The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Moonglow Affair

When the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was being developed by Ian Fleming (yes, that Ian Fleming) the intention was to have two regular characters, a male spy (whom Fleming named Napoleon Solo) and his female partner, April Dancer.

So April Dancer, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., can in fact be considered to have been created by Ian Fleming (which is why she has a cool name - all Fleming’s female characters had delightful names).

For various reasons Fleming severed his relationship with the series (one story is that he thought the series would be too Bond-like so he would in effect be competing with himself).

After Fleming’s departure it was decided there would be only one central character, Napoleon Solo. That’s why the series was called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. rather than The Men from U.N.C.L.E. and the pilot episode, called Solo, does indeed feature only Napoleon Solo. When the series went into production the first episode featured a minor character named Illya Kuryakin. He was so popular that the immediate decision was made to make him the co-star.

Miss Dancer had however not been entirely forgotten. A spin-off series, to be called The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., seemed like a tempting idea and episode twenty-three of the second season became in effect the pilot episode of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.. This episode was The Moonglow Affair. It was scripted by Dean Hargrove and directed by Joseph Sargent and originally went to air in February 1966.

In this episode April Dancer is played by Mary Ann Mobley with her partner Mark Slate being played by Norman Fell. When The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. got the go-ahead as a spin-off series Stefanie Powers took over the role of Miss Dancer while Mark Slate became very English and was played by Noel Harrison.

By this stage the fatal decision had been made to turn both The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. into zany comic-book style adventures inspired by the Batman TV series. This ill-considered decision doomed both series. It just didn’t work. They already had the right formula, an American copy of the mixture of action and tongue-in-cheek charm that worked so well for the Bond movies, and changing that formula was an idea that only 1960s TV network executives could have come up with.

The Moonglow Affair is still in the early Man from U.N.C.L.E. style, sophisticated sand witty rather than zany and goofy.

In some ways April Dancer resembles Cinnamon Carter in Mission: Impossible, relying on her wits and her sex appeal rather than her fighting skills. She is slightly more of an action heroine than Cinnamon Carter, but she is not really a Cath Gale or an Emma Peel-style full-blown kickass action heroine.

In The Moonglow Affair both Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin have landed themselves in very bad trouble and in desperation Mr Waverley has to send a brand new agent into the field to rescue them. April Dancer is only twenty-four but Mr Waverley assures doubters that she really is fully trained and very capable.

April’s partner Mark Slate is balding middle-aged Norman Fell. In fact he’s past retirement age for a field agent which becomes a running joke through the rest of the episode.

THRUSH is trying to sabotage the American space program, and the Russian space program as well. THRUSH has its own plans for space exploration. They’re using a cosmetics company as a front and April manages to get herself chosen as Miss Moonglow, the centrepiece of their promotional plans for a new glow-in-the-dark lipstick (and that glow-in-the-dark lipstick will be used quite cleverly at the episode’s climax).

The Moonglow Affair was broadcast in February 1966. The idea of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. series was obviously already in the air (it would make its debut in September 1966). I have no idea if Mary Ann Mobley was considered for the role in the series. She’s quite good but perhaps she didn’t quite have the star power for a series. Or perhaps the decision to put more emphasis on zany comedy made Stefanie Powers seem like a more suitable choice.

While Norman Fell was fun as the middle-aged Mark Slate that casting was obviously only going to work as a one-off.

The Moonglow Affair certainly puts April Dancer at centre stage. Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin scarcely appear in this episode at all. The idea presumably was to find out if April Dancer was likely to be a strong enough character to carry a series.

The potential of the character was obvious. The producers however clearly thought that Mary Ann Mobley was not the right actress for the upcoming series.

I like Mary Ann Mobley in this episode. I like her a lot. She’s adorable and her acting is fine, and she captures the character very well. She can be amusing, she can be sexy. She’s not called upon to do anything physical since April Dancer was not conceived of as the kind of lady spy who relies on her unarmed combat abilities. She was, incidentally, Miss America 1959. She had some bad luck as an actress, having originally landed the part of Batgirl in the Batman TV series only to be replaced by Yvonne Craig. In a way I can see why Stefanie Powers was ultimately preferred. Mary Ann Mobley is perhaps just a bit too soft and feminine.

