Spy-Fi: THE BILLION DOLLAR THREAT

The Billion Dollar Threat was a 1979 TV movie/pilot that starred Dale Robinette as American secret agent Robert Sands, who must foil the nefarious plan of mad scientist Horatio Black - played by none other than John Steed himself, Patrick Macnee - to destroy the ozone layer with a nuclear missile. The movie was produced by TV veteran David Gerber (who tried a spy show again a year later with Once Upon A Spy), and co-starred Keenan Wynn, Ralph Bellamy, and Robert Tessier as a mechanical-handed henchman (de rigueur for supervillain henchmen of the time; see also Death Ray 2000/T.R. Sloane).

I actually taped this one off of TV, so I watched it a number of times. I remember it as a pretty fair - if cheap - little Bondian adventure, written by Hammer Studios vet Jimmy Sangster (Deadlier Than The Male), who seemed to have a penchant for this type of stuff (He also penned the aforementioned Once Upon A Spy and one of the better episodes of  A Man Called Sloane).

I watched that old VHS tape a lot and dug it as a teenager who was just starting to become obsessed with James Bond and spy-fi. I wish I still had that tape.

Killmaster Art by George Gross

When I was a teenager, I was semi-addicted to the "Nick Carter: Killmaster" paperback spy novels. Written by a vast army of ghost writers, the series chronicled the adventures of American AXE agent Nicholas Huntington Carter, codenamed "N3" with a "Killmaster" rating, who routinely armed himself with a "stripped-down" Luger pistol he called Wilhelmina, a stiletto knife called Hugo, and a gas capsule named Pierre. He carried out missions around the world for his boss, David Hawk, in over 250 slim novels, published between 1964 and 1990 for Ace (later Jove) Books.

The Killmaster capers were generally action-packed, and liberally spiced with graphic sexual encounters that went far beyond anything I'd read in Ian Fleming. The quality of the individual novels varied widely, depending on which of the publisher's many ghosts were at the typewriter, and a number of different artists contributed the lurid cover art over the run of the series.

Of these artists, my favorite was George Gross, an old hand at men's adventure art, who had worked extensively for the old pulp magazines and the later, "men's sweat" periodicals. He was the primary Carter cover artist from the late 1970's and through the 80s (he also painted many covers for Warner Books' "Avenger" series around the same time). Here are a few of his Carter covers, all featuring the same unnamed model....

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "The Shangri-La Syndrome"

Well, we come at last to the final episode of A Man Called Sloane, "The Shangri-La Syndrome," directed by none other than T.R. Sloane himself, Robert Conrad, and originally airing on the 22nd of December, 1979.

I wish I could say that the series went out on a high note, but "Syndrome" is, in every way, a seriously lackluster affair.

Sloane is investigating the theft of some top secret material from Doctor Karla Meredith's (Daphne Reid) scientific institute. A meeting with one of her (young and pretty, 'natch) researchers is interrupted by an intruder whom Sloane pursues. By the time Sloane gets back, she is dead of apparent old age. It turns out that Meredith is working with KARTEL and an ex-Nazi named (of course) Hans Kruger (Dennis Cole) to clone a South American dictator.

There are some interesting concepts in here - Kruger is being kept young by an age-reversing formula and must stay in a hot environment to avoid reverting his to his true age - but nothing is done with them. There's only one gadget in this episode, and it's rather pedestrian, too.

It's a shame that the series came out when it did. NBC in 1979 was something of a creative wasteland, with network head Fred Silverman desperate to attract viewers to the floundering net. His approach to this was to program shows that were colorful, titillating, and, basically, stupid. This was the season of Supertrain, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Hello Larry and Pink Lady & Jeff.

It's also unfortunate that the producers didn't bother to actually give Conrad a character to play. Sloane was Conrad, basically, and was never shown to have any personal life, nor was there any backstory ever revealed for the character. In the pilot film - where the character was played by Robert Logan - Sloane was established as an art and antiques dealer, which at least provided him with a cover for his international travel, and provided a little color. This appears to have been forgotten by the time of the actual series. The character of Torque was badly used as well. A giant with a multi-purpose cybernetic hand should have been a lot more useful and interesting than he actually was. I don't blame actor Ji-Tu Cumbuka, though. He simply wasn't given anything much to do most of the time.

Anyway, it was fun re-visiting the series (again). I'm planning to finally review the pilot film, T.R. Sloane/Death Ray 2000 in the next week or so. Stay tuned!

