The Man From UNCLE movie

[Benzadmiral]

"Man from U.N.C.L.E." trailer released!

Have a look: http://www.eonline.com/news/624953/...-e-s-movie-adaptation-watch-the-first-trailer

If the trailer truly reflects what we'll see on the screen, the film will have energy, humor, excitement, and style -- all hallmarks of the original. The bit at 1:08-1:10, with the slash of light across Solo's face, and that with Illya on the motorbike and leveling what *looks* like an U.N.C.L.E. Special at 1:11-1:12, have that visual style we came to expect of the show at its best. Cavill's smooth Solo ("Not very good at this whole *subtlety* thing, are you?"), Hammer's Illya ("Vill be like this for . . . 20 minutes. Can't touch") -- Wow.

Excuse me while I wipe this stubborn happy grin off my face. It's going to be a long 6 months until the film opens, isn't it?

 

[emigran]

Whatta great series that was... perhaps we won't be disappointed with the new film...!!!

 

[Frunobulax]

Well that looks like fun. Didn't know they were making it.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Well that looks like fun. Didn't know they were making it.

A feature film based on U.N.C.L.E. has been on the tracks over and over again, only to be derailed, since the late '70s. This one originally was attached to Steven Soderbergh, whose "Ocean's Eleven" movies have the right feel to revisit the show. He dropped out, I think because Warners balked at his budget, and then Guy Ritchie of the recent Sherlock Holmes films came in.

A lot of the fans I met at the 50th anniversary bash in LA last September are very sanguine about the new film. One of the organizers, who is an Oscar-winning effects expert (Ron Howard's Splash), said he'd seen it. "It's more Cold War," he told me, "but you won't be disappointed."

There are some fans who won't ever accept anybody but Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as Solo and Illya, and that's their right. But I think they may miss out on something good if they boycott the new film.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...man-from-U-N-C-L-E-is-being-made-into-a-movie

 

[Doctor Strange]

I loved U.N.C.L.E. as a kid, I was exactly the right age for all the sixties spy stuff. Secret Agent, The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, The Prisoner, the Derek Flint movies, etc. (and I caught up on the Bond films a little later when I was hit my teens).

But alas, I don't have high hopes for the film. While I'm very glad that it's been made as a period piece, I just can't get worked up... I haven't liked Guy Ritchie's other films at all, so this is a definite wait-for-cable for me.

Still, I'm curious to hear your review when it opens, Benzadmiral!

 

[Benzadmiral]

I loved U.N.C.L.E. as a kid, I was exactly the right age for all the sixties spy stuff. Secret Agent, The Avengers, Mission: Impossible, The Prisoner, the Derek Flint movies, etc. (and I caught up on the Bond films a little later when I was hit my teens).

But alas, I don't have high hopes for the film. While I'm very glad that it's been made as a period piece, I just can't get worked up... I haven't liked Guy Ritchie's other films at all, so this is a definite wait-for-cable for me.

Still, I'm curious to hear your review when it opens, Benzadmiral!

I think the things to hold on to here is that the movie has been made (a) as a period piece, as you mention, (b) with an emphasis on action instead of being a parody (cf. the nasty "I Spy" or "Starsky & Hutch" movies), and (c) that Ritchie has cast actors who are right for the roles. Imagine if they'd given us a blond Solo or a bald Illya. Argggh . . .

From what I've gathered in reading reviews on the 'Net, apparently the day of the gritty spy film has passed for now, and the "fun" spy film is being given a chance again. If so, this new U.N.C.L.E. may spearhead that movement, the way the original led the way for spies on TV in the 1960s.

 

[Gray Ghost]

So looking forward to this!

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

As a devout fan in the 60s I'm into this. :eusa_clap I love the fact that it is set in the 60s, nothing else would work.
But this doesn't ring a bell with me, although it does sound eerily prophetic for this day and age! :eeek: -----> T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity)
I seem to recall something else as the translation of the acronym.

 

[Benzadmiral]

As a devout fan in the 60s I'm into this. :eusa_clap I love the fact that it is set in the 60s, nothing else would work.
But this doesn't ring a bell with me, although it does sound eerily prophetic for this day and age! :eeek: -----> T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity)
I seem to recall something else as the translation of the acronym.

HDJ (or should I call you Satch?),

The acronym was never given a meaning on the show itself. The "Hierarchy" was the creation of pro writer David McDaniel. In his first original novel for Ace Books based on the show, The Dagger Affair, a threat so big faces U.N.C.L.E. and Thrush that Thrush proposes they work together to combat it. Solo, Illya, and Waverly fly to San Francisco, where the local satrap leader tells them that Thrush arose from the surviving fragments of a criminal organization built by one brilliant criminal in the 1890s . . . one who was a genius at two slightly related fields, mathematics and crime. (I leave the determination of his name as an exercise for the student.)

Fans suggested to Norman Felton, the executive producer of the show, that the "Hierarchy" meaning made sense, and Felton gave it his stamp of approval.

 

[Harp]

Solo's character never appealed, but I liked Illya. And the girls.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Solo's character never appealed, but I liked Illya. And the girls.

I was and still am a die-hard Solophile -- see my avatar. But when I got to see the episodes again after 20 years in the Eighties, and then watched them uncut on the DVDs a few years ago, I really came to appreciate Illya. He was a forerunner of Mr. Spock: the mysterious, intellectual "other" who complemented the lead character in ways the show's creators never envisioned at the start. Those episodes without him I still enjoy; but the best ones have the chemistry between the two actors and their characters. I'm hoping for something similar in the film.