When it came to The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. series the producers obviously wanted April’s male partner to be more of an action hero type so Norman Fell was not likely to have been seriously considered. It’s a pity. He and Mary Ann Mobley have fine chemistry and this original version of the April Dancer-Mark Slate pairing is rather delightful.

The Moonglow Affair is actually vastly superior to most of the episodes of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. which far too often suffered from weak writing and excessive silliness. The Moonglow Affair by contrast hits just the right balance, being witty and clever and outrageous without ever descending into self-conscious goofiness or self-parody. An entire series pairing Mary Ann Mobley and Norman Fell would most likely have had more of the feel of The Avengers rather than trying unsuccessfully to ape Batman.

The Moonglow Affair is an excellent episode. A tantalising glimpse into what might have been.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. season 2 (1965-66)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was more than just a hit TV series. It was a bona fide pop culture phenomenon. But only for a short time. Meddling by the network resulted in the disastrous third season from which the series was unable to recover and it was cancelled midway through the fourth season. But the second season (which is what we’re concerned with at the moment) which was launched in late 1965 saw the series riding very high indeed in the ratings.

The second season was the first to be shot in colour. The formula was mostly the same as season one, with perhaps a slightly more light-hearted tone. It was not quite as good as season one but it was still very very good. The first two seasons featured often outlandish plots and outrageous villains but the series was not an out-and-out spoof. It was closer in tone to the 1960s Bond movies and to The Avengers. Most spy fans would probably agree that no spy series has ever been able to match the subtle surrealism, the sophisticated playfulness, the wit and the style that The Avengers achieved at its peak. That might be so but in its first two seasons The Man from U.N.C.L.E. goes very very close indeed to matching The Avengers in these areas. 1960s spy television doesn’t get much better than this.

One of the trademarks of the series in its first season was that a typical storyline would revolve around some poor innocent bystander caught up in the world of espionage and that device was used extensively in the second series as well.

With the success of the early Bond movies gadgets had become an essential feature of spy stories. The gadgets in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. are remarkably clever in seeming to be suitably high-tech while involving almost nothing in the way of budgetary outlays.

Production values are high by the standards of the day and the sets are often quite inspired. In its early days at least the series had considerable cachet and had no trouble attracting some very fine guest stars. It all adds up to an aura of classiness and quality. The emphasis was on fun, but very well-crafted fun.

Like The Avengers this is a series that perfectly captures the spirit of a very brief moment in history. In 1965 the Swinging 60s were still swinging but hadn’t yet turned weird and crazy. Style and energy were everything. And The Man from U.N.C.L.E. had a great deal of style. By 1967 the Flower Children had arrived and style started to go out the window.

On the subject of style, it’s interesting to look at the two leads. Robert Vaughn plays Napoleon Solo very much as a sophisticated late 1950s American hero. Always impeccably groomed, with clothes that are sharp but conservative. It is impossible to imagine Napoleon Solo wearing jeans. Illya looks more like a 1960s hero, but very much an early 60s hero. His clothes are very 60s but he’s still very neat and well-groomed. Within a very few years both Napoleon and Illya would look decidedly retro. And Napoleon’s suave style with the ladies would seem very retro.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was one of the two great American spy series of the 60s, the other being of course Mission: Impossible. While the plots of Mission: Impossible were so outrageous as to challenge credibility it was played very straight. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was tongue-in-cheek from the start. But the two series do have a number of things in common, things which were characteristic of the best American television of the 60s - they were fast-moving, exciting, polished and very very stylish. And in their very different ways both series were exceptionally cool.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. inspired something of a merchandising bonanza with a wide assortment of toys and similar products. There were also a couple of dozen tie-in novels, which sold by the truckload. They were all original stories and some of them are pretty good. I reviewed The Dagger Affair here a while back. There were also Man from U.N.C.L.E. comics, several young adult novels and a series of novellas published in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. magazine. And of course there was a spin-off series, the ill-fated but somewhat underrated The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.

Episode Guide

Alexander the Greater Affair is a two-parter. A tycoon named Alexander sees himself as a modern Alexander the Great. He intends to achieve world domination and his theft of a new top-secret nerve gas that destroys the will to fight is part of his plan. Along the way he also intends to break all of the Ten Commandments. Having lost a game of chess to Napoleon Solo he is also out for revenge and he plans his destruction of our heroes like a chess game. It’s a story that uses lots of clichés from pulp fiction and old movie serials, with buried ancient tombs, secret passageways, fiendish booby traps and a nod to Edgar Allan Poe with a razor-sharp axe on a slowly lowering pendulum. The obligatory innocent bystander caught up in this adventure is Alexander's estranged wife Tracey (played with panache by Dorothy Provine) and she causes Mr Solo and Mr Kuryakin almost as much trouble as Alexander.

