SOLO

Robert Vaughn

SOLO: THE VULCAN AFFAIR (1964). Director: Don Medford. 

Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), an agent for an international law enforcement group called U.N.CL.E., is given an assignment by his boss Mr. Allison (Will Kuluva)  after operatives of a sinister group named Thrush invade their headquarters. Allison has learned that a wealthy entrepreneur named Andrew Vulcan (Fritz Weaver) is now a member of Thrush, and that the group is planning to assassinate the premier, Ashumen (William Marshall), of a newly independent African nation at the opening of a new plant that will be a boon to his country. 

Pat Crowley and Fritz Weaver 

Solo importunes an old girlfriend of Vulcan's -- Elaine Bender (Pat Crowley), who is now married with children -- to pretend to be a wealthy widow and romance Vulcan at a glitzy Washington affair so she can pick up information. Meanwhile Solo tries to get data about the plant and both he and Elaine try to stop the assassination attempt. But the two have a surprise in store and both wind up almost in literal hot water. Rupert Crosse and Ivan Dixon play members of Ashumen's staff, and Joyce Taylor (of Atlantis the Lost Continent) shows up briefly as an UNCLE dispatcher who, improbably, sun bathes under a lamp and wears a bikini in the office. 

Will Kuluva as Mr. Allison

Solo was the 70 minute color pilot for the very popular TV series that was retitled The Man from U.N.C.L.E. after it was learned that a character with the last name of Solo would appear in Goldfinger. (James Bond creator Ian Fleming himself came up with the name Napoleon Solo when he did some initial work on the series that came to be UNCLE.) When the series made its debut, "The Vulcan Affair" was the first episode, but Will Kuluva was replaced with Leo G. Carroll as Mr. Waverly. As much as I like Carroll, Kuluva made a more believable head of a major spy agency. Carroll might have been cast because he played a somewhat similar role in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest only a few years earlier. 

William Marshall

Robert Vaughn is both stylish and very effective as Solo. (At this point David McCallum was only in a supporting role as Illya Kuryakin and is on screen only a couple of minutes.) Pat Crowley, Fritz Weaver, and William Marshall (of Blacula fame) give their customary adept performances. Joyce Taylor may have been meant to be a kind of "Miss Moneypenny" to Vaughn's Bond, but she didn't last with the series. The producers of the show took the pilot, added about half an hour of new material (with Luciana Paluzzi as a Thrush agent), and released it in theaters as To Trap a Spy, retaining Kuluva as Allison but changing the name of Thrush to 'Wasp" for some odd contractual reasons. Later, this extra footage was edited into the first season episode "The Four-Steps Affair." It is not surprising that Solo was turned into a series, as the pilot is well-produced (even on a limited budget), generally well-scripted (despite some tiresome sixties-type sexist detours), and well-acted by all. (Although there never really seems to be a need to get a housewife involved in dangerous situations aside from the script calling for it.)  Later on the show degenerated nearly into an out and out comedy and its fate was sealed. 

Verdict: The birth of UNCLE. ***.