Once Upon a Spy

Neat little TV movie, in the spirit of "The Men From U.N.C.L.E." A pre-Cheers Ted Danson is partnered with an athletic female lead, and Christopher Lee is always good value as the villain. Former Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster had a hand in the story.

This strangely endearing Movie of the Week features Ted Danson as a computer expert reluctantly pulled into the orbit of a mysterious American intelligence service run by grand dame Eleanor Parker. Parker needs his expertise to track down super villain Christopher Lee, a wheelchair bound businessman with his eye on world domination via a super weapon and control of commercial space satellites. Danson is teamed up with secret agent Mary Louise Weller, an attractive and almost believable actress who does her best with the rather hackneyed dialogue. Danson gets the best stuff from screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and shows why he went on to be one of America's favorite comic actors of the decade, and Lee seems to be having a grand time. Good fun if you're in the right mood.

I guess this television Movie of the Week planned to be back-door series pilot. A hokum version of The Man from Uncle with the James Bond like theme after the opening titles.

It stars a young Ted Danson as a government computer expert called in by a mysterious American intelligence service to track down a supercomputer stolen by dastardly Christopher Lee.

The reluctant Danson is paired up with attractive, blonde agent Mary Louise Weller and they make a good pair and Danson does well with the comedy and drama and has some literate lines although the plot is tosh. The final challenge set by Lee is called the Cat and the Canary with some Pacman type graphics.

As it was shown in 1980 a few years before films like Wargames and just before the Home Computer boom of the early 1980s, you have big computers the size of several walls that play a nifty game of chess just like the supercomputer in Wargames.

Danson shows talent which would make him a star a few years later in Cheers, but the the film was rather flimsy. It lacked the spark of the Man from from Uncle and I could not take seriously the secret entrance to the agency's office via a Tunnel of Love ride. From the short of the big wooden roller coaster, it looked like Knott's Berry Park!

ONCE UPON A SPY is a deservedly unknown 1980 TV movie that stars up-and-coming Ted Danson as a computer programmer who unwittingly gets drawn into a spy plot that's straight out of a James Bond movie. And indeed this turns out to be a Bond spoof through-and-through, with the unfortunate added side-effect that it's also quite horrible.

Rarely have I seen a film in which the acting is so stilted or the narrative so predictable and boring at the same time. Danson displays none of the charisma that would make him a household name in time, and his attempts at flirting and romance with token blonde Mary Louise Weller are, to be frank, excruciating. ONCE UPON A SPY is truly a movie of its era, with cod attempts at feminism (think CHARLIE'S ANGELS style tough fighting women) mixed in with the normal "saving the girl" routines and some quite appalling jump suits that make the female cast look both fat and frumpy (although they're neither).

Bizarrely, Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster had a hand in the screenplay, although quite what he was thinking I don't know. Keeping on the Hammer theme, we get Christopher Lee as the villain, riffing on his MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN persona. I felt sorry for him, soiled by his appearance in this; I remember his comments about breaking free of Hammer and making it in Hollywood, but even latter-day Hammer efforts like THE SATANIC RITES OF Dracula are a hundred times better than this trash. Definitely a film to be consigned to obscurity, and for good reason.

I dont get the ratings? This is a great classic. It has all the ingredients to make a great spy movie. Hot ladies, action, humor. Great iconic actors like Christopher Lee and Ted Danson in his early years is making this movie a joy to watch. Its a classic and deserves better ratings.