Before we look at the uncle films, here is a brief history about this famous secret agent series.NBC's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was one of the most successful -- and, by virtue of its September 22, 1964, debut date, the first series of its kind to directly benefit from the popularity of the earliest James Bond films starring Sean Connery. Indeed, series producer Norman Felton had approached Bond creator Ian Fleming to help with the development of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but when the producers of the Bond films found this out, they obliged Fleming to withdraw from the project (as it turned out, Fleming died before the NBC series ever saw the light of day). The series was originally titled Solo, in honor of its American...secret agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn). The story goes that the James Bond movie producers were up in arms about this as well, citing the fact that one of the secondary villains in the 1964 Bond flick Goldfinger was also named Solo. However, one suspects that producer Felton decided on the title change when it became clear that "his" Solo wasn't going to be the "solo" star of the series: sharing billing with Vaughn was David McCallum as Russian-born spy Illya Kuryakin, who had initially been conceived as a minor character but whose importance grew apace as filming on the first season progressed. Both Illya and Napoleon Solo worked for the top-secret organization U.N.C.L.E., which stood for The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. (Although entirely fictional, U.N.C.L.E. was given a special "acknowledgement" at the end of each episode, with the series' producers puckishly declaring that "without [U.N.C.L.E.]'s assistance this program would not be possible.") The headquarters for this international counterespionage agency were located in New York City, just behind a dry-cleaning shop (Della Floria's) which served as the agency's cover. Taking their orders from their superior officer Alexander Waverly (Leo G. Carroll), armed with the latest in Bond-like gadgetry and weaponry, and maintaining communication with the home office by way of a radio communicator disguised as a packet of cigarettes (in the early series)then by a tiny radio disguised as a fountain pen in the later series,communication always started with the famous words("Open Channel D"), Another gadget they used was the now famous u.n.c.l.e. gun with its birdcage flash suppressor on the barrel end,this was the first time anyone had seen this sort of gun,it was made in the uncle workshop by converting a walther p38 by changing the grips to be more of a square shape and adding the agents first initial of his name into the grip but what put this gun into its own was by changing the end of the barrel,everyone wanted this new gun,plus the sound the gun made was like no other on the market at the time.Solo and Illya traveled all over the world to fight the good fight against a wide variety of colorful villains, most of whom were in the employ of the international crime-and-terrorism organization THRUSH. After a lukewarm start in a Tuesday-evening slot, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. enjoyed a huge ratings surge when it moved to Mondays halfway through season one. The first 29 hour-long episodes, filmed in black-and-white, were fairly straightforward and serious, albeit with a slyly satirical undercurrent. In many of the earliest episodes, the U.N.C.L.E. agents would enlist the aid of an "average citizen" to do battle against the forces of THRUSH. Not surprisingly, a number of these "civilians" were attractive young ladies, though there were a few middle-aged spinsters and gormless young men in the mixture as well. The series switched to color and a Friday-night slot for its second season, at which time the plots became less sober and more humorous, and many of the "normal" people temporarily engaged to help the good guys were decidedly on the eccentric side. The influence of the campy adventure series Batman pervaded The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s third season, with the villains more flamboyant and the plots more outrageous than ever. (Also this season, the series spawned a spin-off, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., which was often so over the top that it looked like a spoof of a spoof!) Suffering from ever-diminishing ratings, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. dropped its campiness and radically lowered its laugh quotient for its fourth season, reverting to the seriousness and (comparative) realism of the series' first season. Also, in keeping up to date with recent real-life developments in the world of espionage, the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters were totally redesigned and equipped with the latest of computer technology. Unfortunately, the series' viewership had dropped to an all-time low, and on January 15, 1968, it was canceled, replaced by NBC's new comedy-variety series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. For the theatrical-movie market, a number of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes were combined and/or expanded into main stream feature films, bearing such titles as To Trap a Spy, The Spy With My Face, One Spy Too Many, One of Our Spies Is Missing, The Spy in the Green Hat, The Karate Killers, The Helicopter Spies, and How to Steal the World. And in 1983, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were reunited in the made-for-TV movie The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.: Fifteen Years Later.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. rated so highly in America, and the UK, that MGM and the producers decided to film extra footage (often more adult to evoke Bond films) for two of the first season episodes and release them to theaters after they had aired on TV. The episodes with the extra footage that made it to theaters were the original pilot, "The Vulcan Affair" retitled To Trap a Spy, and also from the first season "The Double Affair" retitled as The Spy With My Face. Both had added sex and violence, new sub-plots and guest stars not in the original TV episodes. They were often released as an U.N.C.L.E. double-feature program first run in neighborhood theaters, bypassing the customary downtown movie palaces which were still thriving in the mid-60s and where new movies usually played for weeks and even months before coming to outlying screens.A selling point to seeing these films on the big screen back then was that they were being shown in color, at a time when most people had black and white TVs. The words IN COLOR featured prominently on the trailers, tv spots and posters for the film releases.Subsequent two-part episodes, beginning with the second season premiere shows "The Alexander The Greater Affair," retitled One Spy Too Many for its theatrical release, were developed into one complete feature film with only occasional extra sexy and violent footage added to them, sometimes as just inserts.All of the films were successful in many parts of the world, even those where the TV show did not air, sometimes surpassing box office receipts of the most recent Bond film. The later films were not released in America, only overseas, but the first few did well in American theaters and remain one of the few times a television show has been released in paid theatrical engagements.Now on to each of the u.n.c.l.e.films.