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Architect of Evil"

I don't know if it was because I was groggy and watching it at four in the morning, but I really enjoyed the penultimate episode of A Man Called Sloane, "Architect of Evil." (Original air date: December 15th, 1979.)

Worthington Pendergast (Michael Pataki) is the titular architect, who has conceived a "perfect city" for KARTEL to build and rule in an undisclosed location. Who will construct – and ultimately, live in – this city? Well, Pendergast has a typically complicated and insane plan to solve that problem: using a ray projector that can increase the mass of objects, he intends to sink a ship carrying nuclear waste which will then contaminate a large portion of the West Coast of America. This will dispossess millions of people, who KARTEL (will somehow) then draft as slave labor to build their city.

Unfortunately for Pendergast, the unique "blue crystal" that makes the ray weapon work, has been stolen from his home safe along with his other valuables, by a cat burglar named Harry Helms (John Aprea), who has no idea what it is and thinks it's worthless. Fortunately, UNIT had Pendergast under observation and caught the thief on film, so Sloane is able to track him down, and ultimately impersonate him (an impersonation which, as usual, isn't very effective) in order to infiltrate Pendergast's operation...

The story is nonsensical, but for some reason, it plays out pretty well. Pataki's villain is suitably over-the-top, executing his own henchmen with sonic deathtraps and playing Bach's tocatta and fugue in D minor on the organ to relieve stress. There's a sequence set in a health club where burglar Helms attempts to kill Sloane in a manner highly reminiscent of the Shrublands scene in Thunderball, and an interesting – and unusual - climax featuring Sloane, Torque, a helicopter, and a lot of soapsuds.

Well directed by veteran TV and B-movie (Cujo, Alligator) director Lewis Teague, "Architect of Evil" is a satisfyingly silly but entertaining hour of spy-fi adventure, and is probably one of the best in the series.

Only one more episode to go!

The Men From U.N.C.L.E.

Well, stills are starting to leak out from Warner Brothers' new Man From U.N.C.L.E. film, directed by Guy Ritchie and due for an August release. I want to be excited about it, but so far, I'm not. The casting bugs me: Man Of Steel's Henry Cavill is playing Napoleon Solo, while The Lone Ranger's Armie Hammer assumes the role of Illya Kuryakin.

They're both very "Hollywood" choices - big, beefy, square-jawed heroic-looking types... but that's exactly the kind of actors that U.N.C.L.E. creators Sam Rolfe and Norman Felton didn't want to play those roles. Rolfe & Felton specifically cast Robert Vaughn and David McCallum back in the day because neither of them were beefcake types. They wanted handsome men who were of normal stature, and not the stereotypical "action" sort of guys.

I'm also concerned that the movie is another unnecessary "origin" story, showing the two agents working together for the first time, with lots of obligatory friction, before U.N.C.L.E. (the organization) is founded. The film is set in the 60s, though, so that's good.

Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out okay...

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Lady Bug"

Episode ten (originally airing on December 8th, 1979) of A Man Called Sloane, "Lady Bug," features more spy-fi gadgets than any other episode, including a gas-spewing silver dollar, a submersible automobile, a tape-recording wristwatch, a keyring that can give off electric shocks, and a cigarette case with a 2-way TV communicator. Oh, and The Director (Dan O'Herlihy) plays around with a rocket-launching umbrella in the lab, much to "Q"-girl Kelli's (Karen Purcill) dismay.

The villain of the piece is a KARTEL contractor named Chandler (the late Edie Adams), a glamorous, middle-aged woman who likes to surround herself with young male bodybuilders. She's working with a disgruntled entomologist (!) who has bred a hybrid species of "devil locusts" that can strip a field of crops in a matter of seconds, and whose bites are fatal to humans. With the help of a pretty young entomologist (Barbara Rucker), Torque and many of those aforementioned gadgets, Sloane manages to save America's breadbasket from KARTEL's sinister plan to corner the world's food supply.

"Lady Bug" is a hoot, with an entirely ludicrous – but amusing – plot and a great performance by Adams, who seems to be enjoying her opportunity to play against her usual image, with charm and a sly wit. Torque actually gets a little bit more to do in this episode, rescuing Sloane from a grasshopper (!) and demonstrating a few new accessories for his cybernetic hand. There's also a fun homage to Hitchcock's North By Northwest when a low-flying crop duster drops a load of poison gas on Sloane and his lady faire in a field. Unfortunately, there's also a judo match between Sloane and a henchman (played by Martin Kove), where it's clearly – even on my crappy copy of the show – a stunt double filling in for Conrad.

