The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV Series) The Take Me to Your Leader Affair (1966) User Reviews

The Aliens Are Coming!

[ShadeGrenade · 7/10 · 12 August 2009]

Solo and Kuryakin are summoned to an observatory in the Caribbean by Dr.Adrian Cool ( Woodrow Parfey ). His radio telescope has detected what appears to be a spaceship heading towards Earth. At the same time, his daughter Coco ( Nancy Sinatra ) is kidnapped. Illya gives chase, but gets overpowered. They are imprisoned in a house belonging to industrialist Simon Sparrow ( Paul Lambert ). The 'signals' from space are, of course, faked. Sparrow intends tricking the authorities into believing that aliens have landed on Earth. Their first act will be to demand that Sparrow be made world leader...

This Berne Giler-scripted episode is not too bad, and due to the presence of Nancy Sinatra was one of the first to be issued on video in the early '90's. Nancy cannot act her way out of a paper bag unfortunately, but is Meryl Streep compared to Sonny and Cher. She and McCallum sing a duet at one point, with him playing the guitar. He wrote the song, and his voice is quite good.

Nice to see Woodrow Parfey not playing the villain for a change. This was his second appearance this season; the other being in 'The Sort Of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful Affair'.

Around this time, on 'The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.', flying saucers featured in an episode appropriately entitled 'The U.F.O. Affair'. It was better than the one featured here, which resembles a triangular balloon.

Strangely, when Sparrow addresses the world leaders, he makes no effort to disguise his voice.

Things To Watch Out For - when Illya helps Coco down a drain pipe, a stuntman in a wig is obviously doubling for Sinatra.

The Aliens arrive, or do They?

[gordonl56 · 6/10 · 12 February 2015]

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. – The Take me to your leader Affair -1966

This is the 75th 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) UNCLE's main enemy is THRUSH, an organization out to take over the planet.

This one is a slight improvement over the last episode. The presence of the rather built, Whitney Blake, and the pretty Nancy Sinatra help matters. Here we have a power mad industrialist (played by veteran character, Paul Lambert) trying to pull a fast one on the entire world. He has used electronic gear manufactured by his company to fake the arrival of aliens. He intends to have the so called aliens declare himself as the ruler of the entire planet.

Also in the mix is regular guest star, Woodrow Parfey. Parfay is in charge of the radio telescope that first announces the discovery of the alien craft. What he does not know is that Lambert has faked the whole thing. When he finds out, Parfey threatens to expose Lambert. This causes Lambert to kidnap Parfey's daughter, Nancy Sinatra, just to make sure of his cooperation.

Needless to say UNCLE agents David McCallum and Robert Vaughn end up in the middle. McCallum ends up locked up with Miss Sinatra somewhere in the southern US. Vaughn, out flying a helicopter is shot down by the villains into the sea. The lucky guy is saved by Whitney Blake. (Blake is the mandatory blonde for the episode)

Anyways, there are escapes, shootouts and a furious fist-fight aboard a fake alien spacecraft before all is settled. Several of the bad boys are dropped out a handy hatch.

Not great, but, by no means a waste of the viewer's time. Season three is really bad television taken as a whole, with only the odd episode rising above the drivel.

Whitney Blake had just finished a five year, 122 episode run on the popular HAZEL comedy series. Miss Sinatra was big at the time with several hit songs on the airwaves, BANG BANG and THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN.

It reads like kids' comic book sci-fi stuff, but a good one for fans.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 8/10 · 28 October 2022]

UNCLE agents Solo and Kuriyakin are sent to the Caribbean where a top astronomer called Dr Adrian Cool (played by Woodrow Paffrey) has claimed that an alien spacecraft is approaching Earth. When his daughter, Coco (played by Nancy Sinatra), and Illya are kidnapped and held prisoner on a Louisiana plantation, it becomes clear that mad tycoon Simon Sparrow (played by Paul Lambert) has engineered a plot for world domination. He plans to launch a phoney spaceship, manufactured by his own company, into orbit and, pretending it to be from an intelligent alien lifeforce, he will dupe the Consul of Nations into thinking that they want him to become their world leader. He forces the astronomer to give credence to the plan by threatening Coco's life...

Yes! It reads like kids' comic book sci-fi stuff and you can spot the studio bound settings intercut with stock footage that stand in for the Caribbean and Louisiana. Nevertheless, it is good fun and fans of the series should enjoy it. Vaughn and McCallam are on good form as the redoubtable Solo and Kuriyakin and the chemistry between them that was a trademark of the show is there. They get good support from the guest stars like Nancy Sinatra as Coco. Imprisoned with Kuriyakin, she spots the spy's musical talent on the guitar and tries (unsuccessfully) to get him to fall madly in love with her and join forces as a combo to become as big as Herman's Hermits (a British pop group who were huge in America at the time this was made). This is funny to watch while Solo falls in with Sparrow's society girl fiancée, Corine Ackers (played by Whitney Blake), who saves his life from her fiancé's murder attempts and agrees to help him foil his plot because she is bent on revenge for his destruction of her boyfriend whom she had loved deeply. This provides the emotional centre to the plot. Paul Lambert is quite good as the arch-villain and veteran character actor Woodrow Paffrey is also noteworthy as the good scientist who is forced into helping Sparrow pull off his dastardly plan. Finally, Leo G Carroll, a series regular, is on hand to provide assured support as Solo and Kuriyakin's chief, the pipe smoking Englishman Alexander Waverley.