Man From U.N.C.L.E.; The: 8 Movies Collection (4 Disc)

Can't Wait To See the First Two Again
As an UNCLE fan from the beginning, I can clearly remember the stir the first two films "To Trap A Spy" and "The Spy With My Face" created when they were released in the movies. Released during the later part of the series' first season when UNCLE was already becoming a sensation, I can remember standing on a long line on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, waiting to see them at the Loews Kings, a Golden-Age movie palace. Later when they got to my local theater, I went again and spent an entire afternoon watching them over and over.
"To Trap a Spy" is the UNCLE pilot "The Vulcan Affair" with some additional footage added featuring Lucianna Paluzzi, soon to be featured in the Bond epic "Thunderball." "The Spy With My Face" is based on the great first season episode "The Double Affair" featuring 2 Napoleon Solos. There was additional footage added as well. Both were in color, while the first season of UNCLE was broadcast in black and white. (Not that it mattered to me since we only...

Thanks for the UNCLE DVDs on NTSB, WB!
I had just purchased an all-region DVD player and the UNCLE movies in PAL format when Warner Brothers announced the release of the entire set of movies.

As a "first cousin", one of the most important reasons for having the movies is that they contain additional characters, scenes and storylines not included in the televised episodes. For US UNCLE fans, having all of the movies is a particularly advantageous since the later movies were never shown in US theatres.

I'm in agreement with the well-written Cohen review, which provided a lot of background information about the movies. I can't remember how much the review specifically covered about the episodes from which the movies were created, so I apologize for any redundancies.

First Season Movies:
"To Trap a Spy" was the original adaptation of the pilot "Solo". The guest actors included Fritz Weaver as Andrew Vulcan, Patricia Crowley ("Please Don't Eat The Daisies" and Vaughn's wife in an episode of...

1960s espionage drama
The Man from UNCLE was the first of a number of espionage series on TV during the 1960s, and for a time, one of the most successful. The two films from the first season, To Trap a Spy, an expanded version of the pilot, and Spy With My Face, were the most realistic. The scripts were written as the series was just beginning to find its style, and come across as more original than later efforts. By the second season the series had hit its stride. The premise was similar to the James Bond films, and like Ian Fleming's novels, the scripts were often fanciful. One Spy Too Many has the agents battling a megalomaniac industrialist bent on global conquest. One of Our Spies is Missing has an intriguing sci-fi angle involving a search for an anti-aging device, and is somewhat understated. In the third season, the series degenerated into self-parody, with the result that the two films from that era are mediocre at best. In the fourth season, the series went back to the original approach...

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