The plot of films like this doesn't much matter, just the over the top way in which they are executed band those cool 60's costumes and very mod sets. When you've got a destructive device called the "thermal prism", the little details don't matter, but it's fun to watch Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin go about their business in dealing with the campy villains played by John Dehner and Bradford Dillman. They have sex pot wives played by Lola Albright and Julie London, and a funny divided screen shows gentleman with his girlfriend present talking on the phone to London with her boyfriend present. Dillman actually declares "My wife doesn't understand me", right before setting up an assassination order on Solo whom London has just tried to seduce.

Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are obviously having a great time in this theatrical release of a pair of fourth season episodes, edited together for international release although it was not theatrically shown in the United States. Carol Lynley is barely past the Lolita stage as a young vixen, and Albright and London are deliciously fun. There's also the tough-talking Kathleen Freeman as "mom" and in a silent cameo, John Carradine as a mute guru of some kind. Of course Leo G. Carroll is also there as McCallum and Vaughan's boss. Beautifully filmed on location, this does look great for theatrical release, and I could imagine people enjoying this much more on the big screen down their televisions at home, particularly if they were in Black and White.

I'm in the middle of taping then watching the made-for-Europe splicings of 2 "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." episodes, topped and tailed with movie-type titles, which are regularly shown as a series on UK TV on some channel or other. Sadly it's the only way to see anything from the original series over here, so I guess I'll just be thankful for small mercies, as I grew up in my 60's household avidly watching Napoloeon & Illya taking on that particular week's would-be world-dominating master-villains, as well as utilising some high-tech gadgetry, canoodling with a bevy of mini-skirted lovelies and travelling to some far-flung destinations.

All of this happens, as per usual, in "The Helicopter Spies" - such lazy titling, always trying to get the word "spy" in there!. In fact here, we get two mini-Blofeld's chasing a thermal prism which activates a deadly heat ray when placed in orbit, more like a red-stripe ray if truth be told. It's a little difficult to apply cinematic criticism to what is basically two joined-up television programmes, but this one flows along entertainingly as a full-blown feature, although I doubt you'd pay money to watch it at your local picture-house.

The action here is more Robert Vaughn centred than on David McCallum (either works for me),who along the way is required to dye his hair whiter than Truman Capote, fend off the attentions of a bazillion women and escape (with Ilya's assistance) from a fiendish sand-trap, before foiling Mr Big 2 (Bradford Dillman's Sebastian character) and his plan to launch a rocket into space from a public building, in a plot development, it seems to me adapted and modified for later use in the succeeding James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever", only that had oodles more budget to razzle-dazzle your eye. There are also entertaining stunts involving trains, 'copters, cars, you name it before our heroes eventually save the world in time, with a smattering of deadpan humour to season the action.

To their credit Messrs Vaughn and McCallum (with the redoubtable Leo G Carroll on hand as their greyer than grey boss Mr Waverley) play it as straight as they can and avoid campness wherever possible. I always liked Robert Vaughn's sub-Mitchum style of acting and he was undoubtedly one of the coolest operators in mid-60's TV land.

I have, I think three more of these features to watch and after this will look forward to the next with a little anticipation, always tinged with nostalgia for those long-gone days lying in front of our old black & white TV in the mid 1960's, waiting for that great Jerry Goldsmith theme tune to announce the arrival of my TV uncles.

Sent to an island off Africa to investigate reports of the testing of a deadly weapon, Solo and Kuryakin soon find themselves on a daring quest to gain control of the weapon before it is used in a fiendish plot to take over the world.... Their desperate chase takes the popular U. N. C. L. E. Agents halfway round the world as they try to avert a universal disaster.

Henchmen with white hair, quick sand, a triggering off explosive device when a heart stops are some of the outlandish things in display in this typical fun The man from Uncle feature film, which, of course, is a series of episodes strung together and it moves fluidly, though the first half can be a bit flat. However, the second half revs up the groovy fun with our heroes karate chopping their way to their foe and saving the day.