A fun episode. Two more to go!

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Sweethearts Of Disaster"

The ninth episode of A Man Called Sloane (originally airing on December 1st, 1979) opens with Sloane and Torque in France, covertly observing a test of a laser cannon in an isolated valley that in no way resembles L.A.'s Bronson Canyon. (Sure!) They're not the only ones, as Sloane observes an attractive woman (Andrea Howard) also watching. As these bystanders stand by, a team of six women attack the scientists testing the laser, beat them up, and steal the weapon.

Sloane repels down a cliff to intercept their fleeing truck, only to have his ass handed to him by the "Sweethearts," and then be tossed unceremoniously off the moving vehicle.

It's not a total embarrassment for UNIT's "only Top Priority Agent," though – somehow, in the melee, he managed to steal the ruby needed to make the laser cannon function. Anyway, UNIT decides to try and lure the thieves into the open by having Torque pose as an African king who is auctioning off one of the only two other rubies capable powering the device. KARTEL baddie Bannister (Ted Hamilton) and his all-female terrorist squad - The Sweethearts – as well as the beautiful KGB agent that Sloane saw in France, all converge in Vancouver to fight over the gem. The usual hi jinks ensue.

As a poster on the IMDb points out, this is a smaller-scale, faster-paced remake of the Death Ray 2000 pilot film, which hadn't been seen on TV yet, with the gratuitous addition of the sexy "Sweethearts" – a virtual necessity on Fred Silverman's NBC at the time. The episode is briskly directed by veteran B-movie and TV auteur Jack Starret (Cleopatra Jones, Race With The Devil), who, in keeping with the tradition of nepotism on the Sloane set, cast his daughter as one of the Sweethearts! Not the series' best episode, but far from its worst.

• Andrea Howard, who portrays KBG operative Anna, also co-starred with Don Adams the following year in the first Get Smart feature, The Nude Bomb, where she inexplicably took the place of Barbara Feldon's 99. She was pretty and likable, but a poor substitute for Feldon.

• With so much of today's TV being shot in Canada, I find it interesting and amusing that in this 1979 production, Los Angeles is standing in for Vancouver, rather than the other way around!

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Samurai"

Episode eight of A Man Called Sloane (Originally airing on November 24th, 1979) features yet another "old enemy" of T.R. Sloane's – this guy's got a lot of old enemies! Didn't he ever, you know, kill, any bad guys?

In this case, it's a man named Tanaka (the always-welcome Mako), a martial arts master, who's escaped from a Jakarta prison and founded his own religious cult in the U.S. Aside from exploiting the youth of America with his so-called religion, he also takes on odd jobs for KARTEL, like kidnapping the daughter of a South American Premier (right out from under Sloane's nose!).

KARTEL demands that the Premier resign – publicly, on live TV – so one of their puppet politicians can assume leadership of the country. UNIT's only lead is a young woman named Carrie Baldwin (Nancy Conrad), a former member of Tanaka's cult. Eventually, Sloane and Tanaka face off in a decently staged – if too brief swordfight – and, with the help of a faked newscast, the girl is saved.

This episode is more down-to-earth than previous installments, with no big sci-fi MacGuffin or mad scientists. Sloane even has to do some legwork this time. Fortunately, Mako portrays Tanaka as a worthy adversary with some honor and respect for his opponent, and he even gets to knock Robert Conrad around a bit!

• More nepotism! Nancy Conrad is – no surprise – Robert Conrad's daughter. Like Conrad's wife, Lavelda (who guest starred in episode four), Nancy appears to have pretty much only acted in projects Mr. Conrad starred in, including Baa Baa Black Sheep and Murph the Surf!

• This is episode is written by TV veteran Dick Nelson, who scripted an earlier entry, "Tuned For Destruction," as well as several episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Collision Course"

The seventh episode of A Man Called Sloane (original airdate, November 17, 1979) begins with Sloane in London, where he is to meet another UNIT agent at a planetarium. When he arrives, he discovers his contact – an old friend – murdered, with strange markings on his neck. Noticing a beautiful woman apparently fleeing from the scene, he follows, and is attacked by a couple of thugs.

