Tradecraft: Henry Cavill Joins Mission: Impossible 6

Napoleon Solo is ditching U.N.C.L.E. for the IMF. Deadline reports that Henry Cavill has joined the cast of Mission: Impossible 6. Director Christopher McQuarrie made the announcement on Instagram before warning Cavill that "your social media account will self-destruct in 5 seconds." So apparently the actor holds no ill will against Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation crushing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. at the late summer box office in 2015. (Cruise himself was briefly attached to play Solo before dropping out due to scheduling conflicts from that M:I movie, opening the door for Hammer... who totally nailed the part.) There are no details whatsoever on what sort of part Cavill will be playing in the still untitled Mission: Impossible movies, but the trade reports that he will join "Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, and Jeremy Renner" in the cast. If this is true, then it would seem unlikely that Cavill will be a member of Cruise's team. It was rumored that Renner might not be available for this one, but if he is on board, it seems unlikely that there are three positions on the team for handsome men of action. (Imagine if the original TV lineup had been all Peter Lupus!) So will he be a villain? An external ally? I look forward to finding out! Cavill may have lost out on James Bond to Daniel Craig, but he seems determined to make up for that by booking roles in all the other spy franchises! (Is there a part for him in the next Bourne movie...?)

R.I.P. Robert Vaughn

We have lost another pillar of Sixties spydom. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. himself, Robert Vaughn, has passed away at 83.

While no one would deny that it was the partnership of Napoleon Solo (Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) that made the show special, Man From U.N.C.L.E. fans tend to be divided on their favorite agent. I've always been a Solo man. Initially conceived by Ian Fleming, Solo was intended to be a TV version of James Bond. That's easy enough on paper, but as we've seen in countless Eurospy movies (as well as various TV attempts at the formula), in practice, it's easier said than done. Really only a handful of actors successfully managed to imbue their superspy characters with the suave charm that defined Sean Connery's 007: James Coburn... Richard Johnson... and, of course, Robert Vaughn. While producers Sam Rolfe and Norman Felton undoubtedly contributed to Solo's character, it was really Vaughn who made him so likable. Let's face it: the spy genre is full of suave charmers. Ultimately, it comes down to the actors to make that charm real. And Robert Vaughn had charm in spades! In short, he was cool. Thinking of this coolness, what leaps immediately to my mind is not one of his many genuinely clever witticisms. It's a line that would be cringe-worthy on the tongue of... really, just about anyone! In the U.N.C.L.E. movie To Trap a Spy, the beautiful Lucianna Paluzzi (Thunderball) seductively asks Napoleon, "What would you like me to change into?" To which the debonair secret agent replies, "Anything... but a boy." (Surely part of the success of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. among children was that it sometimes served up the very same scenarios and lines that they came up with while playing James Bond with their spy toys and costumes!) You simply had to be cool to deliver a line as corny that... and even make it sound sophisticated. Iconic as the character became, audiences didn't tune into The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for Napoleon Solo. They tuned in for Robert Vaughn.

While The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is Vaughn's towering legacy, it wasn't his only brush with espionage. His half-hour Gerry Anderson-created ITC series The Protectors (1972-1974) also carries my high recommendation for spy fans. At the time, Lew Grade was importing a lot of American stars from the previous decade to headline his trademark adventure shows, and Vaughn acquits himself far more admirably in this context than some of his colleagues! (Cough, Gene Barry, cough.) While the character remains a bit of a cypher owing to the half-hour runtime, his jetsetting detective Harry Rule embodies all of that Vaughn charm and coolness that gave life to Napoleon Solo. And I suspect that Vaughn is probably the only actor to fight fully kitted-out scuba divers on dry land (or deck) in two separate series! (The Protectors actually takes the prize in that category, because the fight involves swordplay.) In my book, that's an honor worth noting. Vaughn also orbited the spy world in the shows Washington: Behind Closed Doors (giving an Emmy-winning performance as the Bob Haldeman character opposite former Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Stefanie Powers in a miniseries based on John Erlichman's roman a clef about Watergate) and The A-Team.

