The Helicopter Spies

I just got the Man From U.N.C.L.E. collection for Christmas. I have seen the movies before and knew they were all really good. I had forgotten how good the action, stories and humor are in the films. All 8 films are basically 2 part shows from the series. A few of the earlier films added some extra footage for the theatrical release. Solo & Illya are wonderful as always, especially Illya. I like David Mccallum a lot because he seems to be a real good guy in real life. I cannot finish the review without mentioning Carol Lynley. She never looked more beautiful in any show or film. And as another reviewer said, she wears some really short mini-skirts. She has maybe the best pair of legs in show business. Check her out in Once You Kiss a Stranger. It's available on the Warner Brothers Archive Site. She walks around in a green bikini for a good part of the film. She showed that she has a great looking body from top to bottom!

I completely agree that this is the best of the U.N.C.L.E. movies. I especially like the sequence when Napoleon Solo descends a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter onto a moving train to disconnect the freight car holding a rocket. It's actually two segments--Robert Vaughn hanging from a mock-up at the MGM studios and a stuntman (whose face is never seen) doing the actual stunts on a moving train in the Sierras. The sequence is so well photographed and edited that it's nigh-well impossible to tell that it was actually filmed in two different locations with two different actors. But my question is: how do U.N.C.L.E. fans rank the U.N.C.L.E. films? From best to worst?

Sent to an island off Africa to investigate reports of the testing of a deadly weapon, Solo and Kuryakin soon find themselves on a daring quest to gain control of the weapon before it is used in a fiendish plot to take over the world.... Their desperate chase takes the popular U. N. C. L. E. Agents halfway round the world as they try to avert a universal disaster.

Henchmen with white hair, quick sand, a triggering off explosive device when a heart stops are some of the outlandish things in display in this typical fun The man from Uncle feature film, which, of course, is a series of episodes strung together and it moves fluidly, though the first half can be a bit flat. However, the second half revs up the groovy fun with our heroes karate chopping their way to their foe and saving the day.

I'm in the middle of taping then watching the made-for-Europe splicings of 2 "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." episodes, topped and tailed with movie-type titles, which are regularly shown as a series on UK TV on some channel or other. Sadly it's the only way to see anything from the original series over here, so I guess I'll just be thankful for small mercies, as I grew up in my 60's household avidly watching Napoloeon & Illya taking on that particular week's would-be world-dominating master-villains, as well as utilising some high-tech gadgetry, canoodling with a bevy of mini-skirted lovelies and travelling to some far-flung destinations.

All of this happens, as per usual, in "The Helicopter Spies" - such lazy titling, always trying to get the word "spy" in there!. In fact here, we get two mini-Blofeld's chasing a thermal prism which activates a deadly heat ray when placed in orbit, more like a red-stripe ray if truth be told. It's a little difficult to apply cinematic criticism to what is basically two joined-up television programmes, but this one flows along entertainingly as a full-blown feature, although I doubt you'd pay money to watch it at your local picture-house.

The action here is more Robert Vaughn centred than on David McCallum (either works for me), who along the way is required to dye his hair whiter than Truman Capote, fend off the attentions of a bazillion women and escape (with Ilya's assistance) from a fiendish sand-trap, before foiling Mr Big 2 (Bradford Dillman's Sebastian character) and his plan to launch a rocket into space from a public building, in a plot development, it seems to me adapted and modified for later use in the succeeding James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever", only that had oodles more budget to razzle-dazzle your eye. There are also entertaining stunts involving trains, 'copters, cars, you name it before our heroes eventually save the world in time, with a smattering of deadpan humour to season the action.

To their credit Messrs Vaughn and McCallum (with the redoubtable Leo G Carroll on hand as their greyer than grey boss Mr Waverley) play it as straight as they can and avoid campness wherever possible. I always liked Robert Vaughn's sub-Mitchum style of acting and he was undoubtedly one of the coolest operators in mid-60's TV land.

I have, I think three more of these features to watch and after this will look forward to the next with a little anticipation, always tinged with nostalgia for those long-gone days lying in front of our old black & white TV in the mid 1960's, waiting for that great Jerry Goldsmith theme tune to announce the arrival of my TV uncles.

Though the final season of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." dispensed with the embarrassing campiness of the previous one, it went too far in the opposite direction and was far too humourless and cold to watch. But there was an exception, and it was the two-parter "The Prince of Darkness Affair" from which "The Helicopter Spies" was taken. Not too heavy on sense, but funny without being silly, fast-moving, and always entertaining (which was to be expected, since it was written by the show's best scribe Dean Hargrove). And you have to laugh at the movie's last lines - although note that they spend very little time in helicopters...