THE INNOCENT: Patricia Crowley plays Elaine May Donaldson, a housewife selected by UNCLE because of she dated the villain in college and he never got over her! (A more believable "seduction" than in most spy fare, you'll agree.) Crowley is a very cute in the role, sort of like Terri Garr in Assignment: Earth, but not as dim. She was a regular television guest star during the 60s, at her peak headlining a TV version Please Don't Eat the Daisies (2 seasons from 1965) in the role played by Doris Day at the movies. The 1950s had seen her featured in many Hollywood films in fairly minor roles. Her later career spanned soap operas and sitcom guest spots (Frasier, Friends, Roseanne). She passed away September of last year of natural causes.
REVIEW: Though the original pilot was in color (see SOLO, below), the first season is in black and white, and makes good use of it, too. Despite the fact that this first episode was originally shot in color, the shadow work in the climactic chase looks great, for example, and often preferring giant close-ups that are more cinema than television. And though the action is on a TV budget, the shots look good (the guard slipping feet first into camera, for example, is more dynamic than a lot of the era's TV). And it's very Noir, too. That opening sequence of the THRUSH agents attacking UNCLE HQ without any dialog, ending with the famous shot of Solo behind bulletproof glass, with bullet scores on it. The way everyone seems super-suspicious on the plane going to Washington, D.C. (there's no payoff to the lipstick lady's sus behavior). I like that the show makes us question things this early, priming us for expecting the killer valet service, as we somehow miss that the assassins' target is NOT who we think it is.
At the heart of this is Elaine May Donaldson, a simple housewife who quite incidentally dated Andrew Vulcan, a rich industrialist who works for THRUSH (equating corporate power with rogue global interests - this is ahead of its time). Buy the premise, buy the bit, I have to say (especially knowing that the amateur spy is a regular feature). It seems crazy to use a normal person in such dangerous operations, and indeed, Elaine is early on a little out of her depth. But it ultimately resonates. She's us, walking into this covert world, and it's exciting. It's also confusing, and her loyalties aren't always with Solo. She has to be handled. The way UNCLE manipulates her into agreeing (using her local priest through his bishop) gives the organization a ruthless quality. Her breakdown is one of her best moments, showing how she's taken for granted at home, and here on the verge of joining UNCLE for good (by today's TV rules, she would have been introduced here so she could become a series regular). And she exposes something about Solo as well. When he asks about her regrets, he's really talking about his own, and though I don't expect much character development in a series of this kind and of this time, I think we see, in Robert Vaughn's performance, that Solo has made a personal sacrifice to be who he is. Like James Bond, casual relationships with women is just a way to fill a hole. He's not allowed to be quite as obvious (or brutal), but I like his easy, romantic charm.
The plot of the week works well as a showcase for the series, giving me those Mission: Impossible feels (that series is a couple years in the future, of course), but Solo doesn't hide behind aliases and rubber masks. He's himself, crashing parties and luring enemy agents out into the open. And yet, he'll still build a strong cover story for his guest star, use bold diversionary tactics like throwing a dummy out of a plane with a parachute, and slip people the occasional mickey. Interestingly, while UNCLE believes Vulcan will stage an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Soumarin (of a new and very fictional African country) while he visits a chemical plant, it turns out Ashumen - played by the great William Marshall (Blacula, Dr. Daystrom on Star Trek) - is working with THRUSH to essentially give them a nation they can control. The hit is instead on the two other dignitaries, patriots who stand in his way. So there's a nice twist in there, further pushing the paranoid atmosphere of the show. In the end, the villains are hoisted on their own petard and die in the accident they manufactured. Great fire and exploding glass effects... I wonder if the production values will hold across the series.
So what does UNCLE stand for, anyway? We don't find out here. The U.N. in it seems to imply it's a United Nations thing, but since Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum, who I know better from Sapphire and Steel) is only a briefly seen analyst here, I don't know that we get the sense that this is more than another American intelligence agency (Illya's accent aside). The HQ is very sci-fi, with a glossy metal finish, locked buffer zones between rooms and, rather amusingly, a Channel D operator in a bikini, under a tanning light while waiting for calls. Joyce Taylor's character Margaret Oberon does not reappear beyond this, but I hope all the Channel D girls are as promising. Leo G. Carroll's Alexander Waverly, the "M" of the program, does recur, but I don't really have anything to say about him yet. Another recurring thing is that each Act (returning from commercial breaks) has its own title, which is an odd conceit. I don't dislike it, but I don't know why the show is trying to be novelistic. Is it something to do with Fleming's name originally being attached? The structure does feel pacey (in combination with those transition shots to show time passing), which is a good thing for older programs. Obviously, this is a first episode, but it's already correcting from a pilot and what's there is pretty solid.
