half a loaf is better than none.
Verdict: The best pure "spy" story in the first season, and possibly in all four. The black-and-white photography lends itself to this story perfectly.
Great Lines:
Satine (nervously): "[The teenagers] think I am interesting!"
Solo: "Well, so you are -- I wouldn't deny that for a minute."
Satine: "Are you going to kill me?"
Solo: "Unfortunately I'm a professional. I can't just because I want to. I have to know why."
Solo (grimly, as the Sernian soldiers surround the train): "Come on, Satine. It's time to go home."