The Foxes and Hounds Affair utilises one of the standard tropes of the first season - the innocent bystander who gets hopelessly entangled in a case. A stage magician has invented a mind-reading machine. U.N.C.L.E. wants it and naturally so does THRUSH. U.N.C.L.E. has it at the moment but they have to get it back to their New York headquarters. Mr Waverley decides that a decoy would be useful. That’s where magician’s assistant Mimi Doolittle comes in. She’s the decoy although she doesn’t know it. Napoleon Solo doesn’t know what’s going on either. That’s Mr Waverley’s idea also - if Mr Solo is in danger of having his mind read it’s best if he has no idea what is going on.

The real fun in this episode is the rivalry between local THRUSH chiefs, the suave Victor Marton (Vincent Price) and the glamorous but ruthless Lucia Belmont (Patricia Medina). They’re both trying to sabotage each other in order to gain a promotion. There’s some wonderful witty dialogue in this episode. There are no spectacular sets or fancy gadgets. With Vincent Price and Patricia Medina in such sparkling form such distractions are not needed. A very very fine episode.

In The Arabian Affair Ilya does a Lawrence of Arabia thing and leads an Arab revolt against THRUSH. THRUSH are using their desert base to develop a vaporizer - a disintegrator ray type of thing. Quite a fun episode.

The Deadly Toys Affair is a bit of a romp. There’s one particularly brilliant pupil at an exclusive private school that U.N.C.L.E. are worried about. THRUSH has plans to groom the youngster for a career of evil with them. Angela Lansbury gets to do some splendid overacting as the outrageous Elfie van Donck. A silly but very enjoyable episode.

The Cherry Blossom Affair takes Mr Solo and Mr Kuryakin to Japan where they have to investigate repots that THUSH have developed a way to control the power volcanoes. An excellent episode that strikes just the right balance.

The Children’s Day Affair involves a THRUSH school for young assassins. A very good episode, with good use of the settings (supposedly Switzerland) and with just the right amount of outrageousness. Great performances by the supporting cast in this one, with Warren Stevens subtly unhinged as the school’s headmaster and Jeanne Cooper totally and delightfully perverse as Mother Fear (whose henchmen are very loyal because if they aren’t she gives them a dose of the strap). Susan Silo is fun as a ditzy Italian social worker. Everything works in this one.

In The Indian Affairs Affair THRUSH is working on a thermonuclear bomb at their base concealed on an Indian reservation. THRUSH is putting pressure on the chief through his daughter, an exotic dancer in New York. U.N.C.L.E. are also trying to use the daughter to influence the chief. An OK episode.

The Birds and the Bees Affair is rather fun, wth THRUSH employing swarms of killer bees to wipe out its enemies. There’s also a deadly sound machine, a crooked roulette wheel and a well-meaning but crazy scientist. Mr Kuryakin learns to dance, which he enjoys very much. That might have something to do with the very pretty dance instructress. He has to get to know her in the line of duty. Sometimes doing one’s duty can be remarkably pleasant. The premise is outlandish but clever. It’s classic Man from U.N.C.L.E. stuff.

Where would 1960s action/adventure television be without Nazis? They’re the ultimate reliable standby. In The Re-Collectors Affair a shadowy organisation is hunting down and killing ex-Nazis to retrieve stolen paintings. The paintings are restored to their rightful owners. Sometimes. And at a price. A high price. There is one very puzzling aspect to this case, which of course turns out to be the key. This is typical early Man from U.N.C.L.E. - the camp factor is pretty much non-existent. It’s a fairly neat story done in a reasonably straightforward spy thriller manner and it works very well.