SOLO - THE ORIGINAL COLOR PILOT: 20 minutes longer (and yet still not as long as the movie version titled To Trap a Spy, see below) than the broadcast episode, the color pilot extends almost every scene resulting in a mix of dead air (in early scenes), and explanations both necessary (the lipstick girl was a double agent working for UNCLE! Solo has no gun in the climax because he dropped it in the river!) and unnecessary (Solo explaining his escape plan minutes before we see it in action). Generally, I like these extensions. Illya has more to do and figuring out who Vulcan's girlfriend takes a bit of detective work. Elaine has more backstory to study, gets a longer tour of the chemical plant (which foreshadows the explosive danger), and refuses a reward from UNCLE that ties into her breakdown and ultimate acceptance of her life as it is. The men who attacked UNCLE all die from a delayed-action poison, as THRUSH takes no chances (generally more analysis of the attack). And Vulcan's reaction to being betrayed is more violent and emotional, where the broadcast episode papers it over with a commercial break. Other than added information like this, there's only one real difference, and it's the recasting of Solo's boss. In the pilot, he's played by Will Kuluva and is named Mr. Aliison. I find him more distinctive than Waverly (at this point, anyway), but he seems a little too stressed. I'm pretty agnostic about this change. So does the show work better in color? We lose some of the Noir feeling, but gain a look closer to colorful 60s TV (and the Bond films of the decade, for that matter), with the chemical plant sequences most benefitting from the color stock.
TO TRAP A SPY - THE THEATRICAL RELEASE: There's an even longer version, packaged as a film for foreign markets and finally shown in the U.S. a couple years later. It's essentially the color pilot with one particular insertion. Here, we see the phone call that started it all, but is only mentioned in the episode proper. An agent called Lancer tries to call the assassination scheme in, but is cut off when he's betrayed by the beautiful Angela (Luciana Paluzzi). It's not needed except to set up a later sequence that replaces the valet parking sabotage. Instead, Solo smells perfume in the car and finds Angela hiding in the back seat. She tells him a tall tale about meeting Lancer at her house, Solo goes to bed with her, but eventually rumbles her. And when "Lancer" shows up, it's really THRUSH (sorry, WASP) goons, and Angela is killed in the crossfire. We then rejoin the episode as broadcast thanks to a piece of sabotage perpetrated by the goons. You can basically tell the additions from the rest by their NSFW content. Solo searches Angela by rubbing his gun all over her, in particular down her deep cleavage and perhaps up somewhere else. Their heavy flirtation leads to their having sex, etc. It's timid by today's standards, but wouldn't have played on television in 1964. They're really going for Bond here, and it's cool stuff, even if it feels like parentheses.
HEARD ON CHANNEL D: "If that blood you just washed off my face doesn't impress you, then I would suggest you go down to the river tomorrow and watch them fish out what's left of my car." (Solo)
"What would you like me to change into?" "Anything but a boy"' (Angela and Solo in To Trap a Spy)
BONDED: Napoleon Solo is, like James Bond, an Ian Fleming creation, in cooperation with producer Norman Felton, though the rest of the series concept is screenwriter Sam Rofle's). Indeed, the show was originally going to be called Ian Fleming's Solo until the Broccolis threatened action. Also contentious was that Goldfinger (the book and the film) had a minor thug called Solo. There was initially fear that THRUSH, the evil opposite of UNCLE, was too close to SMERSH (though the movies called it SPECTRE), and was changed in ADR to WASP for the color pilot (though the version on the DVD keeps THRUSH), but that was just more problematic because Jerry Anderson's Stingray was on the air and using that acronym. In addition to the evil org, other Bondisms include Solo himself, who is more compassionate than Bond, but has the same eye for beautiful women, and the suave magnetism to capitalize on it. Not only does he almost get the married guest star and flirt with Channel D's "Moneypenny", but the episode ends like many 007 films do, with the promise of sexy times with a gorgeous girl. He gets to wear a tuxedo. Naming conventions are also in the Fleming style - Andrew Vulcan is a weird name, but not for someone who aims to burn his victims alive. He prefers to put his enemies in a death trap rather than simply having them shot. In any case, Fleming sold his interest in the show for one pound when it went to series, and died a little over a month before the show premiered. Jerry Goldman composed the score for the pilot, as well as for a 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale of CBS's "Climax!". Richard Kiel (Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker) can be glimpsed (uncredited) as a guard (most obviously in the movie, where he swings a sledgehammer). Luciana Paluzzi (Angela in To Trap a Spy) would later be seen as the assassin Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, the second Bond film to hit theaters after UNCLE's premiere. Elsewhere in the spy world, Fritz Weaver (Andrew Vulcan) played various villains in four episodes of Mission: Impossible. The same exact note applies to UNCLE's original boss man Will Kuluva. The Del Floria's dry cleaners/tailor shop front (it's one of the few things I knew going into the series), something the Kingsmen franchise will steal wholesale.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: As the template for what is to come, it features a good mix of serious spycraft and Bondian fantasy, and the guest star is very charming, so it's a win. In the final analysis, while I admire the efficiency of the broadcast episode, there are many lines and moments from the original pilot I wish could have made the final product, but the theatrical release's additions, while sexy, are surplus to requirements, so I think "Solo" is the superior version out of the three.
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