On the big screen, his best spy role came in the 1966 Helen MacInnes adaptation The Venetian Affair opposite Elke Sommer. Though its evocative title (which actually came from the novel, despite sounding like an U.N.C.L.E. episode name) and lurid marketing ("Enjoy the Fine Arts of Venice... Murder! Spies! Women!") clearly aimed to capitalize on Vaughn's television success, the film is actually far more serious and downbeat than the fanciful Man From U.N.C.L.E. Like its atmospheric, harpsichord-heavy Lalo Schifrin score, it has far more in common with The Ipcress File and The Quiller Memorandum. Vaughn's most famous film roles came outside the genre in movies like The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt, The Mind of Mr. Soames, The Towering Inferno, Battle Beyond the Stars (in an homage to his Magnificent Seven roots) and Superman III, but he continued to make spy movies of varying quality throughout his career, including Brass Target (with Patrick McGoohan), Cuba Crossing, Hour of the Assassin, Skeleton Coast, and, of course, the 1983 telefilm The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Off screen, Vaughn was known for his liberal politics. A lifelong Democrat, he continued his education after wrapping The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Hollywood blacklist. A former Army drill instructor himself, he was active in the antiwar movement, campaigning for Eugene McCarthy and memorably locking horns (and more than holding his own) with conservative talk show host (and spy author) William F. Buckley, Jr. (Their articulate debate on Buckley's Firing Line is well worth watching, epitomizing the late Sixties political schism in America.) 

In the late period of his career, Vaughn riffed on his U.N.C.L.E. persona in a fun, nostalgia-driven guest appearance on Diagnosis Murder before creating one more indelible role on the highly entertaining U.K. con artist series Hustle. As Albert Stroller, he still conveyed all the charm and charisma that made Napoleon Solo a household name four decades earlier.

Robert Vaughn was a class act and an icon of the spy genre. To say he will be missed is a gross understatement. We have lost one of the titans of popular culture espionage.

Tradecraft: WB Tries Again for a Spy Franchise of Their Own with White Knight

Universal has one with Bourne. Paramount has one with Mission: Impossible. As of this year, Fox now potentially has two with Kingsman and Spy. And of course MGM has the biggest one of all with James Bond. For the time being anyway, Sony shares it. (Sony's co-production deal ended with SPECTRE, and MGM and EON will renegotiate that deal or else find a new partner early next year.) Warner Bros. is the only major studio without a lucrative spy franchise. And they want one—badly. Really badly. It's easy to see why. Paramount, Fox and Sony/MGM each made more than half a billion dollars off of their respective spy franchises this year alone. Warner tried hard this year with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (review here). They continued making big, expensive TV ad buys in its second and third week even after Guy Ritchie's film opened below expectations. And it's a real shame their efforts didn't pay off, because The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was an excellent movie, and has all the makings of an excellent franchise. (Personally, I'm still praying it does well enough on home video to warrant a sequel, but that's admittedly a long shot.) But for whatever reasons, they didn't. So Warner Bros. is still searching for a spy franchise. Next year they'll make a big play for Bond, but obviously they can't rely on that, so they're looking other places as well, especially at filmmakers with whom they have good relationships. One such filmmaker is Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace), whose Johnny Depp gangster pic Black Mass was one of the studio's few hits this year.

Deadline reports that Cooper "is making a deal to rewrite and direct White Knight, a film that gives Warner Bros a potential series in the Bourne Identity/James Bond mold." I assume that's Deadline's roundabout way of saying it's a potential spy franchise. According to the trade, "Cooper will rewrite a script by Bill Dubuque (The Judge) that focuses on a disgraced Secret Service agent. When his relationship with his employer sours, the agent takes a job protecting the family of an arms dealer, putting himself at the center of a global CIA manhunt." "White Knight" was of course James Bond's callsign in Tomorrow Never Dies (and the title of a highly memorable piece of music by David Arnold), so perhaps that bodes well for WB. Then again, I doubt anyone involved in this project realizes that! Of course, if Warner Bros. is successful in their bid for Bond, then I expect interest to dwindle rapidly in this project, and probably all hope to fade completely for an U.N.C.L.E. sequel.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie Hits Blu-Ray November 17 With No Commentary, but Plenty of Extras

Guy Ritchie's 2015 feature film version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. hits stores as a Blu-ray/DVD combo on November 17 (still ingrained in my mind twenty years later as "GoldenEye Day"). The disc includes an Ultraviolet HD digital copy and a number of special features... but sadly no audio commentary. I was looking forward to hearing what Ritchie and his stars had to say, scene by scene. Happily, the release is far from bare-bones, with a number of special features. These include:

- The Guys From U.N.C.L.E. - a part-making-of, part-travelogue, all-attitude look behind the curtain.
- Spy Vision: Recreating '60s Cool: The music, the clothes, the design, the cars... the '60s have always been the coolest era.
- A Higher Class Of Hero
- Metisse Motorcycles: Proper - And Very British
- A Man of Extraordinary Talents
- U.N.C.L.E: On-Set Spy
- Don't Swim Elegantly
- You Want to Wrestle?
- Heli Restored
- A Family Thing

I like that the cover art incorporates the globe design from the TV series logo, and I like that it doesn't use the subpar theatrical 1-sheet artwork. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Blu-ray/DVD/Ultraviolet Combo Pack comes out November 17 and retails for $44.95, but of course you shouldn't have to actually pay that much anywhere. It's available for pre-order on Amazon much cheaper.