The Deadly Goddess Affair takes Napoleon and Ilya to the Island of Circe in the Mediterranean, to intercept a THRUSH radio-controlled aircraft carrying secret plans and money. They get drawn into various local dramas. Mia Corragio wants to marry but she cannot do so until her older sister Angela gets married - it is the local custom. But no-one will marry Angela without a dowry. Except maybe a rich American might do so. And that nice Mr Solo is obviously a rich American. The two U.N.C.L.E. agents also get drawn into the plans of the Corragio girls’ impoverished father’s plans to sell antiquities to visiting rich Americans. It all becomes outrageously farcical, and a great deal of fun. The ludicrously sinister THRUSH agent Colonel Hubris adds even more enjoyment to the mix. A delightfully entertaining episode.

The Round Table Affair concerns a tiny European principality with curiously has no extradition treaties with any other countries. Which is why a collection of assorted gangsters plans to take over. Arranging a suitably advantageous (advantageous for the gangsters) marriage for the Grand Duchess is part of the plan. U.N.C.L.E. must prevent this. Much medieval-flavoured silliness ensues and it’s rather good fun.

You can’t really go wrong with a spy thriller set on board a train so The Adriatic Express Affair has that going for it for starters. Solo and Kuryakin are trying to get their hands on  a virus culture which THRUSH can use as the ultimate weapon - it destroys the human urge to reproduce. It’s in the hands of Madame Olga Nemirovitch, the ageing but glamorous owner of a cosmetics empire. She also claims to have been the founder of THRUSH. In typical Man from U.N.C.L.E. style there is an innocent caught in the middle - a young assistant named Eva from one of Madame’s beauty salons. Madame convinces her that Napoleon is a dangerous THRUSH agent who must be stopped at all costs. This one throws in every thriller-on-a-train trope in existence. There’s even a fight scene on the roof of a carriage. Jessie Royce Landis overacts outrageously as Madame while Juliet Mills is delightful as the naïve Eva. This story offers non-stop fast-paced fun with just enough outlandishness to provide superb entertainment value.

If you were a secret criminal organisation like THRUSH and you had something (like the ultimate computer) that you wanted to protect in a kind of fortress with lots of guns and guards then what better place to choose than a prison, which is already a kind of fortress with lots of guns and guards. That’s the idea behind The Ultimate Computer Affair. In order to get into this prison (in South America) Illya gets himself arrested and Napoleon poses as the English upper-class twit husband of a prison inspector. It’s a fun fast-paced romp.

The Waverly Ring Affair is a relatively straightforward spy thriller story. There’s a traitor within U.N.C.L.E. and the situation is so serious that Mr Waverly has issued Mr Solo with a Waverly Ring, which ensures instant unquestioning obedience from any U.N.C.L.E. agent. But it seems that someone else has a Waverly Ring. And an U.N.C.L.E. has to be de-trained, a process that erases all memories of his employment with the organisation. It’s a very extreme step. Solo and Kuryakin have to find the traitor but they’re not if they can trust anyone at all. This one is played fairly straight with only a few tongue-in-cheek touches. A good episode.

The Bat Cave Affair is quite goofy, with Martin Landau overacting outrageously as a Transylvanian count with a plan to disrupt international air traffic with bats. Vampire bats of course. Illya had enough to deal with getting away from the bull. U.N.C.L.E. gets some help from a hillbilly girl with clairvoyant powers. It’s silly but it’s fun.

In The Discotheque Affair Napoleon, injured during an investigation, finds himself on light duties keeping an eye on some property owned by U.N.C.L.E., the property being next door to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. One of the tenants, a ditzy blonde actress, is causing problems. The building also includes a discotheque which is actually a front for THRUSH. As is so many of the early season episodes we have an innocent bystander (the ditzy blonde actress) caught up in the middle of a case. This episode features go-go dancing and as far as I’m concerned any movie or TV show that includes groovy 60s chicks go-go dancing (especially cage dancing) is A-OK. And overall it’s a fun episode.

In The Dippy Blonde Affair the innocent bystander drawn into the world of espionage is not quite so innocent as most. JoJo has been a bit of a bad girl. She has a very long and colourful police record. She’s the girlfriend of a senior THRUSH official. But she is willing to help U.N.C.L.E. so that’s something. And the local THRUSH chief (her boyfriend’s superior) is madly in love with her. The THRUSH headquarters in the graveyard is a highlight. Napoleon and Ilya manage to get themselves captured over and over again. It’s a non-stop thoroughly enjoyable romp and JoJo is a delight.