TO TRAP A SPY...

This film is essentially the original pilot for the popular 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It was expanded to 92 minutes and shot in color for theatrical release with extra footage added. Robert Vaughn plays the master spy and adept action hero Napoleon Solo. He works for a shadowy supra-governmental enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E. His partner is the suave Russian secret agent Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum). In this pilot, a sinister organization called W.A.S.P. assassinates the president of an African republic and his assistants. Solo is enlisted to stop W.A.S.P.'s plans to take over the country and turn it into a dictatorship. The plot and action proceed at lightning speed against the backdrop of a brewing Cold War superpower confrontation. Through a series of mishaps, a housewife, Elaine May Donaldson (Pat Crowley) is dragged into the fight and helps Solo thwart the coup attempt.

Here is a quick story view...UNCLE, an organization to combat international crime, learns that WASP, an international crime syndicate, plans to take over Western Natumba, a newly-independent African state, by killing its President Ashumen when he and two of his ministers visit the Vulcan Chemicals plant in the United States. UNCLE's secret agent Napoleon Solo is assigned to prevent the assassination. He enlists the aid of Elaine May Donaldson, a housewife who was Vulcan Chemicals owner Andrew Vulcan's college sweetheart. Vulcan becomes attracted to Elaine once again when Solo has her pose as a wealthy and glamorous widow. She and Solo gain admittance to the Vulcan plant, and there they discover that Vulcan and Ashumen head WASP. Alfred Ghist, an evil scientist employed by Vulcan, captures Solo and Elaine and hangs them by their wrists in a room filling up with scalding steam. In the room directly above, an explosion is set to kill Ashumen's two ministers, who are innocent of any involvement in WASP. Solo and Elaine escape, saving the two Africans; and instead, Ashumen and Vulcan are killed in the explosion.

THE SPY WITH MY FACE...

Some extra footage was added to segments of two episodes from the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68) to create this feature film-length espionage adventure that was released theatrically in some countries to cash in on the James Bond craze. Ordered by their secret organization U.N.C.L.E. to stop the sinister group THRUSH from obtaining a top-secret nuclear weapon, spies Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) travel to Switzerland. Once there, Solo is lured into a trap by a comely enemy agent, Serena (Senta Berger). Kidnapped by THRUSH, Solo is replaced with an exact double who infiltrates U.N.C.L.E. Kuryakin eventually becomes suspicious due to his friend's odd behavior and takes steps to learn the truth, while Solo attempts to escape from captivity and stop THRUSH's plot to get its hands on the weapon. The episodes represented in the film are "The Double Affair," which first aired November 17, 1964, and "The Four Steps Affair," which originally aired February 22, 1965.

Here is a quick story view...UNCLE agents Napoleon Solo, an American, and Illya Kuryakin, a Russian, are assigned to fly to Switzerland while guarding the combination to a vault in the Swiss Alps which holds the secret of a nuclear weapon powerful enough to destroy the world. Before the flight, THRUSH agent Serena lures Solo to her apartment, and there he is overpowered and his place on the plane is taken by a THRUSH agent who has been transformed by plastic surgery to look exactly like Solo. The impostor fools Illya but is nearly discovered when he does not recognize UNCLE agent Kittridge, whom he kills. He then obtains the combination to the vault. Arriving in Switzerland, Illya begins to be suspicious, and he makes his way to THRUSH headquarters. Meanwhile, Solo, who is being held prisoner in THRUSH headquarters, escapes after shooting THRUSH's leader Darius Two. Darius Two then pushes an "auto-destruct" button which blows up THRUSH headquarters, killing himself and most of the gang. The two Solos have a confrontation, and the real Solo is saved when Serena, taking sympathy on him, comes to his aid and shoots the impostor.

ONE SPY TOO MANY...

This feature-length espionage thriller is an expanded version of an episode of the TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. entitled "The Alexander the Great Affair." Mr. Alexander (Rip Torn) is a power-hungry multi-millionaire who wants to take over the world from his compound in Greece, with Alexander the Great serving as his role model. Alexander starts his bid for world domination in a small but strategically crucial Asian nation, where he plans to assassinate the President and render his chain of command helpless with a chemical weapon that destroys a person's will to win. International agents Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) are sent out to stop him, while Alexander's wife Tracey (Dorothy Provine) has her own ideas of how to deal with him. The original airing of "The Alexander The Great Affair" led off the second (and most popular) season of the TV series; the theatrical release of One Spy Too Many proved somewhat less successful.

Here is a quick story view...Megalomaniac Alexander wants to be like Alexander The Great. His plan is to commit the world's greatest crimes to expand his industrial empire. Every crime is specifically designed to contradict the ten commandments. U.N.C.L.E. goes after him when he steals a secret chemical from the US military. Solo and Kuryakin team up with Alexander's former wife, Tracey, to stop him from becoming the most powerful man in the world. This movie is made from the "The Alexander The Greater Affair", parts one and two, from season two of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

THE SPY IN THE GREEN HAT...