Investigating the agent's death, Sloane discovers that an old adversary, Jefferson Crane (Eric Braeden, The Rat Patrol), a man that Sloane believed he had killed some years before, is behind a plot of cosmic proportions. Using two stolen nuclear missiles, he plans to divert a comet (the fictional Caesar's Comet, which the script would have us believe was first spotted at the time of Julius Caesar's assassination, and which has returned every 100 years since) and crash it into the Earth.

Soap opera veteran and popular heavy Braeden makes a satisfactory villain, and Nancy DeCarl, as the dead agent's sister, is a lovely girl of the week, but the story is pretty unspectacular. For one thing, while the script goes to great lengths to emphasize how involved and difficult it was to calculate the comet's trajectory, it also posits that the U.S. military transports nukes around on the back of easily hijack-able trucks. (Actually, stealing nukes is made to look very easy throughout the series!)

Not one of the stronger episodes, unfortunately... though the scene where a bunch of polo players on horseback attack a van containing Sloane, Torque and the girl is both kinda cool and damned weird.

• This episode was written by Stephen Kandel, a frequent contributor to various spy-fi shows, including Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West, It Takes A Thief and MacGyver.

"This Organization Does Not Tolerate Failure..."

I don't know if this image is official or fan-made, but it made this long-time Bond fan smile... and with the rumors that Christophe Waltz is playing SPECTRE mastermind Ernst Stavros Blofeld in the as-yet-untitled film, I'm hopeful that we can put that QUANTUM idiocy behind us and welcome the original evil empire back to the series.

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "The Venus Microbe"

Episode six of A Man Called Sloane (original airdate: October 27, 1979) centers around a lethal alien microorganism brought back to Earth by a Venus probe. (Funny how in reality, our interplanetary probes aren't actually ever intended to return to Earth, though they regularly do in fiction!) This "microbe" is so dangerous that the government both fears that it might get loose and salivates at the thought of using it as a weapon. Thus, they have a team working on an "antidote."

Dr. Franklyn (Alex Henteloff) is part of that team of government scientists, but KARTEL has snagged him in a honeytrap using a professional seductress named Charlene (Zacki Murphy), and turned him. He steals both the microbe and antidote with her help, inadvertently trapping a couple of his colleagues in a sealed chamber and exposing them to the microbe.

Sloane and Torque happen to be visiting the lab at the time, and chase after him. Unfortunately, KARTEL has him covered, and our heroes are attacked by an "ambulance" with a rocket launching "siren." We discover here, for the first time, that Sloane's vintage Cord has some defensive capabilities, as he employs a good old fashioned oil slick to thwart his would-be assassins. ("I guess we gave them the slip!") Unfortunately, the ambulance attack has allowed Franklyn and Charlene to escape with their deadly prize.

Franklyn turns the microbe and the as-yet-untested antidote over to casino proprietor and KARTEL honcho Jonathan Cambro (veteran character actor Monte Markham). Obviously, KARTEL needs to know the antidote works, so the sinister Cambro forces Franklyn to test it on himself. It doesn't work. Apparently the good doctor misplaced a page while transcribing the formula, and that page is now in the hands of neophyte private eye Melissa Nelson (Morgan Fairchild). Eventually, Melissa and Sloane combine forces, and with only 48 hours to recover the antidote (remember those trapped scientists?), go after the sinister Cambro.

Not the strongest episode, but Fairchild and Conrad play off each other quite well, and Markham is, as always, excellent in his villainous role. The science is ludicrous, of course, and the plot is all-too predictable, but it moves along briskly.

• Scriptwriter Marc Brandel also contributed scripts to Danger Man and Amos Burke, Secret Agent.

Wednesday Covers: DANGER TRAIL

In 1993 DC Comics published a 4-issue revival of their 1950 spy comic, Danger Trail. The '93 miniseries was written by Len Wein, and illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Frank McLaughlin. The story was a fairly shameless rip-off of various James Bond movies, and featured DC superspy King Faraday in an adventure pitting him against the supervillain Kobra.

It was enjoyable stuff, but highly derivative. Fortunately, DC had the good sense to hire comicdom's premiere spy artist, Paul Gulacy, to draw the dynamic, eye-catching covers. Check them out:

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Demon's Triangle"

Episode five of A Man Called Sloane (original airdate, October 20th, 1979) is probably the best of the run so far... except for one annoying little thing, which I'll gripe about later.

