The Karate Killers

When a leading scientist develops a formula for extracting gold from sea water he breaks his hides his formula and sends clues out to 4 of his 5 daughters. When he is killed by THRUSH, UNCLE agents Solo and Kuryakin join with the 5th daughter to retrieve the clues and find the formula before THRUSH can use the formula for their own evil ends.

This is another in the series of UNCLE TV movies used for the European market but it is one of the first to be a serious miss in terms of the UNCLE series. While others played themselves with their tongues in their cheek this takes itself a little too seriously. The first sign of this is that it drops the UNCLE opening theme in favour of a very 1960's "groovy" number by Every Mother's Son and then it starts to load itself up with star cameos. In fact the whole thing lacks the gently mocking humour of the other outings and puts itself forward as a "proper" spy movie.

This is a major failing as the action and story are not good enough to carry the film. The story is quite clever but the execution is poor. The story is basically in 5 bits - 4 sections dealing with each of the 4 daughters and the last being the final confrontation. The problem with this is that there is no real continuity and it feels piecemeal. Each chapter has a star - Terry Thomas, Telly Savalas, Joan Crawford, Herbert Lom - but this makes each section more about the cameos than about getting the formula. In fact in each section the formula usually easily falls into the hands of the 5th daughter by accident.

Both Vaughn and McCallum are OK in their roles but it is obvious that they aren't having as much fun as before. All the cameos are poor because they don't really have any time to do anything interesting and instead just play stereotypes (English copper, Italian count etc). Lom is a terrible villain - all he does in each section is turn up and spark off a fight. When he does get more of a chance to show his character he is exactly like Dr Evil - if fact I thought that Lom was a few steps from being a totally spoof villain despite trying to be menacing and sinister.

This lacks the sense of fun that other outings have had. It takes itself too seriously and immediately loses the one quality that made it good. Check out "the spy in the green hat" if you don't know what I mean - now that's an example of a tongue in cheek UNCLE movie with some stars as villains who give good performances.

This rarely seen TV movie is only shown on Turner Classic Movies when Joan Crawford is the star of the month, but she has a brief, but excellent appearance early on and then is murdered by "The Karate Killers." The plot revolves around the Men from U.N.C.L.E. on a continental adventure tracking down five daughters of a deceased scientist, who had a secret formula that turns seawater into gold, but they have to fight off bad guy Randolph and his "Karate Killers" who are after it. I guess you have to be from the generation of TV viewers who are familiar with the show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to really appreciate it, since it is action-packed, but at times corny and far-fetched.

The dynamic U. N. C. L. E. Duo are sent on a world-wide chase to foil the devilish plans of T. H. R. U. S. H. A top scientist has been murdered and his secret formula can lead to ruin for the free world....

An all-star cast - including a cameo role by Joan Crawford- enhances the usual UNCLE spy shenanigans. Sometimes it feels like a Monkees episode, especially with a band singing in the club, but mostly it's the standard stuff with the duo hunting for a formula that could make THRUSH powerful and unstoppable. It is still fun though, and humorous as usual - and has some exciting action scenes, and some globe trotting. Bond connections = The Auto-gyro, the ski chase, Telly Savalas & Curd Jürgens ( Blofeld & Stromberg).

The Karate Killers (1967)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A secret formula is stolen and broke off into four different parts so Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) must travel around the world and try to catch the evil man trying to get it. THE KARATE KILLERS is a feature-length version of a two-episode entry in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series. I should probably admit right from the start that I had never seen an episode of this show so I really can't say how well this movie is or how good the two episodes are and how they compare to other episodes in the series. For the most part I found myself having a pretty good time. I will admit that I found a lot of this to be rather campy and I'm not sure if this is just how it's aged or perhaps the series was always meant to be campy. Either way, there were a lot of fun moments scattered throughout the picture with some of the highlights including the opening sequence and another very good one where McCallum finds himself heading towards an ice breaker, which will certainly kill him. There are several sequences here that manage to capture that cliffhanger feeling that people saw in serials back in the day. Another thing that kept this film moving were the countless celebrity appearances including Joan Crawford, Herbert Lom, Leo G. Carroll, Telly Savalas and Kim Darby. Seeing all these stars pop up in small roles was nice. The two leads were also extremely good and fun. THE KARATE KILLERS, I don't think, was meant to be taken too serious so as long as you turn your brain off there's some fun to be had.

The third "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." spliced for cinema double feature I've watched in a couple of weeks and perhaps fatigue is setting in. It's just not the same as when I was a boy of 7 or 8 in the 60's avidly gawping at our old black and white TV getting my weekly fix of spy-fun and action.

Notable for being one of the few from the as I call them composites not to include the word "spy", there was as much good as bad about this feature. Amazing to see Joan Crawford in a cameo role and her commendable acceptance of the in-joke when told by her soon to be murderous husband to "not be so melodramatic". The pretty thin narrative then as ever takes the U.N.C.l.E. agents world wide (that is, studio sets of world-wide locations, including London, The Swiss Alps, Tokyo and eventually the Arctic Circle) where we get about 20 minutes of action, confusion, romance and drollery but to be sure the law of diminishing returns applies with dividends until we get the usual against the clock climax not about the world coming to an end but about a water-into-gold process, not quite the same really.

There are other celeb turns in the cast behind The Grand Dame Joan, the best of them, a perky Terry Thomas, for once not playing the cad and ending up enviously with the curvaceous later to be Mrs Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, a camp Telly Savalas as an Italian count and that's Kim Darby (once Anne Frank in George Steven's 1950's epic) as the fresh but hardly cute accoutrement to the boys in their travels.

The direction is very patchy. Herbert Lom's T.H.R.U.S.H. boss only lacks pantomime music with his every so unexpected they're expected entrance, there are some terrible process shots of Robert Vaughn on a motor bike and worse yet a motorbike versus car chase. The gormless band which you couldn't say "belts" out "Come On Down To My Boat" in the London sequence didn't float mine either.

And yet there was one snow-skiing confrontation which seemed to prefigure a superior revision in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (the pupil teaching the master?) and I kind of liked a fade up shot from David McCallum's "Rubber Soul"-type hair as he comes around from unconsciousness yet one more time.

But I'm reaching here. The 8 year old over 40 years ago would have lapped up this escapist fare without quibbles but a movie feature it isn't. I'll watch any other "U.N.C.L.E." films which come on, mainly for my nostalgia and the coolness of the two leads Vaughn and McCallum, but by this stage, the unwelcome influence of campness (derived no doubt from the contemporary success of the likes of the original "Batman" TV series) was making inroads and no amount of modernity or celebrity cameos could bring it back.