Des agents très spéciaux

Like other baby boomers, I grew up with this weekly spy series. It was very popular with all my classmates, and the talk the next morning at school after its TV showing would invariably be the latest exploits of the daring young Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. The boys all wanted to be just like them, and the girls were all besotted with them. We were all hooked on their ridiculous intelligence seeking or defensive gadgetry devices. After the spin off series The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. premiered, then all the girls wanted to be just like HER.

The show chronicles the assorted adventures and derring do of two agents of the agency U.N.C.L.E. (the United Network Command for Law Enforcement)... the American Napoleon Solo and the Russian Illya Kuryakin. (For a change, the Cold War enemies were comrades here.) Together the pair use their charm, wits, and of course assorted spy gadgetry to defeat the forces of evil, notably the terrorists and other threatening international villains of the wicked agency T.H.R.U.S.H. The duo take their orders from the older Mr. Alexander Waverly.

The two lead actors had the looks and the charisma to carry off the show, with great chemistry between them. Robert Vaughan plays the suave, dashing dark haired Solo, and David McCallum his cool, blond, British accented sidekick, Kuryakin. The role of Mr. Waverly is portrayed by the gentlemanly Leo G. Carroll.

It's been quite a few decades, have not seen it in re runs, so have forgotten many of the details. However, it was an adventurous, suspenseful, and primarily fun show, shades of James Bond's 007. Lots of fights, close calls, torturing villains, assorted intrigue, and of course beautiful women! Around this era there was also a cute comedy spy series, Get Smart. To this very day, whenever The Man From U.N.C.L.E. comes to mind or I chance upon either of its two stars on TV, I'm filled with a great sense of nostalgia. Sigh.

Hollywood has missed a bet by not capitalizing on the fact that Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are still alive. There should be another series or a movie with these two, but it would require some good writing to get a show worth watching. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKES THAT WERE MADE ON THE AVENGERS MOVIE. I've always maintained that if you wanted to watch a show about the past, you could watch Wild, Wild, West; if you wanted to watch a show about the present, you could watch Man From Uncle; if you wanted to watch a show about the future, you could watch Star Trek; if you wanted a foreign flavored show you could watch The Avengers; and if you wanted to watch a comedy, you could watch Get Smart. MFU started in 1964, WWW and Get Smart in 1965 and Star Trek in 1966. The Avengers with Emma Peel hit here around 1967. You can get by in life just watching these shows. My feeling is that the Sixties started in February 1964 with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and ended with the Manson murders in August 1969. Those were 5 magical, wonderful years that I wish could be recaptured and relived somehow. Anyway, what made MFU such a hit? There were numerous teen-age baby-boomers who thought the exciting life shown on the show was how life was going to be. Women, travel, women, cool suits, women, weapons, excitement, women, etc,. Did I mention women? Sure beat the work-a-day world our Dads had to live in the 1960s. We were in for a big surprise when we grew up. No UNCLE organization, no space travel, no huge amounts of leisure time. Sigh.

My dad used to watch this show during the first two seasons of the show,and I immediately became hooked! The Man From U.N.C.L.E was one of the best spy shows ever to come out of a period which the cold war,civil rights,and the height of the Vietnam War was a great escape for young minds back then. Since the show was a huge hit on the NBC network when it premiered on September 22,1964,it was something that no one thought of at that time: a character who was in the same ranks as James Bond 007 himself! The gadgets on that show were awesome(pens that acted as a radio to phone back at headquarters;an automobile with a built in machine gun and seat ejector)and the headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement which were secretly hidden in a tenement complex in New York..something to beholded!!! Robert Vaughn was a true gentlemen and a suave secret agent who was in the same category as Sean Connery,but he made the role very interesting as Napoleon Solo,and his Russian counterpart Illya,played by David McCallum,the coolest ever with a 60's shag blonde look(who looked like a rock star instead of an secret agent)!! The show's first two seasons were very dramatic and their was a great chemistry between the actors themselves which kept the action intense and very hipped!!! The sad part is that when the show's color episodes came it wasn't dramatic or very appealing anymore,but incredibly silly by the end of series' final run in 1968 (the 29 black and white episodes from 1964-1965 were the best ever and some of the best gadgets too). Jerry Goldsmith's theme score for the series was the best ever for a TV series,and still is to this day. U.N.C.L.E was so,so good it spawned two feature films,and dozens of toys,comic books,mystery novels,and posters,and can you believe that David McCallum have a hit record out based on the show back in 1965(which he teamed up with Nancy Sinatra on a hit song,which hit the top of the charts too-very rare to find that album nowadays),plus a very short-lived Saturday Morning cartoon show? The repeats are rarely seen on TV nowadays,but they can be seen on TNT every once in a while if possible. A total of 105 episodes were produced with 29 episodes of Season 1 were in black and white. 76 episodes of Seasons 2 thru 4 were in color until the series finale on January 15,1968.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is arguably one of the greatest shows of the Sixties and definitely the best American spy show. It blended tongue in cheek humour with action and adventure for an end result that was extremely entertaining. Unfortunately, all good things cannot last. The first season (when it was still shot in black and white) and the second season (the first one shot in colour) place The Man From U.N.C.L.E. among the best television has to offer. All of this changed with the third season, when the series became so silly that watching its episodes became nearly unbearable. The show recovered somewhat in its abbreviated fourth season (it would be cancelled midway through), but by that time The Man From U.N.C.L.E. had lost its charm. Though the fourth season episodes are watchable, they lack the humour and pinache of the first two seasons. Regardless, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a testament to what Sixties television could do at its very finest.

I know the last user thought the episodes were just average, but you cannot judge very early 60's TV by today's standard and technology. The show was very cool, and so were Napoleon and Illya. Heck, that is why there is still a huge following forty years later.

Yes, the shows look as if they were filmed on back lot. They were. The pace and budget did not allow for on location scenes. Look at old Star Trek and you will see the same limitations.

Many shows were intended to be funny or at least tongue in cheek. The episode with Joan Collins is a riot. The agents are trying to get a low class woman to pass off as a lady. This episode, The Galatea Affair, is a take on My Fair Lady and introduces Noel Harrison as Mark Slate. OF course you will remember that his father had the task of transforming Liza Doolitle in MFL.

Try the very early pairing of Shatner and Nimoy in Project Strigas or The Ultimate Computer Affair, another great MFU episode. There were over 100 of them in this popular 60's show.