The episode opens at an airport in some Central American country, where UNIT's gadget girl Kelly (series regular Karen Purcill) is waiting to board a plane to the United States after enjoying a long-overdue vacation. Unexpectedly, Sloane and Torque show up, pursued by armed troops, and, pressing her into service as an impromptu courier, give her a top secret microchip, which she hides in her ring while the boys lead their pursuers away.

Unfortunately, Kelly's plane disappears in The Demon's Triangle ("Like the Devil's Triangle, only not as well known," according to The Director). There's only one inhabited island in the area – Corsair Island – so Sloane and Torque are off to the Caribbean to search for Kelly and the microchip, which – not unexpectedly – could compromise national security if it should fall into the wrong hands.

Well, the island is lorded over by Morgan Lancaster (Clive Revill) who claims to be the direct descendant of Sir Henry Morgan. He has a device that allows him to remotely control aircraft, and he's behind the disappearance of Kelly's flight. Surprisingly, he has no knowledge of the microchip nor Kelly's UNIT ties – all he wanted was the pilot, one of the few men on Earth qualified to fly America's most top secret aircraft, the XT-100 (which stock footage reveals to be an apparent code name for the then-new B1 bomber). The experimental plane is scheduled to make a test-flight over the area, and Lancaster needs a qualified pilot to bring it down with his machine.

Needless to say, Sloane and Torque not only rescue Kelly from the modern-day pirate's clutches and retrieve the microchip MacGuffin, but foil his skyjacking plans as well.

"Demon's Triangle" has a clever, pulpy script and makes good use of the characters. It's nice to see Kelly out of the lab, and she uses her wits to keep the microchip out of Lancaster's hands. Revill makes a fine Bondian villain, and delivers his comic book dialogue with relish. Sloane, Kelly & Torque escape from a prison cell through an absurd but cleverly-executed plan, and the producers even manage a fair approximation of a Caribbean island setting. Hell, the villain's lair is even hidden within "Voodoo Mountain!" That's some fun spy-fi, right there!

My only complaint? Why call it "Demon's Triangle?" Did someone at NBC Standard & Practices think that the names "Devil's Triangle" or "Bermuda Triangle" were trademarked by a rival network? Cripes!

• This episode was written by Jimmy Sangster, who also wrote the great 60's spy-fi classic, Deadlier Than The Male, and the 1980 telefilm, Once Upon A Spy.

• Clive Revill also played the villain – a different but similar character – in the pilot film T.R. Sloane (a/k/a Death Ray 2000).

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Masquerade of Terror"

The fourth episode of A Man Called Sloane (original airdate: October 13th, 1979) is a pretty good one. "Masquerade of Terror" begins when Jeremy Mason (veteran heavy Richard Lynch), a master of disguise and old enemy of T.R. Sloane's, escapes from prison. KARTEL hires him to impersonate a U.S. general in order to steal a top secret laser satellite system known as Seeker.

UNIT's only lead to Mason is a nightclub dancer he's obsessed with named Linda Daniels (LaVelda Fann). Sloane and Torque keep her under watch, waiting for Mason to make contact, but they don't have to wait long before Mason, in disguise, kidnaps her right from under their noses.

The episode has two intertwining plots: Mason wants revenge on Sloane for putting him away, and KARTEL wants to use Seeker to assassinate a visiting African dignitary. Actually, the realization of the Seeker satellite weapon is pretty cool. Unlike the laser satellites seen in Diamonds Are Forever or Real Genius, the Seeker homes in on its targets with small targeting discs. These discs have to be physically placed on or within the designated targets, but it makes it impossible for the orbiting weapon to miss.

Richard Lynch is awesomely evil as usual, and makes a very formidable foil for Sloane. His ability to whip up Mission: Impossible-styled disguises using only standard make-up is unbelievable, but it's a classic spy-fi trope. LaVelda (as she is billed in this episode) is a lovely woman and has genuine chemistry with Conrad. She dances great, too!

This one's a lot of fun, and probably the best in the series so far.

• Lavelda is Robert Conrad's wife, and according to her IMDb page, she has pretty much only acted in her husband's productions, including guest roles on The Duke, High Sierra Search & Rescue and the TV movie Sworn to Vengeance.

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Tuned For Destruction"

In re-watching this series, I'm struck by just how bad Thomas Remington Sloane is at maintaining a cover. In each of the first three episodes, his undercover identities are completely blown within minutes of meeting his opponents — or sometimes even their underlings! Well, I guess it's difficult suppress your natural persona and pose as someone else when you're as cool as T.R. Sloane!

