THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. – The Pop Art Affair - 1966 This is the 65th episode of 1964 to 1968 spy series, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. The series ran for a total of 105 episodes. The first season was filmed in black and with the remainder shot in colour. Robert Vaughn plays agent Napoleon Solo while David McCallum plays Illya Kuryakin. Leo G Carroll plays Mister Waverly, the boss of the secret agency known as U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law & Enforcement) Their main enemy is THRUSH, an organization out to take over the planet.
The see-saw up and down quality of third season episodes continues with this one in the down position. This one starts with a shootout on a golf course with UNCLE and THRUSH exchanging rounds and exploding golf balls. It is all over a rumour of a new THRUSH nerve gas. Then it moves to New York's Greenwich Village area.
The place is lousy with some rather elderly looking beat-nick/hippie types. The pair go undercover, hitting all the coffee houses and pop art galleries for leads. Of course THRUSH is using both a coffee house and an art gallery as a front for their nefarious plans. They have developed a nerve agent that causes people to hic-up themselves to death. Yes, death by hic-up! Robert B Harris stars as the THRUSH boss. His minions include, Sabrina Scharf and Jack Perkins. The now mandatory blonde, who gets involved with helping the UNCLE agents is played by, Sherry Alberoni. There is even an escape by hot air balloon in this episode, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the attack with razor tipped skateboards.
This is a real grade D of an episode. I would swear that MGM used half their film library to provide footage to pad out the runtime. They sure did not spend any money on writers. Former big screen director, George Waggner is at the controls. Waggner is best known as the helmsman on THE WOLFMAN and the John Wayne films, OPERATION PACIFIC and THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN.
The see-saw up and down quality of third season episodes continues with this one in the down position. This one starts with a shootout on a golf course with UNCLE and THRUSH exchanging rounds and exploding golf balls. It is all over a rumour of a new THRUSH nerve gas. Then it moves to New York's Greenwich Village area.
The place is lousy with some rather elderly looking beat-nick/hippie types. The pair go undercover, hitting all the coffee houses and pop art galleries for leads. Of course THRUSH is using both a coffee house and an art gallery as a front for their nefarious plans. They have developed a nerve agent that causes people to hic-up themselves to death. Yes, death by hic-up! Robert B Harris stars as the THRUSH boss. His minions include, Sabrina Scharf and Jack Perkins. The now mandatory blonde, who gets involved with helping the UNCLE agents is played by, Sherry Alberoni. There is even an escape by hot air balloon in this episode, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the attack with razor tipped skateboards.
This is a real grade D of an episode. I would swear that MGM used half their film library to provide footage to pad out the runtime. They sure did not spend any money on writers. Former big screen director, George Waggner is at the controls. Waggner is best known as the helmsman on THE WOLFMAN and the John Wayne films, OPERATION PACIFIC and THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN.
