"Funner" With Frank

I watched TO TRAP A SPY (1964) last night. It was one of eight MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. “movies” that were released during the series initial 1960s run on the NBC television network.

I say “movies” because none of these were original made for theatrical release feature films. Instead, the majority of them were two-part U.N.C.L.E. episodes that were edited together to make a “new” movie. There were seven of these “movies” which did solid box-office in the states as well as overseas markets. In retrospect, it was a smart, financially savvy move on the part of the U.N.C.L.E. production company to wring as much cash out of the property while it was still hot.

TO TRAP A SPY is a bit different. It’s the original pilot episode that was produced and shown to NBC programming executives when the series was trying to sell.

Originally conceived as a one-man show entitled SOLO, TRAP focuses almost entirely upon Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) as he fights to stop a plot to de-stabilize a newly liberated African nation. The main villain, played by Fritz Weaver, has the last name of Vulcan and when this material was used for a series episode, it was entitled THE VULCAN AFFAIR.

Luciana Paluzzi, who would later be a “Bond Girl” in THUNDERBALL, is the femme fatale who menaces Solo while Patricia Crowley is the average citizen who gets sucked into the adventure.

The criminal organization in this version is called WASP, not THRUSH and there’s no Mr. Alexander Waverly to be seen. The head of U.N.C.L.E. in this iteration is Mr. Allison. And Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum) only appears in a couple of scenes.

Robert Vaughn’s depiction of Solo oozes smarmy charm and the sexism on display is jaw dropping. Why is the head of the communications station an attractive brunette? Only so she can later be seen wearing a skimpy bikini while using a sun lamp. Solo hits on almost every woman he meets, and his behavior is pretty icky.

Clearly things were changed by the time MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. debuted on NBC TV in the fall of 1964. The first season of the series, with black and white cinematography, is probably the best one. Once the series went to color, the campiness ramped up and the series became more and more cartoonish.

Still, TO TRAP A SPY is actually a fairly decent little spy thriller if you can overlook some of the societal norms of the era. I enjoyed it and recommend it to all U.N.C.L.E. fans and anyone interested in 1960s pop culture.