Pre-order The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) here.
Read my review of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) here.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Returns to Comics... and Meets Batman '66!

Newsarama reports that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is returning to comics for the first time since the early 90s! Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin will be teaming up with Batman (specifically Batman '66, which is how DC brands comics based on the Adam West TV incarnation of the character and set in the Sixties) in a 6-issue miniseries by Jeff Parker (The Interman, Agents of A.T.L.A.S.) and David Hahn debuting in December. From the description (and the awesome Mike Allred cover), it sure sounds like this is the classic TV version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.:

Two 1960s television icons cross paths for a groovy, globe-spanning adventure in this one-of-a-kind miniseries. The deadly organization known as T.H.R.U.S.H. has a new twist in their plans for world conquest—they’re recruiting some of Gotham City’s most infamous villains! Agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin bring this information to the one man who knows everything about these new enemies: Batman. Before you can say “Open channel D,” the Dynamic Duo and the Men from U.N.C.L.E. are jetting off to Europe to thwart the schemes of this deadly criminal cartel.

So does this mean that DC (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, who released this summer's excellent Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie) will be producing new Man From U.N.C.L.E. (ahem) solo books as well? I certainly hope so! Any such series would probably depend on sales of this crossover, but personally I'd love to see separate titles set in the film's continuity and that of the show.

It was announced at Comic-Con in July that Batman '66 would also be teaming up with The Avengers' Steed and Mrs. Peel in the near future. We haven't heard any more about that, so presumably the U.N.C.L.E. series will come first. But, man, what a comic book crossover that would be, if The Avengers met The Man From U.N.C.L.E.! I know, I know. I'm fully aware that it's Batman who's selling these books, not my spy heroes. Just indulge me that fantasy for one moment...

Batman '66 Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E. #1 will be in comics shops on December 23, just in time for Christmas (and my birthday!) and will also be available with a 1 in 25 variant cover (not pictured) by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. So keep your eyes out, collectors!
Thanks to Jon for the tip!

Movie Review: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

In The Man From U.N.C.L.E., director Guy Ritchie concocts a slick, hugely entertaining paean not only to the TV series he’s re-working, but to Sixties spy movies (and, indeed, European cinema of the era) in general. The result is a real treat for fans of the genre, full of knowing nods to specific films, but not merely a succession of references. While he could have used the same exact ingredients of gorgeous Sixties fashions, stunning locations, and sexy stars to simply recreate a typical spy film of that era (and I admit, I probably would have settled for it), Ritchie instead mixes up a whole new cocktail with those familiar flavors. Before we discuss that appealing tipple, however, let’s examine those ingredients on their own.

The sexy stars in question are Henry Cavill (The Cold Light of Day) stepping into the shoes of Robert Vaughn as American agent Napoleon Solo, Armie Hammer (J. Edgar) taking over from David McCallum as Russian agent Illya Kuryakin, Alicia Vikander (The Fifth Estate), and Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager), playing, respectively, the somewhat stock roles from the TV series of the scientist’s daughter (a common variety of “the innocent” who was swept up in the espionage each week) and the femme fatale. Even U.N.C.L.E. boss Mr. Waverly (played on the series by octogenarian Leo G. Carroll, essentially reprising his spymaster role from North by Northwest) cuts a debonair figure this time around, as played by suave 55-year-old Hugh Grant. All of them look spectacular, and show off costume designer Joanna Johnston’s (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) incredible Sixties-styled fashions to maximum effect… but they’re also all quite good in their roles!