Anyway, in the third episode (original airdate: October 6, 1979), "Tuned For Destruction," UNIT agents Sloane and Torque are pitted against a rogue ex-general named "Wild Bill" McAvoy (the always reliable Geoffrey Lewis), and his personal aide-de-camp, Corporal Comfort (pretty soap opera vet Denise Duberry), who are using a newly-invented sonic, amped-up tuning fork "Metal Debilitator" (which can create instant metal fatigue in metal objects like safes, gates, etc.) to penetrate the defenses of a government facility in order to steal a nuclear bomb.

Of course, Sloane attempts to infiltrate McAvoy's private army by posing as a merc, only to be exposed immediately, and moments later, Torque – who had snuck into the villain's compound to back-up Sloane – is also captured... and his cybernetic hand disintegrated by the Metal Debilitator!

The boys ultimately escape and foil the plot, and there's a great helicopter-to-moving-halftrack transfer stunt by Conrad's stunt double to liven up the final act. There's also a pretty decent martial arts fight in the opening scene between Conrad (who appears to be doing most of the fighting himself) and an Asian mercenary.

Interestingly, McAvoy is revealed to be working for the organization KARTEL – a mysterious group of war profiteers and arms merchants first mentioned in the (at the time still unaired) TV movie pilot, T.R. Sloane (a/k/a Death Ray 2000).

• This is one of two Sloane episodes penned by Dick Nelson, whose other spy-fi writing credits include episodes of It Takes A Thief and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "The Seduction Squad"

In the second episode (airing September 29, 1979) of NBC's A Man Called Sloane (although, from the amount of footage in this episode that is incorporated into the series titles, it was probably shot first), "The Seduction Squad," Sloane and Torque are investigating acts of industrial sabotage that threaten the country's defense contractors. Eventually, it turns out that important industrial and military figures have been seduced and hypnotically brainwashed by the supermodel operatives of a slightly fey fashion and cosmetics king played by I Spy's Robert Culp. His goal? War in the Middle East... though I'm still not exactly sure what he expected to get out of it.

Not a lot to discuss here. Sloane and Torque go through the usual motions, and aside from an action-packed opening scene featuring Sybil Danning, explosions and a great zipwire stunt, it's not a particularly involving episode. The women of the titular Squad are all pretty hot, though, big hair and all, and Culp's clearly having a hell of a good time, camping it up as the heavy. He and Conrad - or, more precisely, their stunt doubles - do get a little hand-to-hand combat in near the climax, though.

• Anthony Eisley, star of one of my favorite Eurospy flicks, Lightning Bolt, and Robert Conrad's co-star on Hawaiian Eye, shows up here as a Defense Department bigwig who is brainwashed into nearly starting WWIII.

A MAN CALLED SLOANE: "Night Of The Wizard"

In the debut episode of A Man Called Sloane (airing September 22, 1979), top level UNIT agent Thomas Remington Sloane (Robert Conrad) and his partner Torque (Ji-Tu Cumbuka), a giant of a man with a huge, mechanical hand, are investigating the thefts of "K3" plutonium pellets from the U.S. government.

As it turns out, the thefts have been arranged by Manfred Baranoff (the always great Roddy McDowall), a mad scientist building a private army of super-strong androids. Posing as a mercenary thief with irradiated K3 pellets to sell, Sloane attempts to infiltrate Baranoff's organization, only to have his cover immediately blown. Needless to say, agent Sloane is captured, and locked in a rather nice bedroom sealed with deadly electrical force fields. With the help of pretty Sara Nightingale (Diane Stilwell), an artist employed by Baranoff to sculpt his android's faces, Sloane escapes from his prison.

In a nice twist, Sloane discovers Baranoff's body lying on the floor of a now-empty laboratory – the scientist has been murdered by one of his own creations, a "perfect" android named Alexander (Chris Marlowe). Alexander takes command of the other 'droids, and plans an assault on a scientific laboratory, where he plans to secure enough radioactive material to power himself and his army forever.

It's a fun little bit of Seventies spy-fi fluff, with a nicely layered performance – as usual – from McDowall. There are a couple of decent fight scenes, with Conrad actually involved in the action. Unlike on The Wild Wild West, where the athletic star insisted on doing all his own stunts, on Sloane, the mercurial Conrad wasn't always as enthusiastic, and frequently let his doubles do the sweating.