In The Virtue Affair a M. Robespierre, a descendant of the infamous Robespierre, having run unsuccessfully for the presidency of France (on a platform of banning wine) now seems to be contemplating more direct method. He has been accumulating missile components, and missile scientists.

In The Project Deephole Affair THRUSH is trying to kidnap a geologist but they become convinced that Buzz Conway is that geologist. In fact Buzz Conway is a one-time used car salesman, encyclopaedia salesman and blackjack dealer, unemployed and trying to dodge debt collectors. So it’s another example of the innocent bystander caught up in a spy drama of which he understands nothing. Jack Weston is fun as Conway while Barbara Bouchet is delightful as the glamorous but hopelessly self-absorbed THRUSH superspy Narcissus Darling.

The Tigers Are Coming Affair takes Napoleon and Illya to India where Prince Panat is causing U.N.C.L.E. some concern. Missing villagers, that sort of thing. U.N.C.L.E. enlists the help of glamorous French botanist Suzanne de Serre (Jill Ireland). Napoleon and Illya join a tiger hunt, but are they the hunters or the hunted? A reasonably good episode.

In The Foreign Legion Affair Illya has to make quick escape from an aircraft, by parachute, over the desert. Now when you have to jump to save your life you obviously look for something you can grab quickly to take with you, something that will help you survive the cold nights of the desert. So naturally Illya grabs the pretty blonde stewardess. Having landed in the desert they find themselves prisoners of war of the French Foreign Legion, suspected of being spies. Illya tries to explain to the commandant, Captain Basil Calhoun that the Legion doesn’t exist any more but Captain Calhoun begs to differ. It soon becomes obvious to Illya and his little stewardess friend that Captain Calhoun is quite mad and getting to Marrakesh, where they need to go, may be a challenge. Napoleon meanwhile falls into the hands of THRUSH but luckily there’s a pretty girl in a cute harem outfit to make his captivity a little bit more bearable. Overall this episode is pretty slight but reasonably enjoyable.

The Very Important Zombie Affair takes Solo and Kuryakin to a small Caribbean nation where they have to rescue an opposition leader, a man named Delgado, from the evil president, El Supremo. The problem is that El Supremo has turned Delgado into a zombie. They’re going to have to find a voodoo priestess to solve that problem. Of course there’s a glamorous but ditzy female to help them, a manicurist from Louisiana. I just love anything with voodoo and zombies so I was always going to like this one, even if the surprise ending is not that much of a surprise.

The Minus-X Affair sees THRUSH getting hold of a drug called Plus-X which not only enhances the senses to an extraordinary degree but seems to enhance the intelligence as well. If you’re good at something and you take this drug suddenly you’re better at that something than anyone else in the world. THRUSH has found a use for Plus-X which could have disastrous consequences. There’s also a variant called Minus-X which has other interesting effects. There’s a brilliant scientist whose loyalties may be suspect and there’s a beautiful girl (the scientist’s daughter) whom THRUSH intends to use as a bargaining counter. It’s a very solid episode with plenty of classic Man from U.N.C.L.E. elements.

Final Thoughts

My review of the first season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. can be found here. The second season might not be quite as good but it’s very nearly so and it's still superb spy adventure television with all the right ingredients perfectly combined. Highly recommended.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - Solo (1963)

Solo is the original feature-length pilot for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., shot in colour in 1963. The head of U.N.C.L.E. is Mr Allison, played by Will Kuluva. It was later edited down to 50 minutes with some reshoots (and with Leo G. Carroll as Mr Waverley replacing Will Kuluva) and screened in black-and-white as the opening episode of the series, The Vulcan Affair.

It has a fairly straightforward spy story plot. U.N.C.L.E. has discovered that wealthy industrialist Andrew Vulcan is a THRUSH agent. Vulcan intents to assassinate the president of a new independent African nation, THRUSH having decided that having their very own country would be very useful - for one thing their agents could claim diplomatic immunity.

Solo makes use of a device that the series would use again and again - an innocent bystander gets caught up in the world of espionage. In this case it’s Elaine May Donaldson, an ordinary housewife who just happened to have been Vulcan’s girlfriend years earlier when they were both at college. U.N.C.L.E. persuades her to help them foil Vulcan’s scheme.