Cavill demonstrates all the charm and good humor necessary to play Napoleon Solo (a character first dreamed up by none other than James Bond creator Ian Fleming*) and consequently manages to come off as a roguish ladies’ man rather than a leering Eurospy-type creep. He’s clearly studied Vaughn’s cadences, and is up to the task of delivering all the verbal sparring the script (by Ritchie and Lionel Wigram) supplies him with, whether bickering with Illya or flirting with Debicki’s deliciously villainous villainess Victoria Vinciguerra. Hammer’s Illya Kuryakin is a much different character from McCallum’s, affording him the opportunity to really make the role (in this incarnation) his own. He, too, proves up to the task. This Illya is a man of great passions. Imbued with as much DNA from Robert Shaw’s psychopathic Bond baddie Red Grant as McCallum’s Illya, he has a violent temper (which may disturb some fans of the series), but also a charming vulnerability. Hammer finds a great balance between the two, and makes his Illya a convincingly complex character when he easily could have come off as a Russian stereotype. Cavill and Hammer have a great rapport, and neither makes the deadly mistake of confusing cool with careless. This was the undoing of top tier actors Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in the 1998 movie of The Avengers. The best Sixties spy heroes could retain their composure and decorum in the worst possible situations without defusing those situations of their suspense, and that was a quality fairly unique to the decade. But happily, Cavill and Hammer manage to recapture it.

Coming off of Ex Machina and already lined up to play opposite Matt Damon in the next Bourne movie, Alicia Vikander is undoubtedly one of the most exciting and talented young actresses out there right now. Her role as Gaby Teller, the scientist’s daughter who seems to harbor a secret agenda of her own, may not be as demanding as playing a newly sentient machine in Ex Machina or a grief-stricken student turned WWI nurse in Testament of Youth, but the uncommonly talented Vikander imbues Gaby with enough strength and moxie to elevate a somewhat underwritten role to scene-stealing proportions. And her fellow female Debicki accomplishes the same feat, really relishing her role as the movie’s primary antagonist. Victoria is no mere henchwoman; she is the mastermind behind a nefarious organization’s nuclear terrorism. James Bond never faced a female mastermind in the Sixties, but they were more common on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Debicki stands right alongside the best of them (the very best of them being Anne Francis as Gervaise Ravel in two first season episodes). She’s a treat to watch, and I wanted more of her character on screen. Finally, Grant is just fantastic as Waverly, doing more of an homage to Carroll than I would have imagined, and turning a small part into a very memorable character.  

Besides the stars and the Sixties fashions, the thrilling locations are key to any great spy movie, and Guy Ritchie seems well aware of that, making the most of Rome, the Italian countryside, and, in an opening sure to please spy fans everywhere, divided Berlin. Cinematographer John Mathieson is no stranger to recreating that Sixties film look, having done so on X-Men: First Class, and he juggles a number of disparate styles of the era in this film and makes them cohesive. But my favorite look may have been the grainy, gritty approach to Checkpoint Charlie and East Berlin. The opening climaxes in a spectacular wall crossing, which, as I’ve said often, is pure catnip for this spy fan.

If the Checkpoint Charlie business automatically recalls the second Harry Palmer movie with Michael Caine, Funeral in Berlin, a scene between Solo and his CIA boss, Sanders, played by Jared Harris (remember, this movie is an origin story, and at the beginning Napoleon and Illya work for rival services, not U.N.C.L.E.) recalls The Ipcress File. In gourmet Palmer style, Solo (in apron) cooks a truffle risotto for Gaby. Sanders walks in and chews him out, reminding him he’s serving out the equivalent of a prison sentence for the CIA (like Palmer’s indentured servitude to MI5)—and remarking that the Agency doesn’t pay him enough to put truffles in his risotto. If this interplay reminds you of that between Palmer and Col. Ross (Guy Doleman), it’s assuredly not coincidental! In fact whole chunks of the first act come directly from The Ipcress File. (The third Palmer movie, Billion Dollar Brain, is not left out, either; the end titles deliberately reference Maurice Binder’s main titles for that film.) And, amazingly, this bit of business isn’t the only shout-out to Doleman in Ritchie’s movie! His Thunderball character, Count Lippe, also gets a namecheck later (albeit with a slightly different spelling), sure to elicit guffaws from knowledgeable Bond fans in the audience.

From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Quiller Memorandum, and the Eurospy genre as a whole are also among the numerous filmic allusions on display. (From Goldfinger alone we get a vault door, a helicopter, and an Aston Martin, with DB5's proving a unifying factor in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and, based on the second trailer, SPECTRE!) But as I said in my introduction, Ritchie isn’t interested in simply blending together classic bits into a straight pastiche. While the Eurospy presence is undeniable (particularly in Daniel Pemberton’s John Barry-meets-Ennio Morricone score, whose screaming vocals in later tracks would have been as at home in an Italian spy movie as a Spaghetti Western), Ritchie hasn’t constructed his own Italian-style spy movie in the same way the Italians themselves did it in the Sixties. Instead, his stylistic approach seems to be more “What if Fellini had made spy movies?” Ritchie’s camera luxuriates in the La Dolce Vita-style decadence of Roman high society (Vikander takes a sip at one point from the Trevi Fountain), and gauzy filters in loving close-ups of Debicki recall Antonioni more than James Tont. (It should be noted that these homages are purely aesthetic and not artistic; Ritchie has no interest in the themes explored by these Italian auteurs. Indeed, his Man From U.N.C.L.E. is so thematically slight as to be ethereal.)

