Tueurs au karaté

As the administrator of the Facebook UNCLE page, and having seen all of S1 and S2 of Man From UNCLE via DVD, I consider myself a fan of the series. But even as a fan, I cannot say this is a good film in any way. Too bad, a number of good actors such as Herbert Lom, Joan Crawford, Kim Darby, Telly Savalas and the smoking hot Jill Ireland appear in this film, a spliced-together 2 part MFU adventure.

Also a shame, seeing as there is a fun opening sequence with a squadron of Wallis WA-116 type autogyros that attack Our Heroes as they drive the Pirhanna UNCLE car...as an autogyro aficionado, this sequence was released two months before the 007 'Little Nellie' autogyro sequence in 'You Only Live Twice.' There should be more autogyros in cinema, but they still don't save this picture.

It's mostly a bunch of short, uninteresting vignettes, and very silly fight scenes featuring a bunch of goons in matching outfits, similar to the goons you'd see on the Batman show, working for Penguin or the Riddler.

The most silly fight takes place in a night club, where the mostly forgotten bubble-gum band 'Every Mother's Son' performs...apparently MGM owned this group and used this film for cross-promotional purposes. Which pretty much sums up this film...just cashing in before the gravy train dried up. Vaughn and McCallum, who usually had a good chemistry together and had high individual appeal, seem to be phoning in their appearances...it might have been my imagination, but I swear it looked as if they were each wondering if their respective agents had been getting calls lately, or whether he should invest in a restaurant.

If you are not familiar with the MFU series, you should know that Seasons 1 & 2 of that show were generally good (and a few excellent) but from Season 3 onward there were serious problems. This movie is from two Season 3 episodes, and Season 3 was the nadir of this series.

The good episodes of MFU have cleverness, fun and some kind of a point to them....but this doesn't, and worse, it's a double-length waste of time, as opposed to just one misfire of an episode.

I DVR'd this last time it was on the TCM cable network, it having been a while since I'd seen an MFU episode. Frankly, I would have been better off going the library or video rental store and watching another episode.

This film is only of interest for die-hard UNCLE fans, or for college students drinking cheap beer to watch on a Saturday afternoon so they can jeer at it. If you've never seen MFU, this is not a good introduction to the series. This is sad, seeing as MFU is almost never shown even on cable TV.

This rarely seen TV movie is only shown on Turner Classic Movies when Joan Crawford is the star of the month, but she has a brief, but excellent appearance early on and then is murdered by "The Karate Killers." The plot revolves around the Men from U.N.C.L.E. on a continental adventure tracking down five daughters of a deceased scientist, who had a secret formula that turns seawater into gold, but they have to fight off bad guy Randolph and his "Karate Killers" who are after it. I guess you have to be from the generation of TV viewers who are familiar with the show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to really appreciate it, since it is action-packed, but at times corny and far-fetched.

The Karate Killers is geared mostly for those baby boomers who watched the Man from UNCLE. Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were my heroes as a little girl when I watched the Man from UNCLE. Watching the movie now, I find it: nostalgic, a typical 60s spy movie, and a wee bit over dramatic. Of course, more than 40 years of movie watching has passed by. I am glad that the main characters and type of plot did not change and neither did the secret of the success of the Man from UNCLE still remains in the film. However, I miss the sophistication today's spy movies contain. The acting is decent and they interplay well. I am rating this movie against today's spy movies. It is still a decent movie. The movie is basically a matinée or a late night show. Bring popcorn for this one and enjoy a 60s spy movie.

The dynamic U. N. C. L. E. Duo are sent on a world-wide chase to foil the devilish plans of T. H. R. U. S. H. A top scientist has been murdered and his secret formula can lead to ruin for the free world....

An all-star cast - including a cameo role by Joan Crawford- enhances the usual UNCLE spy shenanigans. Sometimes it feels like a Monkees episode, especially with a band singing in the club, but mostly it's the standard stuff with the duo hunting for a formula that could make THRUSH powerful and unstoppable. It is still fun though, and humorous as usual - and has some exciting action scenes, and some globe trotting. Bond connections = The Auto-gyro, the ski chase, Telly Savalas & Curd Jürgens ( Blofeld & Stromberg).

The third "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." spliced for cinema double feature I've watched in a couple of weeks and perhaps fatigue is setting in. It's just not the same as when I was a boy of 7 or 8 in the 60's avidly gawping at our old black and white TV getting my weekly fix of spy-fun and action.

Notable for being one of the few from the as I call them composites not to include the word "spy", there was as much good as bad about this feature. Amazing to see Joan Crawford in a cameo role and her commendable acceptance of the in-joke when told by her soon to be murderous husband to "not be so melodramatic". The pretty thin narrative then as ever takes the U.N.C.l.E. agents world wide (that is, studio sets of world-wide locations, including London, The Swiss Alps, Tokyo and eventually the Arctic Circle) where we get about 20 minutes of action, confusion, romance and drollery but to be sure the law of diminishing returns applies with dividends until we get the usual against the clock climax not about the world coming to an end but about a water-into-gold process, not quite the same really.

There are other celeb turns in the cast behind The Grand Dame Joan, the best of them, a perky Terry Thomas, for once not playing the cad and ending up enviously with the curvaceous later to be Mrs Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, a camp Telly Savalas as an Italian count and that's Kim Darby (once Anne Frank in George Steven's 1950's epic) as the fresh but hardly cute accoutrement to the boys in their travels.

The direction is very patchy. Herbert Lom's T.H.R.U.S.H. boss only lacks pantomime music with his every so unexpected they're expected entrance, there are some terrible process shots of Robert Vaughn on a motor bike and worse yet a motorbike versus car chase. The gormless band which you couldn't say "belts" out "Come On Down To My Boat" in the London sequence didn't float mine either.

And yet there was one snow-skiing confrontation which seemed to prefigure a superior revision in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (the pupil teaching the master?) and I kind of liked a fade up shot from David McCallum's "Rubber Soul"-type hair as he comes around from unconsciousness yet one more time.

But I'm reaching here. The 8 year old over 40 years ago would have lapped up this escapist fare without quibbles but a movie feature it isn't. I'll watch any other "U.N.C.L.E." films which come on, mainly for my nostalgia and the coolness of the two leads Vaughn and McCallum, but by this stage, the unwelcome influence of campness (derived no doubt from the contemporary success of the likes of the original "Batman" TV series) was making inroads and no amount of modernity or celebrity cameos could bring it back.