The only spy gadget in this episode worth mentioning is a two-way radio hidden within a rather ostentatious money clip. And, as will frequently happen over the dozen episodes, Sloane's towering, cyborg sidekick Torque has little-to-nothing to do in this installment.

Probably because I grew up as a science fiction fan in the Seventies (i.e. "The Roger Moore 007 Years"), I find that I am very fond of the more sci-fi spy-fi; androids and death rays are so much more exotic (and fun) McGuffins than dreary old "secret documents" or mundane nuclear warheads. I love the more down-to-earth, realistic spy stories, too, but I'm not a snob.

• The title of this Sloane episode is reminiscent of the episode titles on The Wild Wild West, which all began with the words "The Night of...," and specifically, the title of the first Dr. Loveless episode, "The Night The Little Wizard Shook the World." Coincidence?

A MAN CALLED SLOANE Revisited

A few years back, I started a separate blog for my interest in over-the-top spy films and television shows, the not-so-cleverly-titled Spy-Fi Channel. I posted a lot of stuff there in 2009, but over the next few years, as my interests turned more toward my 70s sci-fi nostalgia and the Space: 1970 blog, the spy site sort of slowly died. In fact, it was one of a couple of blogs that I gradually stopped updating - like my Guns In The Gutters site, devoted to my reviews of crime comics.

Anyway, I've been thinking I needed to a.) update this site more often and b.) clean up my online presence, so I'll be taking both of those zombie blogs offline. However, because I did put a lot of work into the material on those sites, I'll be taking some of that content and re-posting it here. This means that this site (which also has, much to my dismay, been too-infrequently updated of late) will be somewhat more lively in the coming months as I mix in a bunch of my spy-fi-related material (and crime comics reviews!) with any new personal and pop culture topics that may catch my fancy.

Which brings me to A Man Called Sloane.

A Man Called Sloane was a half-season adventure series that aired on NBC in 1979. It starred Robert Conrad (The Wild Wild West, Baa Baa Black Sheep) as Thomas Remington Sloane III, the (only) Top Priority agent for a secret organization called UNIT. Though the format harkened back to the 60s and shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., it was still very much a product of its time, with ludicrous plots, lots of cheesecake, and Conrad's patented macho swagger. Needless to say, I loved it as a kid.  Back in '09, I got my hands on a set of bootleg DVDs and reviewed all twelve episodes of the show. That represented a lot of time and work, so rather than let those posts disappear into the digital aether, I'll be re-running those reviews here over the next few months.

Of course, I'll be editing them a bit and adding a few new thoughts and observations (as I've watched most of the episodes more than once now). I even plan on writing at least one new article for the series, as I never reviewed the original T.R.Sloane TV pilot film (a/k/a Death Ray 2000), which starred Robert Logan as superspy Sloane.

As I mentioned above, it won't only be reruns here; I'll be getting back to posting those "Wednesday Covers," and will almost certainly have a Halloween post or two. I'll also continue to keep you updated on my various comics projects and will continue posting about cheesy B action movies, comic strips, etc.

Look for the first Sloane review on Monday.

Secret Agent X-9!

Phil Corrigan, alias Secret Agent X-9, was a popular comic strip character of the 30's and 40's (though the feature ran well into the 90's) created by the acclaimed mystery writer Dashiell Hammett and artist Alex Raymond (who would later go on to create Flash Gordon, and then Rip Kirby for the same newspaper syndicate). Universal Studios produced two movie serials based on the character, both simply titled, Secret Agent X-9; the first in 1937 and the second in 1945.

The 1937 serial has Agent X-9 functioning pretty much as a standard movie G-Man, chasing after a ring of international jewel thieves. It’s a very decent serial; Scott Kolk makes an adequate X-9, and Jean Rogers (Dale Arden in Flash Gordon) is a lovely leading lady. Unfortunately, it’s not really a spy story. Instead, it’s pure, Depression-era, cops and robbers melodrama.

The 1945 serial, on the other hand, is a genuine espionage adventure. This one stars a young, up and coming Lloyd Bridges as Phil Corrigan, Secret Agent X-9. The charismatic and talented Bridges was a far better actor than most other serial heroes, and his nascent star quality really infuses the 13-chapter serial with energy. Unlike some other chapterplays of the era, you don’t get bored between fistfights and car chases.