Other stylistic influences come from the French New Wave, though some feel filtered through Quentin Tarantino’s modern day appropriation of them. There are many cleverly-edited flashbacks and time shifts throughout the movie (useful for revealing little bits of information after the fact, necessary in any good con or caper flick), and when we learn about Napoleon Solo’s background, it’s courtesy of the KGB’s dossier on him as presented to Illya. This comes in flashback as he watches the calculating Solo tracking him in the present, and since the briefing is in Russian, the information is delivered to audiences largely in subtitles (cutely designed in a font evocative of the original Man From U.N.C.L.E. title treatment). It’s an odd choice, but effective. I suspect it will pay off even more on subsequent viewings. I also suspect that the pockmarked Jared Harris, in his gray fedora, is intended to resemble Eddie Constantine, who, in the role of Lemmy Caution, straddled the worlds of Eurospy and French New Wave when Jean-Luc Godard elected to make one entry of the Caution series into an art film, as Alphaville. 

One thing Ritchie isn’t particularly interested in is action scenes, and he makes this clear from the start. While he knows he’s got to deliver his audience a few bona fide Bond-style setpieces in this genre (like the escape from East Berlin and a car chase that precedes it), he’s much more interested in the luxurious and tactile trappings of the spy genre. In the movie’s best sequence, Solo enjoys fine food and drink, to the accompaniment of an Italian ballad, in the cab of a truck as Illya engages in a furious, fiery speedboat chase behind him. The chase (itself a nod to From Russia With Love) plays out entirely in the background, seen through the windshield or in the truck’s rearview mirror, while our focus remains with Solo enjoying his meal. It’s a hilarious sequence, but also clearly outlines Ritchie’s own priorities and his fairly shrewd deconstruction of the spy genre (Sixties variety) down to its basest elements. Genre fetishes like good living and bespoke tailoring take priority here over fisticuffs. (Solo’s impeccable fashion sense makes for a good running gag, and in one hilarious scene that actually [probably inadvertently] ties in with The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E., he and Illya pit their senses of style against each other while critiquing Gaby's wardrobe.) Another key action scene, late in the film, is presented in elaborate Thomas Crown (or Woodstock)-style splitscreen. This technique again takes the emphasis off of the action itself and onto style—in this case cinematic style rather than culinary or sartorial. All this isn’t to say that there aren’t entirely satisfying legitimate action sequences in the film, but to illustrate that they aren’t Ritchie’s priority… an approach I found refreshing, and one which clearly sets U.N.C.L.E. as far apart from Bourne and Bond and Mission: Impossible as its period setting.

Those hoping for nostalgic reminders of the TV series may be a bit disappointed. Those things are all there (the gun, the theme, the acronym), but all in basically blink-and-you’ll-miss-them cameos rather than lovingly fetishized. (Jerry Goldsmith’s theme gets literally only a few bars, played on a radio—and not even from the most recognizable bit.) But that’s okay. Because while every little detail may seem like the most important thing when viewed through the filter of childhood nostalgia, the real essence of U.N.C.L.E. is very much on screen. It’s a Russian and an American working together at the height of Cold War tensions. It’s rich characterizations and onscreen chemistry. And it’s style. Oodles and oodles of style. Guy Ritchie recognizes this, and because of that he’s delivered one of the most satisfying TV-to-movie remakes since The Fugitive.

*While Fleming's role in developing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has been often exaggerated over the years, one contribution that was undoubtedly his was the name "Napoleon Solo." Interestingly, some elements of his Solo (from a memo reproduced in Time Life's DVD box set of the series) that didn't make it into Norman Felton and Sam Rolfe's TV show, like his penchant for cooking, manifest themselves in Ritchie's Solo.

