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Production: USA, 1964-68 Cast: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Leo G. Carroll, Stephanie Powers, Noel Harrison. Some consider this as a television version of 007. In fact the leading character’s name, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) came from the novel “Goldfinger” by Ian Fleming about the famous secret agent (whose saga is still going on at the cinema). In the novel there was a gangster with that name, who was killed by the villain character. |
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There’s also another movie quoting: the “U.N.C.L.E.”’s head, known as Mr.
Waverly was played by Leo G. Carroll, who had already played a similar
role in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by northwest”. We can also notice that
the organization is called “U.N.C.L.E.” and Carroll really looks like a
good old uncle… “U.N.C.L.E.” stays for “United Network Command for Law Enforcement”, and as 007 had its counterpart in SPECTRE, U.N.C.L.E. had to face an adversary organization called “THRUSH”. We can now understand that the serie was suspended between serious and playful, and exaggerated situations which in 007 were difficult to believe: we can add that the entrance of U.N.C.L.E. was in a tailor shop… |
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There was a third male lead together with Solo and Waverly, Russian agent
Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) who despite his origins (we were in full
cold war) was Solo’s trusted partner in all missions. At first Ian Fleming itself was supposed to collaborate to the scripts, in fact he had created Napoleon Solo. But 007’s producers were not very happy about that, and moreover he had increasing health problems, so that the serie’s writers had to go on without him. Napoleon Solo was very similar to James Bond, Solo was too seductive and liked beautiful women, while Kuriakin seemed not to be very interested in them (maybe they wanted to avoid rivality?). U.N.C.L.E. too had its futuristic gadgets (also a special car), and its share of fantastic stories, like one about the abominable snowman and |
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even one about vampires (and the vampire was Martin Landau, who would have
become “Space: 1999”’s commander Koenig). |
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The two characters had already appeared in the original serie, played by
two different actors, and producers thought to make a serie about them,
taking inspiration from John Steed and Emma Peel from “The avengers”. But in those years the series about secret agents were many, maybe too many, and audience was not particularly interested in watching another one so the serie was cancelled after just one season, and the following year also the original serie ended. Also some movies were made from the serie, in some cases adding unseen footage to existing episodes, and sometimes the movies were made with two-parter episodes. The cast was very interesting. Robert Vaughn appeared in famous movies as “The magnificent seven” and was a leading character in “The protec- |
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tors",
the only non-science-fiction serie by Gerry
Anderson, famous producer of “U.F.O.”, “Space: 1999”, “Thunderbirds” and
similar… Vaughn also appeared, not casually, in the movie “Battle beyond the stars”, a sort of science-fiction remake of “The magnificent seven”. David McCallum too had a very long career, being leading character in the serie “Sapphire and Steel” were he played Steel, and in “The invisible man”. Leo G. Carroll appeared in “North by Northwest” where, as said above, played more or less the same role… Stephanie Powers some years after was the female leading character in the thriller serie “Hart to Hart”. Other famous actors appeared as guest stars: William Shatner and |
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Leonard Nimoy (Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock from “Star
Trek”) and, as said above, Martin Landau. 105 episodes, 29 b/n, 76 color, 60’ First season 1) The Vulcan Affair 2) The Iowa Scuba Affair 3) The Quadripartite Affair 4) The Shark Affair |
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5) The Deadly Games Affair 6) The Green Opal Affair 7) The Giuoco Piano Affair 8) The Double Affair 9) The Project Strigas Affair 10) The Finny Foot Affair 11) The Neptune Affair 12) The Dove Affair 13) The King of Knaves Affair 14) The Terbuf Affair 15) The Deadly Decoy Affair |
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16) The Fiddlesticks Affair |
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27) The Gazebo in the Maze Affair 28) The Girls of Nazarone Affair 29) The Odd Man Affair Seconda serie 30) The Alexander the Greater
Affair – part I |
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35) The Re-Collector's Affair |
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46) The Deadly Goddess Affair 47) The Birds and the Bees Affair 48) The Waverly Ring Affair 49) The Bridge of Lions Affair – part I 50) The Bridge of Lions Affair – part II 51) The Foreign Legion Affair 52) The Moonglow Affair 53) The Nowhere Affair 54) The King of Diamonds Affair 55) The Project Deephole Affair 56) The Round Table Affair |
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57) The Batcave Affair |
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65) The Pop Art Affair |
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76) The Suburbia Affair |
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87) The Five
Daughters Affair - part I (Il caso delle cinque figlie – parte I) Fourth
season |
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95) The Master's Touch Affair (Il caso del tocco da maestro) |
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7) The Danish Blue Affair (Il caso del blu danese) 8) The Garden of Evil Affair (Il caso del giardino del male) 9) The Atlantis Affair (Il caso Atlantis) 10) The Paradise Lost Affair (Il caso del paradiso perduto) 11) The Lethal Eagle Affair (Il caso dell’aquila mortale) 12) The Romany Lie Affair (Il caso della bugia romena) 13) The Little John Doe Affair (Il caso del piccolo John Doe) 14) The Jewels of Topango Affair (Il caso dei gioielli di Topango) 15) The Faustus Affair (Il caso Faustus) 16) The U.F.O. Affair (Il caso U.F.O.) 17) The Moulin Ruse Affair (Il caso del Moulin Ruse) |
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18) The Catacomb and Dogma
Affair (Il caso delle catacombe e del |
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29) The
Kooky Spook Affair (Il caso del fantasma Kooky) |
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