When it was picked up as a series by NBC it was retitled The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and you might wonder why it was not called The Men from U.N.C.L.E. The answer is obvious when you watch Solo. The focus is entirely on Napoleon Solo. Illya Kuryakin is a minor character, in fact very minor, and was intended to be at best a minor character in the series. Illya was however so immediately and insanely popular that that idea was hurriedly revised and so there ended up being two men from U.N.C.L.E. but it was too late to change the title. It was pure accident that David McCallum lasted long enough for any of this to happen since the network wanted to fire him after the pilot, another example of the reliable stupidity of network executives.

On the subject of titles it’s worth mentioning that the original working title was Ian Fleming’s Solo, later shortened to Solo. Solo was however the name of a Bond movie minor character and MGM discovered they weren’t allowed to use it as the series title but oddly (and luckily) they were still allowed to use it as a character name.

Ian Fleming had been involved in the early planing stages of the series. He had at first intended it to feature two U.N.C.L.E. agents, Napoleon Solo and glamorous girl spy April Dancer (Fleming was always amazingly good at character names). Fleming’s involvement was short-lived but the pilot episode still has a very Ian Fleming feel to it. Napoleon Solo is an American James Bond - suave, cultured, charming, educated, upper class and with a taste for the good things in life. Including women. Especially women. There’s a touch of refined arrogance and there’s supreme self-assurance.

Like Bond Napoleon Solo is a very 1950s kind of hero. He’s dapper but his suits are both well-tailored and very conservative. And like Bond he’s a touch old-fashioned even by 1950s hero standards. He could be the hero in a Hitchcock spy movie. That’s why it turned out to be very fortunate that David McCallum wasn’t fired - lllya Kuryakin is a much more 1960s hero. Even though Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were almost exactly the same age Solo and Kuryakin seem to belong to different eras. Which is why they made such a great team.

The whole thing has that characteristic Ian Fleming feel to it. This is espionage with glamour, excitement and wealth. The plot is not too outlandish. THRUSH is a totally Ian Fleming concept - it’s just SPECTRE with a different name, an international criminal organisation aiming for power and wealth but with no ideological overtones whatsoever. The villain, Andrew Vulcan, could have stepped straight out of one of the 1950s Bond novels - a smooth very upper-class megalomaniacal industrialist.

It’s very stylish and very classy. It was made by MGM Television and some of the old MGM gloss is still in evidence. It looks expensive. It probably was expensive by television standards. There’s an ambience of money and glamour. The chemical plant sets are pretty good.

The tone is fairly serious. There’s the occasional witty moment but on the whole it’s played very straight. Even Robert Vaughn plays it pretty straight (well plays it straight by Robert Vaughn standards. anyway).

Will Kuluva is quite adequate as Mr Allison but of course Leo G. Carroll proved to be a better choice for the series. The guest cast, as was the case throughout the run of the series, is very strong with Patricia Crowley playing the innocent rôle to perfection. Fritz Weaver as Vulcan is a good villain but he’s much less colourful than later Man from U.N.C.L.E. bad guys.

The first season was considerably more serious than even the second season and the pilot is more serious still. Solo is however definitely worth seeing.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Dagger Affair (novel)

TV tie-in novels have been around for a very long time and while they have never been a consuming interest for me over the years I have read a number. I’ve never been very interested in the “novelisations” based directly on episodes of the TV series. To me that has always seemed to be a fairly pointless concept. Original novels based on TV series always seemed to be a more interesting idea.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. may well have been the first TV series to spawn a really spectacularly successful and prolific cycle of TV tie-in novels. Twenty-four original novels were published between 1965 and 1968 and they sold in enormous quantities.

The Dagger Affair was the fourth to appear, in 1965. The author, David McDaniel, went on to write half a dozen Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels including some of the biggest sellers in the series. He also wrote a tie-in novel based on The Prisoner. McDaniel’s literary career was cut short by his early death in 1977 at the age of 38.

The Dagger Affair opens with a break-in at Illya Kuryakin’s apartment and with Napoleon Solo having a chance encounter with a girl in a fast car. Whilst racing the girl his own car develops serious engine trouble which oddly enough seems to fix itself in a short time.  Trivial enough events but they occur at the exact moment that Mr Waverley is fretting about the fact that T.H.R.U.S.H. is not up to anything. That worries him because it isn’t natural. T.H.R.U.S.H. is always up to something. If they’re not then they must be planning something big.