Listen to Samples From Daniel Pemberton's Man From U.N.C.L.E. Soundtrack

Today Amazon and iTunes both posted track lists for an expanded "Deluxe Version" of the soundtrack album for Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E., featuring Sixties R&B songs alongside score music by Daniel Pemberton (The Game). And they also posted samples! While we've heard snippets in recent trailers and in the promotional videogame, this is our first real chance to hear substantial sections of Pemberton's U.N.C.L.E. score. And it sounds very, very good. While the score doesn't feature Jerry Goldsmith's beloved theme music from the Sixties TV series, it does appear to have a great Sixties spy sound going for it. Sample Track 3, for example, "His Name Is Napoleon Solo," which sounds very nicely reminiscent of John Barry's The Ipcress File. It's been a while since we've heard this particular sort of spy sound, and I can't wait to listen to it in full! Pemberton did a fantastic job capturing a Seventies espionage mood in The Game, and I fully expect him to do the same for the prior decade in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.! The soundtrack is out August 7 (also available on CD, but without the four bonus tracks in the deluxe digital version) from Water Tower Music, and the movie is out August 14.

Watch the New, 5-Minute Long U.N.C.L.E. Trailer From Comic-Con!

Warner Bros. has decided to share the clip reel from today's Man From U.N.C.L.E. Comic-Con panel with the public! And it's a doozy. Everything we've seen so far from this movie has looked fantastic, but this is the best trailer yet. And it's five minutes long! But therein lies the rub: it's possible that this reel might give away too much of the movie, it shows bits of so many setpieces (but doesn't seem to spoil any major plot points). So if you're already positive you're going to see the film and you have more restraint than I, you might perhaps want to just wait until August 14. But if you're at all on the fence (or don't care about giving some of the action away), by all means, feast your eyes on this awesomeness! It looks... like The Man From U.N.C.L.E.! Perfectly realized with a 21st Century attitude and budget, whilst retaining the 1960s setting. Which is to say, it looks like perfection. I am so excited!

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Mr. Waverly Character Poster Has Arrived

And, today, we've at last got what's probably the final character poster for Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: Hugh Grant as Alexander Waverly, here billed as "the Intelligence." U.N.C.L.E. boss Mr. Waverly was played on the Sixties TV series by Leo G. Carroll (North By Northwest). When the casting of Grant as Waverly was first announced, it struck me as such inspired casting that that was the moment I sat up and took interest, thinking, "Wow, this U.N.C.L.E. movie just might be something special!" And the two trailers we've seen so far (here and here) have only strengthened these feelings. I think this movie will be great.

Thanks to David Diabolik for the tip!

More Man From U.N.C.L.E. Character Posters

Following on from the poster reveals for Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), we have two more Man From U.N.C.L.E. character posters today: one for Armie Hammer as Solo's Russian partner, Illya Kuryakin (a role played in the TV series by David McCallum), and one for Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager, The Great Gatsby) as Victoria Vinciguerra... or, as the poster bills her, "the evil genius." Some of the most memorable evil geniuses from the TV show were women, including Janine Gray (Danger Man) as Angelique in "The Deadly Games Affair," and the great Anne Francis (Honey West) as Gervaise Ravel in a pair of first season episodes. Hopefuly Debicki will follow in their illustrious footsteps! Now, surely we'll see a Waverly poster showcasing Hugh Grant before the week is out...

Man From U.N.C.L.E. Character Poster: Alicia Vikander's Gaby Teller

Following yesterday's reveal of the Napoleon Solo character poster for The Man From U.N.C.L.E., today Warner Bros. released a second characters poster. But rather than following Napoleon with Illya, they chose to showcase one of the movie's leading ladies, Alicia Vikander as Gaby Teller. (Teller was not a character on the original TV series, but seems to fill the show's formula role of "the innocent" somehow caught up in U.N.C.L.E.'s spy action.) This decision is hardly surprising, as the red-hot Vikander, coming off of a scene-stealing, Oscar-worthy performance in the critical and commercial success Ex Machina, may well be the movie's biggest star at the moment. The Swedish actress will keep on spying after her U.N.C.L.E. tour of duty ends, appearing opposite Matt Damon in the next Bourne movie, it was announced this week. But before that, she's still got a number of other movies set for release this year. Perhaps tomorrow we'll see an Illya Kuryakin poster.

First Man From U.N.C.L.E. Character Poster

While the final 1-sheet for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was decidedly lackluster (especially compared to the striking teaser poster), at least there are much better character posters to look forward to. Here's the first one, showcasing Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo (played on the Sixties TV series by Robert Vaughn). Presumably we can expect an Illya Kuryakin poster featuring Armie Hammer soon, and perhaps even an Alexander Waverly poster with Hugh Grant. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens August 14. Watch the latest trailer here.

Second Trailer Drops for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.!

