The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair

This is one re-union movie that had to be made. Fortunately it was made by a rabid fan of the original--a man named Michael Sloan who went on to produce "The Equalizer". Sloan and director Ray Austin (who directed many later episodes of "The Avengers") made sure they kept much of the tongue in cheek humour of the series, and made the movie a high quality venture, but up-dated it to then modern times (1983). A touching item was the stars made a point to notice they were getting to old for this kind of physical action, and that Illya points out "progress" is not necessarily a better thing. The supporting cast was first rate with Anthony Zerbe (what happened to him?), Geoffrey Lewis, Keenan Wynn, and especially Pat MacNee (former Avenger John Steed) as the new head of UNCLE...Its a shame a planned new series was not picked up by CBS.

Back when the old Man From UNCLE series was going I thought it was a radical concept. Here we had as the top agents an American and a Russian in an agency run by a British man to the manor born all cooperating against a conspiracy to rule the world headed by some evil folks. Detente a generation ahead of its time.

Leo G. Carroll has passed on, but the United Network Command for Law Enforcement has another titled Britisher in Patrick MacNee heading it. A master criminal Anthony Zerbe has escaped and who better than the two guys who borough Zerbe in back in the day to get him.

So Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are recruited from the lives they now lead, Vaughn as Las Vegas gambler and McCallum as fashion kingpin. Zerbe has also stolen a thermonuclear bomb and plans to blow it up unless he gets a hefty sum of cash. UNCLE's nemesis THRUSH is back in action.

It was nice to see Vaughn and McCallum back in their old roles. Hard to believe that the kindly old medical examiner from NCIS was something of a teenage heartthrob back in those days, but The Man From UNCLE gave McCallum some short lived bubblegum popularity.

I can see why this version failed though, it tried for satire and fell on its face. No wonder this was not picked up to revive the series

Reunion TV-movies based on old series rarely capture the spirit of the original, but Return of the Man from Uncle taps into the campiness of the series as if it never was off the air. The leads have fun acknowledging their age, and the whole thing neatly turns into a parody of spy films without becoming a parody of itself. I rated it a "9" not because it is great art but because compared to all other TV reunion movies it is head and shoulders above the rest!

Those super-agents of the spy-era "Man from U.N.C.L.E." Robert Vaughn & David McCallum reteam in this 1983 sequel, reprising their characters admirably & accurately, but the overall tone of this (one of the earliest of the TV "reunion" movies) falls flat. The scripting and helming fail to match the jaunty tongue-in-cheekness of the original, despite screenplay credit by series-creator Sam Rolfe, and regrettably it lacks any hint of the original hep score by Fried & Goldsmith.

The plot is predictable and typical of the '60s series: U.N.C.L.E.-vs-THRUSH, with an innocent bystander conscripted into the fray. But beyond the two leads, nothing remains of the original U.N.C.L.E. mythos. By 1983 the MGM backlot had been bulldozed for a condo development, so this was shot entirely on location -- even the interiors. The result feels a little too raw to recreate the fantastical "U.N.C.L.E." franchise. And sadly, the production design ditched the sleek steel-panel walls of the original headquarters, the cute miniskirted G3s and the gee-whiz technology that made the show such fun. It would seem the old HQ "somewhere in the east '40s" was boarded up some years back (perhaps a downsizing?) and operations moved to new offices that smack of a modest corporation somewhere in Wisconsin, with cheap wood panelling and fluorescent overheads and the full "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement" emblazoned billboard-size on the hallway walls; apparently U.N.C.L.E. has moved heavily into branding these days). In fact, the only recognizable elements reprised from the series are the pen-radio, the briefing-room TV sequence and a few blinking "old-world" computer consoles which must have been languishing in the prop warehouse since the Nixon Administration.

The shtick of this remake is that the current staff of U.N.C.L.E. comprises vanilla-bland PC yuppies fresh out of prep school, to a man possessing none of the silky suaveness of Napoleon Solo, and the entire agency seems to have a bureaucratic malaise hanging over it. Perhaps with good reason: the international terrorist agency, THRUSH, is said to have been disbanded some years ago. My feeling watching this setup was that with Waverly gone, and without a worthy adversary, U.N.C.L.E. had lost its way.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, THRUSH rears up Phoenix-like, precipitating Solo's return to the fold...where he finds himself very much a fish out of water (a riff used, perhaps more effectively, some years later by Pierce Brosnan in "The World Is Not Enough" in which JB's predatory sexual mores clash with the PC feminism of the late 20th century).

Patrick McNee ("John Steed" of the Avengers) has been drafted to replace the late Leo G. Carroll in a clever bit of cross-casting, and there's a cameo by an even earlier "Bond," but otherwise the show is unremarkable. Our aging heroes, drawn out of civilian retirement (explained for Ilya, but not for Solo), start out making a few slips what with being so long out of practice, but they're still in reasonable shape and eventually find their old groove. Both see lots of action, toss off many witty comments & wind up regaining to a comfortable camaraderie. Curiously, it's never explained what kept them out of touch through the years (had there a falling out, maybe over a woman?), nor is it ever made clear why top-agent Solo didn't get promoted to an admin position within U.N.C.L.E. (perhaps even to succeed Waverly?), and what events led to the ultimate demise of THRUSH years back.

Technically, the show is low-budget with a heavy '70s kitsch (film stock quality is marginal, typical of the era, with lots of stock footage -- one clip through an airplane window shows unprocessed blue-screen!). The audio is poorly dubbed in places, with lots of distracting background noise. The stuntwork is pedestrian: a few cars get rolled "A-Team" style, dazed henchman stumbling from the wrecks; a villain dangles precariously from a helicopter skid, but only a few inches from the ground; an U.N.C.L.E. swat team rappels down Boulder Dam, a supered title identifying it as "Somewhere In Syria." This was a made-for-TV movie and everywhere it definitely shows up as made on the cheap.

Come to think of it, though, that was the perverse charm of the '60s series, a four-year romp through cheeseboard sets and cheap pyrotechnics. This sequel may ring more true to the series than I originally gave it credit.

I really enjoyed The Return of The Man From UNCLE-The 15 Year Affair. Which I watched today on YouTube. The first thing I noticed is how much fun Robert Vaughn ( Napoleon Solo) was having. In fact, much more then on the original series and much more then co-star David McCallum ( Illya). The next thing is how much respect they had for deceased cast member Mr. Waverly ( Leo G. Carroll). It was even noted how the main villain ( Anthony Zerbe), said "He had style." Who replaced him? Someone else with style: Patrick Macnee ( aka John Steed from The Avengers TV series) as UNCLE head Sir John. Did I forget George Lanzeby ( who once played James Bond) as JB. He even drove an Aston-Martin and said "Shaken Not Stirred." Is the movie perfect? No but there are a lot worse options then to spent 90 minutes. 9/10 stars.