Just perfect...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is another in a series of two-part "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." TV episodes edited into theatrical movies. It originally aired, in the spring, as "The Five Daughters Affair" – two weekly episodes of NBC's popular TV series. The movie version was released for the summer (traditionally, a television re-run season). By now, the multi-part episodes and feature film versions were completed concurrently. This was the first "U.N.C.L.E." movie without some form of the word "Spy" in the title; the episodic word "Affair" was also absent, as usual. The movie version seems mildly sexier. The most obvious difference, however, is the moving up of the "Every Mothers' Son" top ten hit "Come on Down to My Boat" to also play during the title/credit sequence. "Every Mother's Son" (the soon-to-be psychedelic pop group) and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." were both, not coincidently, produced by MGM...In this story, secret agents Robert Vaughn (as Napoleon Solo) and David McCallum (as Illya Kuryakin) are off to find a secret formula which turns seawater into gold. When you consider the relative worth of seawater and gold, it's no surprise the dastardly organization "T.H.R.U.S.H" is also interested in obtaining the formula...Our heroic pair travels around the world, seeking four sexy step-daughters. They end up karate-chopping in Japan. Vaughn and McCallum often appear to be sleepwalking – or running through their roles. Probably, they're just super-cool. The best sequence from director Barry Shear and the crew occurs near the end, when our heroes escape from a cell. The fifth daughter, cute Kim Darby (as Sandy True), is the main guest star and the main villain is steely-eyed Herbert Lom (as Randolph). The well-proportioned Jill Ireland makes her last "U.N.C.L.E." appearance on her TV star husband's show; not coincidently, she and Mr. McCallum were freshly divorced. Amid the crowd of guest stars is a cameo by Joan Crawford. The parade of stars and general pace resemble the "Batman" movie, based on the "Batman" TV series, which was now clearly influencing "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.".**** The Karate Killers (8/3/67) Barry Shear ~ Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Kim Darby, Herbert Lom

I watched this not knowing anything about it. TCM showed it as part of their Joan Crawford marathon so I went into it blind, hoping to see a Joan movie I hadn't seen before. Well, I did. Sort of. This is apparently a "movie" that is spliced together from episodes of The Man From UNCLE TV show. While I have heard of the show before, I have never watched it. After viewing this, I doubt I ever will. I know the show has its fans and I'm sure the show has its merits that this film does nothing to showcase. But this left such a bitter taste in my mouth I can't imagine I will watch anything related to that show anytime soon...if ever. The thing that's most surprising to me is that this has a fairly big-name cast. Curd Jurgens, Herbert Lom, Kim Darby, Telly Savalas, Terry-Thomas, Leo G. Carroll, Jill Ireland -- not chump change. As for Joan, her part in this is minuscule and an easy contender for the most embarrassing performance of her career. If this is the kind of work she was being offered, no wonder she did Trog. I can't recommend this to anybody. It was not funny or thrilling or anything else that the supposed genre(s) of it would suggest. It was just bad.

Larger in scale and more ambitious in scope than the previous "Man From U.N.C.L.E" theatrical features, "The Karate Killers" is a colorful production, with a great cast (though many of the guest stars have little more than cameos), and packed with action that is constant, varied, and, in some cases (like the opening sequence or the one with the skis), can almost equal the James Bond films of the era. However, the globe-trotting, though ambitious, is not very convincing - least of all in the Japanese section. And the film contains a few too many scenes of women getting slapped for my taste; these do not sit too well with the general tone of the picture, and threaten to spoil the mood. **1/2 out of 4.

The third "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." spliced for cinema double feature I've watched in a couple of weeks and perhaps fatigue is setting in. It's just not the same as when I was a boy of 7 or 8 in the 60's avidly gawping at our old black and white TV getting my weekly fix of spy-fun and action.Notable for being one of the few from the as I call them composites not to include the word "spy", there was as much good as bad about this feature. Amazing to see Joan Crawford in a cameo role and her commendable acceptance of the in-joke when told by her soon to be murderous husband to "not be so melodramatic". The pretty thin narrative then as ever takes the U.N.C.l.E. agents world wide (that is, studio sets of world-wide locations, including London, The Swiss Alps, Tokyo and eventually the Arctic Circle) where we get about 20 minutes of action, confusion, romance and drollery but to be sure the law of diminishing returns applies with dividends until we get the usual against the clock climax not about the world coming to an end but about a water-into-gold process, not quite the same really.There are other celeb turns in the cast behind The Grand Dame Joan, the best of them, a perky Terry Thomas, for once not playing the cad and ending up enviously with the curvaceous later to be Mrs Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, a camp Telly Savalas as an Italian count and that's Kim Darby (once Anne Frank in George Steven's 1950's epic) as the fresh but hardly cute accoutrement to the boys in their travels.The direction is very patchy. Herbert Lom's T.H.R.U.S.H. boss only lacks pantomime music with his every so unexpected they're expected entrance, there are some terrible process shots of Robert Vaughn on a motor bike and worse yet a motorbike versus car chase. The gormless band which you couldn't say "belts" out "Come On Down To My Boat" in the London sequence didn't float mine either.And yet there was one snow-skiing confrontation which seemed to prefigure a superior revision in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (the pupil teaching the master?) and I kind of liked a fade up shot from David McCallum's "Rubber Soul"-type hair as he comes around from unconsciousness yet one more time.But I'm reaching here. The 8 year old over 40 years ago would have lapped up this escapist fare without quibbles but a movie feature it isn't. I'll watch any other "U.N.C.L.E." films which come on, mainly for my nostalgia and the coolness of the two leads Vaughn and McCallum, but by this stage, the unwelcome influence of campness (derived no doubt from the contemporary success of the likes of the original "Batman" TV series) was making inroads and no amount of modernity or celebrity cameos could bring it back.