Warner Bros. debuted a second trialer for this summer's feature film version of the classic Sixties TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with some prints of San Andreas a few weeks ago, but it never made it online. Today they've finally made a new trailer available online. (Whether it's the same as the one that played in theaters, or a version of it, is still a bit unclear. ) Like the first one, the new one makes Guy Ritchie's film look absolutely fantastic! The bit with Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) ziplining across the Berlin Wall (in pursuit of Napoleon Solo [Henry Cavill] and his female companion [Ex Machina scene stealer Alicia Vikander], as we know from that EW story last month), just hits all of my Cold War spy fandom buttons! I love the 1960s setting, and I cannot wait to see this film! Check it out:


The Man From U.N.C.L.E. hits theaters on August 14, 2015.

New Man From U.N.C.L.E. Poster

Warner Bros. has released a new poster for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in advance of the new trailer expected this evening or tomorrow (after premiering on Entertainment Tonight). Hm. It's not as striking as the teaser poster, which was pretty good. Even allowing that all movie posters nowadays are pretty boring (especially compared to the vibrant Sixties and Seventies spy artwork of Frank McCarthy and Robert McGinnis), this one is kind of a letdown. I like the colors, and I like the individual elements (exotic location, girls, guns, cool car... yep, this is a spy movie in the Sixties vein!), but the boring Photoshopped layout is underwhelming. Hopefully there will be some more variations before release, or ideally a Mondo design (like the recent one for Spy) that gives us some new U.N.C.L.E. artwork... Also, I'm kind of surprised that Alicia Vikander isn't more prominent after her starmaking turn in the sleeper hit Ex Machina. Stay tuned for that new trailer imminently! In the meantime, why not enjoy the unbelievably excellent first one again?

Tradecraft: Henry Cavill Drops Out of Stratton

Variety reports that Henry Cavill (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) has abruptly dropped out of the action/espionage movie Stratton just five days before filming was scheduled to start due to "creative differences." Cavill was also producing the movie through his shingle Promethean, and he seemed very enthusiastic about the movie, envisioned as a potential franchise, last December. He even grew the beard he's been sporting so far on his Man From U.N.C.L.E. press tour for the character of SBS (Special Boat Services, the Naval equivalent of the SAS) operative John Stratton, hero of a series of books by Duncan Falconer. This is all very disappointing. I'd hoped to see Cavill toplining two spy series simultaneously. Financiers GFM films plan to recast as quickly as possible to keep the crew and director Simon West (The Mechanic, The Saint) in place. I hope they're able to find someone of Cavill's caliber. Stratton follows the title character as he chases down an international terrorist cell through Central Asia, Europe and London, all while contending with the damage done by a mole inside MI5.

From U.N.C.L.E. to Bourne? Alicia Vikander Sought for New Matt Damon Bourne Film

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. star Alicia Vikander (The Fifth Estate) may soon be defecting to another spy franchise. Deadline reports that the in-demand Swede is being sought for the female lead in Paul Greengrass's new Bourne film, the one that sees Matt Damon return to the fold in the title role. Greengrass and Damon are currently writing the script with Christopher Rouse (who edited Greengrass's two previous Bourne movies, as well as Green Zone), and Universal is eyeing a July 29, 2016 release date. Damon and Greengrass are also producing, alongside franchise newcomer Gregory Goodman (X-Men: First Class) and Bourne veteran Frank Marshall. But Vikander, who stars in eight films this year and is already generating Oscar buzz for her terrific turn in the A.I. hit Ex Machina, is apparently wanted by everyone. According to the trade, she's also in talks for Assassin's Creed, opposite Michael Fassbender, and The Circle, opposite Tom Hanks. Right now it's looking like she'll have to walk away from the latter, but her Bourne involvement is not yet confirmed.

New Spy DVDs: Warner Archive Releases Sol Madrid (1968)

