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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: August 4th, 2015.
Director: Various
Cast: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Leo G. Carroll
Year: 1964 - 1965
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The Series:
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ran on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968, though the first season, as presented here, stopped on April 15th, 1965. With a big budget theatrical release about to hit theaters at the time of this writing, Warner Brothers has proven savvy enough to bring that season to DVD. The show was previously available only as a complete series boxed set, first released (in a pretty neat suitcase package) in 2008 and then again in 2014 (without the suitcase) so this marks the first time that any of the individual seasons have been made available.
The show followed two secret agents, secret agents, an American named Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Ukrainian man named Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum), employed by U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). They reported to a British commanding officer named Alexander Waverly (Leo G. Carroll) and spent a lot of time trying to thwart the efforts of T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). A sinister organization bent on world domination but of course, as secret agents were wont to do in the swinging sixties, they often found just enough time to enjoy the company of whatever lovely ladies might be on hand at any given time and on any given mission (or, 'affair' if you prefer).
Shot in crisp black and white the series owed a bit to the Bond films (Ian Fleming helped out on some of the concepts when the series was in pre-production) but as it was a network television series, it played things a bit more conservatively than those theatrical features did.
Spread out over ten discs, the first season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is laid out as follows:
DISC ONE:
The Vulcan Affair / The Iowa-Scuba Affair / The Quadripartite Affair
DISC TWO:
The Shark Affair / The Deadly Games Affair / The Green Opal Affair
DISC THREE:
The Giuoco Affair / The Double Affair / The Project Strigas Affair
DISC FOUR:
The Finny Foot Affair / The Neptune Affair / The Dove Affair
DISC FIVE:
The King Of Knaves Affair / The Terbuf Affair / The Deadly Decoy Affair
DISC SIX:
The Fiddlesticks Affair / The Yellow Scarf Affair / The Mad, Mad Tea Party Affair
DISC SEVEN:
The Secret Scepter Affair / The Bow-Wow Affair / The Four-Steps Affair
DISC EIGHT:
The See-Paris-And-Die Affair / The Brain-Killer Affair / The Hong Kong Shilling Affair
DISC NINE:
The Never-Never Affair / The Love Affair / The Gazebo In The Maze Affair
DISC TEN:
The Girls Of Nazarone Affair / The Odd Man Affair
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. holds up well.
So yeah, lots of content here. 1464 minutes, to be exact. Thankfully, it holds up. The series might seem riddled with clichés by modern standards, and that's fair enough because it is, but taken in the context of the era in which it was made this show was trendy, exciting and unique. Most of what makes the series work isn't so much the potboiler plots or the twists and turns (some of which, let's be honest, are pretty obvious and predictable) but the performances. Robert Vaughn IS Napoleon Solo. He's suave, dashing, handsome and just as cool as cool can be. He's level headed but quick to act when he needs to be and Vaughn really embodies all of his character's traits here. He and David McCallum have a pretty cool chemistry going on here. Leo G. Carroll makes for a great 'guy in charge' character and there's a lot of really fun to watch dialogue exchanges between the three great actors in any given episode that keep this amusing to watch.
At the same time, the series is reasonably grounded for a show about secret agents working for or against fictitious agencies. The locations seen throughout the film are very often real locations rather than sound stage shoots and the plots typically recycle Hitchcock's tried and true 'innocent guy needs to prove his innocence to avoid trouble' concepts - familiar, but effective, right? We occasionally get some sci-fi tinged episodes in this season but they're still not so over the top as to take this too far out of the realm of possibility as to spoil the suspense that was a key factor in the show's success. This season also features some fun guest appearances, the most interesting being William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy popping up together in The Project Strigas Affair before they would work together on Star Trek. Robert Culp pops up in The Shark Affair alongside James Doohan while Ricardo Montalban shows up in The Dove Affair.
Adding to the fun was the show's use of music. Jerry Goldsmith contributed some great pieces here, including the show's opening theme song and in later seasons, Lalo Schifrin worked some of his magic on the show as well. So yeah, this is just really solid, entertaining television. It definitely set some interesting trends and its influence can be seen not just in the upcoming movie but in later spy shows and movies as well. It's fair to call the series iconic but thankfully, it's deserving of the that.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe transfers in this set look pretty solid. The image is pretty much pristine throughout; the contrast in the black and white picture looks good and the black levels nice and solid. Detail is about as good as DVD can get and things look very good indeed.
The only audio option for this release is an English language Dolby Digital Mono track but optional subtitles are provided in English, French and Spanish. No problems here, the levels are nicely balanced, there are no issues with any hiss or distortion and the dialogue is perfectly easy to understand.
There are no extras on the discs themselves, just menus and episode selection, but inside the keepcase is a booklet containing episode listings and credits for the series. All ten discs fit inside an oversized DVD keepcase with flippers inside and that keepcase fits inside a cardboard slipcase.
The Final Word:
Warner's release of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Season One is, unfortunately, a barebones affair but it looks and sounds good and it offers a whole lot of entertainment bang for your buck. If you didn't want to shell out for the pricey complete series boxed set that came out some time ago, well, here's the first season at a very fair price. Hopefully further seasons will follow sooner rather than later.
