Le retour des agents très spéciaux

Good for a reunion show that deserves special allowances for auld lang syne that otherwise would not fly for a regular show, a time to reminisce on the impossibility of twenty years flying by! and even worse another twenty since that yet again to 2006! Will someone quit turning the calendar instead of the second hand! Though McNee was truly good as Sir John, the sorrowful part was the loss fourteen years before, in '72, of inestimable and quite irreplaceable stellar veteran Leo G. Carroll/Mr. Waverly they were kind enough to acknowledge. What wasn't mentioned in other descriptions of the film was how Sir John's entrance into the fray was due to the death of Mr. Waverly whom he was replacing (I believe he was supposedly killed in a THRUSH attack, which while stretching the bonds of credibility that they only just now managed to kill him after so many years is still a well-deserved tribute to dear old Leo G.). As sharp as Carroll was, he deserved a larger role had the oversexed dolts of that age not been such abysmal failures at appreciating the treasure in their midst, though perhaps Vaughn & McCallum may have.

A fascinating connection most don't realize, including me, until today, thanks to the IMDb, is that in the '50s show Topper in which Carroll starred as Cosmo Topper, Robert Sterling played George Kerby, the debonair husband of the ghost couple that could be so frustrating for Cosmo, wife Anne Jeffreys playing Mrs. (Marion) Kerby, but Sterling also later played Captain Lee Craine in the Irwin Allen's movie, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the part later taken by David Hedison in the TV version as Richard Baseheart took Walter Pigeon's place! Interesting connection: Man from UNCLE and Voyage to the Bottowm of the Sea by way of Topper! What Topper!

Back when the old Man From UNCLE series was going I thought it was a radical concept. Here we had as the top agents an American and a Russian in an agency run by a British man to the manor born all cooperating against a conspiracy to rule the world headed by some evil folks. Detente a generation ahead of its time.

Leo G. Carroll has passed on, but the United Network Command for Law Enforcement has another titled Britisher in Patrick MacNee heading it. A master criminal Anthony Zerbe has escaped and who better than the two guys who borough Zerbe in back in the day to get him.

So Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are recruited from the lives they now lead, Vaughn as Las Vegas gambler and McCallum as fashion kingpin. Zerbe has also stolen a thermonuclear bomb and plans to blow it up unless he gets a hefty sum of cash. UNCLE's nemesis THRUSH is back in action.

It was nice to see Vaughn and McCallum back in their old roles. Hard to believe that the kindly old medical examiner from NCIS was something of a teenage heartthrob back in those days, but The Man From UNCLE gave McCallum some short lived bubblegum popularity.

I can see why this version failed though, it tried for satire and fell on its face. No wonder this was not picked up to revive the series

Reunion TV-movies based on old series rarely capture the spirit of the original, but Return of the Man from Uncle taps into the campiness of the series as if it never was off the air. The leads have fun acknowledging their age, and the whole thing neatly turns into a parody of spy films without becoming a parody of itself. I rated it a "9" not because it is great art but because compared to all other TV reunion movies it is head and shoulders above the rest!

Agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuriyakin are called back to UNCLE after fifteen years to do battle with THRUSH once more who are holding the United States to ransom with a stolen nuclear bomb.

Enjoyable revival movie with Robert Vaughn and David McCallam looking a bit older and a bit thicker around the middle, but still wonderful as Solo and Kuriyakin. The chemistry between them hasn't faded after so many years. Good supporting cast includes Anthony Zerbe as an evil THRUSH chief, Carolyn Seymour as a Russian ballerina who is blackmailed by THRUSH to do their bidding and Patrick Macnee (ex-Avengers) makes a satisfactory replacement for Leo G Carroll as the new UNCLE chief, the latter sadly died in 1972. The film is directed by Ray Austin who worked on The Avengers as initially stunt arranger and later as a director. Austin made his directorial debut on an episode from the latter entitled "All Done With Mirrors."

This was intended as the pilot for a new series, but sadly it never materialised. Interestingly, there has been rumours of a big budget movie of the series being made, probably like Mission Impossible, but as The Return Of The Man From UNCLE shows without Vaughn and McCallam it will be a disaster.

This is one re-union movie that had to be made. Fortunately it was made by a rabid fan of the original--a man named Michael Sloan who went on to produce "The Equalizer". Sloan and director Ray Austin (who directed many later episodes of "The Avengers") made sure they kept much of the tongue in cheek humour of the series, and made the movie a high quality venture, but up-dated it to then modern times (1983). A touching item was the stars made a point to notice they were getting to old for this kind of physical action, and that Illya points out "progress" is not necessarily a better thing. The supporting cast was first rate with Anthony Zerbe (what happened to him?), Geoffrey Lewis, Keenan Wynn, and especially Pat MacNee (former Avenger John Steed) as the new head of UNCLE...Its a shame a planned new series was not picked up by CBS.