Solo and Kuryakin are off to Los Angeles to follow up a very slender lead. They discover that T.H.R.U.S.H. is worried as well. They’re worried about D.A.G.G.E.R. and mostly they’re worried because they don’t know D.A.G.G.E.R. is but they’re sure it’s important.

Mr Solo’s engine trouble was in fact an important clue. A reclusive and eccentric young scientist has built a device called an Energy Damper that has strange and severe effects on electrical devices, and possibly on other things as well. Like people. Eccentric is perhaps the wrong word to describe this young man. Severely paranoid and totally insane might be more accurate.

The Energy Damper has the potential to destroy civilisation. Even T.H.R.U.S.H. are horrified. They’re so horrified they’re offering to work together with U.N.C.L.E. to save civilisation. Even this may not guarantee success - D.A.G.G.E.R. is an organisation run by full-blown fanatics with a super-weapon.

A successful TV tie-in novel needs to capture the flavour of the original TV series. If a Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel ends up being just a generic spy story with characters who happen to be named Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin then (in my view) it’s pretty pointless. The Dagger Affair does a reasonably good job of capturing the necessary flavour. It’s important to note that in this case it’s the flavour of the first season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., when the tongue-in-cheek elements were definitely present but were kept under control and the plots were at least semi-serious spy stories. They could be somewhat far-fetched but the series had not yet descended into self-parody.

That’s the feel that McDaniel achieves. The central plot device, the Energy Damper, is fanciful but can at least be made to sound vaguely plausible with enough technobabble to back it up. There’s plenty of action and it’s treated more or less the way the action is treated in the TV series, with lots of gunplay but no graphic violence (although there is some gruesome threatened violence during an extended and rather baroque interrogation sequence). Mr Solo takes a keen interest in the female of the species but there’s no actual sex. The story is handled with a moderate attempt at realism but Solo and Kuryakin get to trade wise-cracks and their characterisations are pretty consistent with their TV counterparts.

While there are moments that are gently humorous McDaniel is definitely not aiming for comedy and his approach is fairly consistent with that of the first season of the TV show.

McDaniel takes the opportunity of giving us a fascinating glimpse into the history of T.H.R.U.S.H. going back to the 19th century. Of course the novels are presumably not regarded as canon but it’s still an amusing idea that one of the founding fathers of this infamous criminal organisation was none other than Professor Moriarty! It’s a weird but fun touch.

The whole point of a TV tie-in novel is that the target audience is fans who have watched every episode and still want more and The Dagger Affair seems just like the thing to satisfy that craving. It was a huge seller so obviously in this case the strategy worked. The Dagger Affair might not be absolutely top-flight spy fiction but it’s fast-moving and it’s enjoyable in a lightweight way and it does feel like a Man from U.N.C.L.E. adventure.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Dagger Affair, and I’m encouraged enough to be seriously considering sample a few more TV tie-in novels based on 60s and 60s cult TV series.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., season one (1964)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. began its run on NBC in 1964 and was cancelled in 1968, midway through the fourth season. I have very fond memories of this series and it’s proving to be just as much fun as I’d remembered it. I’ve been working my way through Season 1 (it’s a long season of no less than 29 episodes).

The pilot episode was interesting, showing how there was originally going to be just one Man from U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon Solo. The pilot also demonstrates just how much the original concept owed to James Bond creator Ian Fleming. The original idea actually came from Fleming and it was Fleming who came up with the name Napoleon Solo. At a very early stage he realised that with the Bond movies proving to be so successful he was competing against himself and dropped out. Fleming’s actual contribution to the series was  minor but there’s no question that without James Bond there would have been no Man from U.N.C.L.E. From the outset it was planned as James Bond for American television.

The tone of the series changed a little after the first season. In season one the series is not really an outright spy spoof as such. The aim seemed to be to capture the flavour of the early Bond movies (not surprising given Ian Fleming’s part in devising the series). The tone is semi-serious. There’s a definite tongue-in-cheek element and an engaging wittiness but it’s mostly not played for pure comedy (although some episodes are definitely heading in that direction). The humour is generally used as a seasoning but without overwhelming the main course which is secret agent action-adventure. It’s witty and sometimes outrageous but it doesn’t descend into mere silliness. It’s almost precisely the formula that would prove so successful for The Avengers at its peak.

