With the success of the Bond films, it was just a matter of time before television tried to cash in on the spy craze, and as we learn in one of the many featurettes that distinguishes the DVD release of the THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., THE COMPLETE SERIES, Ian Fleming was involved in both. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The suavity of the leading men, that would be Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, just as suave, but in a Russian, brooding way, the gadgets, the semi-disapproving, terribly tweedy British type in charge, it was a magic brew of spy-dom fantasy. It also captured the zeitgeist of a Cold War rife with implacably evil folk, often masquerading as capitalists, bent on world domination, and the heady optimism that technology, in the form of those fun gadgets, could fix anything and win the day. Not to mention the luscious lady of the week.
The bad guys, though, weren’t the Russians, but rather T.H.R.U.S.H., a proto-NGO that didn’t have the world’s welfare at heart. It didn’t have a heart. What it had were super-clever villains and fighting them were Solo and Kuryakin, the latter providing another little boost of 60s-style American optimism. When the chips were down and the world was at stake, political differences could be put aside and world governments could and would work together.
Mostly, though, this was an action-adventure series that was fun, from the early, black-and-white days when there was a genuine sense of danger to the proceedings, to the latter day, campy self-parody that had it’s own if lesser charms. If the series devolved into schtick, it was still worth watching if only for the consistent star-power of Vaughn and McCallum, who always saved the world and mostly got the girl with panache and a tongue placed firmly in cheek.
The DVD includes every episode of the series, including the original pilot, entitled “Solo”, which was changed for reasons that are a intriguing as anything else Ian Fleming was involved in. The gadgets get their own featurette, including that devilishly clever pen-phone whose signal back and forth to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in New York, the one entered through a fitting room in Del Florio’s tailor shop. The de rigeur present-day interview with Vaughn and McCallum is engaging, as is their wit as they look back on the phenomenon that was U.N.C.L.E. and the impact it had on their lives. It’s the story of how it all began that is the most diverting, as everyone from the starts to the producers to the writers chime in with their collected reminiscences about how it all began. The only thing that strains credulity is how easy they all make it sound.
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., THE COMPLETE SERIES, is a rakish time capsule of the time (1964-1968) that created it. Four seasons, 105 episodes and bonus materials that clock in at over 10 hours, it’s fun, it’s fluffy, and it has some interesting guest stars, the first joint appearance by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, for example, a deeply menacing Joan Crawford, and a wild-haired Elsa Lanchester. It might be more than most of us could watch in one sitting, but like the popcorn entertainment that it is, it’s hard to stop once you’re started.
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