Hammer, who's playing Illya, has said that he's watched some of the original episodes. He's also said it's fun to play a character who has no sense of humor -- and doesn't know it. (Not the characterization of the original, but it should indeed be fun to watch!)

 

[Dennis Young]

Im glad to hear a film is being made of this great tv series. I used to watch all the time. But I hope its better than what they did to "The Avengers". That ...that was just sad.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Im glad to hear a film is being made of this great tv series. I used to watch all the time. But I hope its better than what they did to "The Avengers". That ...that was just sad.

I heard so many bad things about it, and objected so strongly to the casting of Uma Thurman (!!??!! I don't find her attractive) as Mrs. Peel, that I've never seen the flick. And in all the pics I've seen from the film, Ralph Fiennes projects none of the insouciance, ultra-competence, and confidence of Patrick Macnee's John Steed; in fact Fiennes looks sort of grumpy. (As well he might.)

So we have every reason to be hopeful about the new U.N.C.L.E.

 

[Dennis Young]

I loved the old Avengers tv series. Also I have a crush on Linda Thorson. *Blush*

Re UNCLE, to this day I search for films with Robert Vaughn in them. He was great in Bridge at Remagen and the Magnificent Seven.


I never saw Return of the Man from UNCLE.

 

[Harp]

I really came to appreciate Illya. He was a forerunner of Mr. Spock: the mysterious, intellectual "other" who complemented the lead character in ways the show's creators never envisioned at the start. Those episodes without him I still enjoy; but the best ones have the chemistry between the two actors and their characters. I'm hoping for something similar in the film.

Hammer, who's playing Illya, has said that he's watched some of the original episodes. He's also said it's fun to play a character who has no sense of humor -- and doesn't know it. (Not the characterization of the original, but it should indeed be fun to watch!)

Interesting comparison to Spock-I never cared for Star Trek all that much, nor thought of this but you are right.
As far as Illya's lack of humor; ditto, never really noted the lack. He was more coordinated than Solo, who obviously
played lead and Illya stayed in the background. The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee was my favorite show.
Lee's Jeet Kune Do got me hooked on martial arts. But Uncle had the girls.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I loved the old Avengers tv series. Also I have a crush on Linda Thorson. *Blush*

Re UNCLE, to this day I search for films with Robert Vaughn in them. He was great in Bridge at Remagen and the Magnificent Seven.


I never saw Return of the Man from UNCLE.

Vaughn has been my favorite actor since the U.N.C.L.E. days. I spotted him in the mid-'70s in a film called The Mind of Mr. Soames, a quiet British science-fiction movie in which Vaughn plays an American surgeon. He's developed a surgical technique to wake up Mr. Soames, a young man who was, get this, born asleep and has lived to age 20 in that state. When he awakes, he literally is a child in a man's body; and Vaughn (wearing the beard which inspired me to grow mine) sticks around to help educate him.

Vaughn has played almost every kind of role you can imagine, from "weak younger son" (Young Philadelphians) to hero, villain, secret cross-dresser (S.O.B.), both Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and the pre-White House Harry Truman. He needs to get a lifetime achievement award soon.

"Return" was . . . okay. It was fun to see Vaughn and McCallum again, and there were a lot of good moments, but Michael Sloan consciously made the film more like James Bond than true U.N.C.L.E. If you like, have a look at my commentary: http://benzadmiral-uncle.blogspot.com/2010/03/fifteen-years-later-affair-or-nostalgia.html

 

[Benzadmiral]

Interesting comparison to Spock-I never cared for Star Trek all that much, nor thought of this but you are right.
As far as Illya's lack of humor; ditto, never really noted the lack. He was more coordinated than Solo, who obviously
played lead and Illya stayed in the background. The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee was my favorite show.
Lee's Jeet Kune Do got me hooked on martial arts. But Uncle had the girls.

Illya, especially as written by one Alan Caillou (who really developed the character from its early stage of "Slavic-looking Man"), had a fine sense of humor. In one story, when told Solo has deliberately set him up as a target to draw out their adversary, he mutters, "I'll have his teeth for cufflinks."

In another, he snuffs out a match and tosses it into a clean ashtray on a conference table (which we know is coated with a heat-activated explosive). Another character chides him, and he smiles and retrieves the match. "If we can't impress [the visiting dignitaries] with our security, we can at least show them that we are neat."

So Hammer's humor-challenged Illya will be a departure, or a new interpretation -- which can also be fun.

Re: Green Hornet -- I much preferred its more plausible action to the campy travesty of Batman. On top of that GH had that incredible theme song by Al Hirt! About 20 years ago I tried to find that song or that album, and couldn't. Now, with Quentin Tarantino having used it in a film, it's everywhere.

 

[Harp]

Re: Green Hornet -- I much preferred its more plausible action to the campy travesty of Batman. On top of that GH had that incredible theme song by Al Hirt! About 20 years ago I tried to find that song or that album, and couldn't. Now, with Quentin Tarantino having used it in a film, it's everywhere.

Bruce Lee once offered a friendly spar to Burt Ward who played Robin. Ward had claimed a shodan rank in Shotokan,
and promptly revealed that such was a mere PR stunt; after which studio honchos brought in an instructor for Ward.
Lee had studied Gung Fu under Yip Man in Hong Kong and his Jeet Kune Do was a further personal development.

Al Hirt's Flight of The Bumblebee was an incredible theme piece. The Peter Gunn theme scored by Henry Mancini
was also memorable. The Peter Gunn character also was a karateka, Shorin or Shotokan.

 

[Dennis Young]

I would not recommend sparring with Bruce Lee no matter what rank. J