One key feature of the series was producer Norman Felton’s insistence that wherever possible each episode would feature a hapless civilian bystander who gets accidentally caught up in the world of espionage and intrigue. Felton’s idea was that the heroes being highly trained professional super-spies it was essential to include guest characters that the audience could relate to - perfectly ordinary people who understand little of what is really going on but who do their best to help out. It was a sound idea and it works well.

The Finny Foot Affair, involving a secret formula that speeds up the ageing process, is also particularly good. The Shark Affair, which seems to be about modern pirates but turns out to be much crazier than that, is even better. The Project Strigas Affair features guest starring performances by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (appearing together for the first time).

The idea of creating exact doubles of people is one that was much over-used during the 60s. It’s employed here in The Double Affair, and in a much cleverer manner in The Double Decoy Affair. The Deadly Games Affair with the beautiful but deadly THRUSH agent Angelique is great fun as well.

The Fiddlesticks Affair sees Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin trying to break into an ultra-secure vault beneath a casino. The vault houses $55 million dollars belonging to THRUSH. They engage the help of a treacherous but skillful thief and an enthusiastic young woman named Susan, a good girl who is desperate to prove herself a glamorous deadly femme fatale.

The Yellow Scarf Affair takes Napoleon Solo to India, in search of a piece of top-secret equipment stolen by THRUSH. He finds that the cult of Thuggee, suppressed by the British in the 19th century, is not so dead after all. 

The Mad, Mad Tea Party Affair is the series at its best - an intricate and outlandish combination of conspiracies plus a touch of the surreal (and as the title suggests some Alice in Wonderland references). It compares very favourably to the best episodes of the Avengers. The Bow-Wow Affair involves gypsies and killer dogs and features some of the season’s best action scenes. Episodes like this are enormous fun and fine examples of the strength of the writing in season one. Even better is The Never-Never Affair, a delightfully crazy episode with delicious performances by guest stars Barbara Feldon and Cesar Romero. This one is well and truly in spy spoof territory but it’s done with a wonderful lightness of touch.

The Gazebo in the Maze Affair benefits from the presence of George Sanders, one of my all-time favourite actors (and Sanders would pop up again in the second season)

An impressive aspect of the series is the way they give the impression of lots of gadgetry while in fact spending almost nothing on the gadgets. On a television budget (and with television shooting schedules) they could not possibly compete with the Bond movies. Instead they had to rely on getting a high-tech flavour on the cheap and generally speaking this is done effectively.

The first season was a definite hit. The latter part of the second season would see the series moving further into out-and-out spy spoof territory, not always successfully.

The U.N.C.L.E. initials might suggest that Solo and Kuryakin are working for a United Nations agency but in fact they stand for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Making one of the lead characters a Russian was rather bold for 1964 and was an attempt to avoid straightforward Cold War themes. As in the later James Bond books the main enemy is an international criminal organisation, rather than the Soviet Union. It also throws in assorted diabolical criminal masterminds and mad scientists. The avoidance of Cold War themes has had the advantage of making the series seem now less dated than it might have been. It’s interesting that the most successful British spy series of the same era, The Avengers, also adopted a generally similar approach.

The fine performances by the two leads, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, obviously contributed a great deal to the success of the series. Both actors have the ability to strike the right balance, not too serious but not too silly. David McCallum’s role was originally intended to be quite minor but once the first few episodes went to air it became obvious that he was going to be immensely popular. As a result there was a quick rethink and Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin became equal partners with McCallum sharing top billing.

Another reason for the success of the series was the very high quality of the guest stars - people of the calibre of George Sanders, Ricardo Montalban, Carroll O’Connor, Jill Ireland and Anne Francis. Not forgetting Barbara Feldon’s delightful guest appearance as a very enthusiastic would-be secret agent.

Compared to the exactly contemporaneous British spy series Danger Man it’s clear that Danger Man is more concerned with character and with moral dilemmas. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is more interested in style and action. The comparisons are perhaps a little unfair. Danger Man belongs more to the gritty realist style of spy thriller while The Man from U.N.C.L.E., even in its first season, was definitely uninterested in anything approaching gritty realism. Both series are excellent in their very different ways.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was successful enough to spawn a spin-off series, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. That came somewhat later when the parent series was moving further and further into out-and-out spoof territory. The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. has its moments but it was probably stretching a good idea rather too thinly.

This first season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. remains one of the true classics of 1960s television. It really is a delight.