Anything to get the word "spy" into the title! Actually I think this was the only "U.N.C.L.E." "movie" I'd not seen so it was a welcome watch for me.
A fine colourful romp it was too, taking in the two main locations for 20th Century criminal activity in the western world, Sicily and Chicago and a fun plot involving an ex-Nazi inventor, a group of veteran Mafiosi and best of all, Hollywood stars Jack Palance and Janet Leigh who really enter into the spirit of things as top T.H.R.U.S.H. operatives.
Solo and Kuryakin are as debonair and efficient (respectively) as ever, while Mr Waverley as ever is a soft-centred grouch. Starting off in sunny Sicily, the dynamic duo get separated when attempting to intercept the Nazi professor, Solo, typically ending up in a pretty Sicilian girl's bedroom and Kuryakin chained up and on the end of shock treatment administered by Leigh in a Rosa Klebb type role. The action shifts to the States taking in a shoot-out at a Chicago night-club, before the usual beat-the-clock climax at bad guy Palance's weapons depot.
As ever, it's lightweight, knockabout stuff, although there are hints of some more risqué direction than usual not only in some unusual camera-shots from above and below, but in the campy, kinky depiction of Leigh's knife-toting Miss Diketon (what's in a name?) and Palance's campy, excitable boss Strago, while some scenes, like Solo's peeping-Tom initial meet-up with Letitia Roman in her bedroom, Leigh seemingly getting aroused when either massaging Palance or administering death by flying daggers and most outré of all, a table-top fight between the two women seem more out there than previously, perhaps riffing of recent, racy spoofs like "Our Man Flint" and Dean Martin's Matt Helm misadventures.
With some good jokes thrown in too if at other times a bit too much Italian stereotyping, this was a highly entertaining caper and probably the best of the five movies adapted from the original TV series.
