The TV producer Norman Felton tells how he once encountered a woman in swinging '60s London who demanded to know why all leading men in Hollywood had to be handsome, muscular and all-American. He didn't know.
Soon after, when Felton put together the TV spy show "The Man From U.N.C.L.E," he decided to discard that template. He cast a British actor, David McCallum, in the role of a Russian. The star, Robert Vaughn, had the looks but not the bulk of a typical leading man.
"They were both slim, not ballsy men," Felton recalls today. And, "They were younger than most of the heroes than you saw in the western shows."
NBC saw the pilot and wanted to get rid of McCallum. It wasn't because he was "Russian." It was because he had long hair.
The kids understood. Vaughn and McCallum were treated like rock stars as they flacked the hip new show. The cops once closed off Time Square so McCallum could escape a Beatlemania-like mob of female admirers. "U.N.C.L.E" soon became a smash hit.
Now, those fans are aging baby boomers with wallets full of credit cards, which will come in handy as "U.N.C.L.E." makes its highly anticipated debut on DVD. The Time Life set goes for $250, sold exclusively on the Time Life website and via direct-response television commercials.*. In return, you get 41 DVDs packaged in a format similar to the award-winning "Get Smart" collection from Time Life. The series comes packaged in a silver "attache case" that holds every original, unedited episode from all four seasons of the series. That's 105 shows.
The shipping date for "The Man From U.N.C.L.E. -- The Complete Collection" now appears to be Monday, a week's delay, so there are a few days left to ensure you're first on the block. The operatives at Time Life leaked a preview disc to DVD Spin Doctor, however, and here's what we found hidden inside:
The two sample episodes looked and sounded fine, especially considering they came from 40 years ago. Wear was present but quite tolerable.
The black-and-white comedy episode "The Never-Never Affair" guest-stars Barbara Feldon as an U.N.C.L.E. go-fer looking for fun and adventure. Cesar Romero plays a visiting French (huh?) evil-doer from THRUSH. Vaughn sends wannabe Feldon on a bogus mission that turns real as she bumbles about Manhattan. The action includes a Hitchcockian shootout in a movie theater. Feldon was so good they built a similar role for her as Agent 99 on "Get Smart!"
The color pilot, "The Vulcan Affair," is a more traditional spy adventure that kicks off with a cool and tense armed invasion of U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. You know, the place hidden beneath Del Floria's Tailor Shop. The intro identifies the show as "Solo." (The pilot project also went by the name "Mr. Solo.") "Vulcan" isn't as clever or fun as "Never-Never" but it benefits from some 007-like tuxedo action.
Executive producer Felton explains in the DVD bonus featurette "The Cloak & Swagger Affair" that the Napoleon Solo name (of Vaughn's character) came from James Bond creator Ian Fleming, an early collaborator. The novelist failed to mention that he'd liked the name so much he'd used it for a bad guy in "Goldfinger," due shortly in theaters. And so we have "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," a title born with a TBA acronym.
Fleming came up with a few key concepts but mostly liked to chat about his own adventures. He cheerfully sold Felton his interest in the show to for a pound.
The Q&A extra "Double Agents" brings Vaughn and McCallum together for what's billed as their first joint interview in decades. The men apparently were cordial co-workers during the show but became close friends after its run.
The interview isn't deep (EPK-style graphics provide the questions) but it's interesting to see the old agents interact. They both agree the show was a "wonderful" experience. Vaughn calls it "the best four years of my life."
McCallum has this to say about the unusually good writing: "When I think of television back in the days of 'U.N.C.L.E.' it was a total high-high respect for the written word and the script. ... There was always a family kind of feeling between the writers and the actors. The scripts were written wonderfully and we stuck to them."
Vaughn says, "The first year of shows were better. They were adventure and romance with a little bit of humor. And that's where the show unfortunately didn't stay. And that why the show went off the air -- because it became a farce." Fortunately, Time Life also plans an 11-DVD release of season 1.
I'm not making a recommendation based on a sampler, but from what I've seen this looks like a first-class revival. See you at the tailor shop.
* There's a coupon code for free shipping on the box set: TLUNCLE.
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