A Quadrilha do Karate

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 Karate Killers (1967)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A secret formula is stolen and broke off into four different parts so Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) must travel around the world and try to catch the evil man trying to get it. THE KARATE KILLERS is a feature-length version of a two-episode entry in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series. I should probably admit right from the start that I had never seen an episode of this show so I really can't say how well this movie is or how good the two episodes are and how they compare to other episodes in the series. For the most part I found myself having a pretty good time. I will admit that I found a lot of this to be rather campy and I'm not sure if this is just how it's aged or perhaps the series was always meant to be campy. Either way, there were a lot of fun moments scattered throughout the picture with some of the highlights including the opening sequence and another very good one where McCallum finds himself heading towards an ice breaker, which will certainly kill him. There are several sequences here that manage to capture that cliffhanger feeling that people saw in serials back in the day. Another thing that kept this film moving were the countless celebrity appearances including Joan Crawford, Herbert Lom, Leo G. Carroll, Telly Savalas and Kim Darby. Seeing all these stars pop up in small roles was nice. The two leads were also extremely good and fun. THE KARATE KILLERS, I don't think, was meant to be taken too serious so as long as you turn your brain off there's some fun to be had.

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.

I watched this not knowing anything about it. TCM showed it as part of their Joan Crawford marathon so I went into it blind, hoping to see a Joan movie I hadn't seen before. Well, I did. Sort of. This is apparently a "movie" that is spliced together from episodes of The Man From UNCLE TV show. While I have heard of the show before, I have never watched it. After viewing this, I doubt I ever will. I know the show has its fans and I'm sure the show has its merits that this film does nothing to showcase. But this left such a bitter taste in my mouth I can't imagine I will watch anything related to that show anytime soon...if ever. The thing that's most surprising to me is that this has a fairly big-name cast. Curd Jurgens, Herbert Lom, Kim Darby, Telly Savalas, Terry-Thomas, Leo G. Carroll, Jill Ireland -- not chump change. As for Joan, her part in this is minuscule and an easy contender for the most embarrassing performance of her career. If this is the kind of work she was being offered, no wonder she did Trog. I can't recommend this to anybody. It was not funny or thrilling or anything else that the supposed genre(s) of it would suggest. It was just bad.

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.