The story is set in 1943 on the aptly-named Shadow Island, a small isle of intrigue somewhere off the coast of China, which the Japanese have allowed to remain neutral. Of course, secret agents from all over the world descend upon the island, which is portrayed as a sort of South Pacific Casbalanca. Shadow Island is run by a saloon owner named Lucky Kamber (Cy Kendall), but he’s only allowed to operate at the sufferance of a sly and slinky Japanese agent called Nabura (Victoria Horne in faux Asian make-up).

The plot revolves around the accidental discovery by a Japanese scientist (Benson Fong, Charlie Chan’s #3 son) that aviation fuel can be manufactured cheaply by mixing an artificial chemical called 722 with water. Seeing the obvious benefits for Japan’s war plans, Nabura devises an intricate plan to steal the formula for 722 from an American scientist in the States. Fortunately, Australian spy Lynn Moore (Jan Wiley) learns of the plan and, in response to her report, American Intelligence sends Phil Corrigan to Shadow Island to foil the plot. Soon after X-9’s arrival, he finds himself not only teamed with the pretty Aussie agent, but partnered with a very competent Chinese operative named Ah Fong (the great Keye Luke, Charlie Chan’s #1 son). It’s a good thing, too, because X-9’s got his hands full.

Shadow Island swarms with suspicious characters. Among the various factions maneuvering on Shadow Island are a mysterious French couple – Hotel owners Papa and Mama Pierre – whose motives and loyalties are unknown, and an enigmatic gentleman known only as Solo (Samuel S. Hinds) who sits for endless hours at Kamber’s bar playing tiddley winks. Additionally, there’s a Japanese submarine (and its crew) standing by to facilitate Nabura’s scheme, and a "civilian" German freighter commanded by Herr Kapitan Graf, in port.

Needless to say, double (and triple) crosses, gunfights, brawls and shadow skulking are the order of the day on this island of spies, and X-9 has to keep on his toes if he’s going to foil Nabura’s machinations. The serial is briskly-paced (unusually so, for a Universal serial, which tended to be more leisurely than those produced by studios like Republic and Columbia) by directors Lewis Collins and Ray Taylor, and has fairly high production values. The pre-WWII setting is fascinating, and the cliffhangers are all pretty exciting. The final chapter is satisfying, too – not always the case with these Saturday matinee chapterplays.

VCI Entertainment offers both Secret Agent X-9 serials on DVD. Both look good, but the 1945 serial looks particularly fine for its age. There’s some occasional, minor print damage here and there, but the transfer is very solid for the most part. The VCI disc also includes a commentary over the first chapter by mystery writer and comic strip historian Max Allan Collins, an interview with Bridges’ son, Beau Bridges, a still gallery, and trailers for other VCI serial discs.

I'm a big fan of old serials, and the 1945 Secret Agent X-9 is one of my very favorites. Not only is it a great serial, but a fun spy movie, too.

Eurospy Binge

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been indulging in a Eurospy movie binge, working my way through my meager collection of 60s James Bond knock-offs whenever my back starts aching from spending too much time at the computer.

My definition of "Eurospy" is rather flexible; I include 007-inspired films from England as well as those produced on the Continent. This means that entertainments like the two "Hugh Drummond" flicks with Richard Johnson - Deadlier Than The Male & Some Girls Do - as well as Hammerhead, with Vince Edwards as secret agent Charles Hood, have been part of my pseudo-marathon.

I even ordered a new disc for the occasion - a Swedish, Region 2 import of 1966's Killers Are Challenged/Our Man In Casablanca, with Richard Harrison as agent Bob Fleming. I ordered it from Diabolik DVD and was very impressed with their service. I enjoyed the movie, too.

So far, this binge has included: Deadlier Than The Male, Some Girls Do, Hammerhead, Fury In Marrakesh, Lightning Bolt, Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die, Special Mission Lady Chaplain, Mission Bloody Mary, From The Orient With Fury and the aforementioned Killers Are Challenged. Before I'm done, I'll probably be watching Murder For Sale, Espionage In Tangiers, and Modesty Blaise as well.

What triggered this craving for badly-dubbed, bizarro sub-Bondian hijinks? I have no idea. But I'm really enjoying myself, and finding that I'm really getting caught up in the adventures of these amusingly dickish "superspies," enjoying all the gorgeous spy vixens (Daliha Lavi, Margaret Lee, Mitsouko, Helga Line, Daniela Bianchi, Beverly Adams, Elke Sommer.... sigh) and digging the utterly bonkers plots.

Surprisingly, I'm not tiring of them at all, and wish I owned more....