Wow, the hits just keep coming from the Warner Archive Collection for spy fans! On top of last week's release of The Scorpio Letters and last month's Where the Spies Are, WAC today (finally!) released the long-awaited Sol Madrid (1968)! So apparently the recent TCM broadcasts were indeed a hint of things to come. Just as Robert Vaughn made The Venetian Affair (also available from WAC) to capitalize on his Man From U.N.C.L.E. stardom while at the same time broadening his horizons to grittier spy far, so his co-star McCallum made Sol Madrid (along with a bunch of U.N.C.L.E. guest stars!). Sol Madrid found McCallum starring as an agent tasked by Interpol to take down a drug kingpin (On Her Majesty's Secret Service's Telly Savalas, of "The Five Daughters Affair") hiding out in Acapulco. To accomplish the task, he goes undercover as a heroin smuggler and finds himself trapped with a beautiful woman (Stella Stevens, The Silencers) between Savalas's drug kingpin and the Mafia, in the person of Rip Torn ("The Alexander the Greater Affair"). Ricardo Montalban ("The Dove Affair"), Paul Lukas ("The Test Tube Killer Affair"), Michael Ansara ("The Arabian Affair") and Pat Hingle (The Ugly American) also star. Where Eagles Dare's Brian G. Hutton directed, and, as with The Venetian Affair, Lalo Schifrin provided the fantastic soundtrack. Sol Madrid is available as a made-on-demand (MOD) DVD from The Warner Archive Collection for $21.99, though it's currently on sale at a discount.

Entertainment Weekly Reveals Cool Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie Details

In its summer movie preview, Entertainment Weekly has revealed some very cool details about Guy Ritchie's upcoming movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. We already knew that it was a period piece set in the era of the TV show (and the height of spymania), the 1960s, and we knew from the trailer that East/West checkpoints play a role. But until now I hadn't seen anything to indicate that the movie would feature one of my very favorite tropes of Cold War spy fictions both fantastical and realistic—a Berlin wall crossing! According to the magazine, "In one extended chase sequence, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Gabby Teller (Alicia Vikander) elude Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) by zip-lining across the Berlin Wall." This, of course, happens before the American and Russian agents eventually team up, as the movie serves as an origin story for the famous partnership. I would guess the zip-lining leads into the sequence we've seen in the trailer (albeit clearly edited out of order) in which Illya pursues the pair in a nighttime car chase. EW provides some terrific concept artwork for the sequence, too (above). "What we’re trying to capture are iconic memories of the East-meets-West scenario,” Ritchie told the magazine. "Getting over the Wall is part of that world." The stunt, EW reports, was inspired by a real-life incident in 1983 in which Michael Becker and Holger Bethke fled East Berlin in the same manner. "We looked up every conceivable way of getting over the Berlin Wall," said Ritchie. "That was the most plausible." (But did he consider Jason King's method of being transported across in a shipping crate lined with luxurious cushions and stocked with champagne?) As well as the series itself, Ritchie was inspired by the Sixties Bond movies and the Harry Palmer films starring Michael Caine. Wall crossing plays a major role in the second of those movies based on Len Deighton's novels, Funeral in Berlin. And the concept of escaping an Eastern Bloc nation also recalls one of the very best episodes of the TV show, Season 1's "The Dove Affair." I would be very happy if it turns out that the movie leans heavily on that Robert Towne-penned classic! Henry Cavill News has scans of additional illustrations from the print version of Entertainment Weekly, including a cool storyboard image of the zip-lining sequence.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens August 14.

First Man From U.N.C.L.E. Poster Revealed

The amazing trailer wasn't the only piece of Man From U.N.C.L.E. promotional material unveiled yesterday. Warner Bros. also released the first teaser poster for the Guy Ritchie film version of the Sixties TV classic starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, and, happily, it looks classy and fantastic! There's also a half-sheet version. On top of that, the studio opened up an official website and Facebook page. Check them out! Is it August yet?

At Last--The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Trailer!

It's taken decades of development, years of false starts, and months of release date delays, but now we finally have video evidence that the feature film version of the classic Sixties spy TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a reality! Here's the first trailer (along with some photos courtesy of EW) for the Warner Bros. franchise bid, opening in August:


Personally, I could not be happier. This trailer exceeds my wildest dreams for an U.N.C.L.E. feature. As great a job as the French OSS 117 parodies did at recreating the era, I've long wanted to see a straight action/spy movie made with today's technology but set in the Sixties, and this trailer delivers on that front. I love the 1963 setting and the very From Russia With Love feel. I love the little spy Easter eggs like the blue Aston Martin DB5 in the background of one shot, or Pussy Galore's helicopter from Goldfinger. I love the glimpse of Cold War Berlin. (Or some other border crossing?) I love what appears to be a villain's island headquarters. But I also love the nods to the original series. Sure, Armie Hammer seems to be playing a very different variation on Illya Kuryakin than we're used to from David McCallum, but is that an updated version of the (fully assembled) U.N.C.L.E. Special he's wielding in one shot? Sure looks like it! And Henry Cavill, who I confess I had misgivings about in the role of Napoleon Solo, completely wins me over in this trailer! I love his delivery. It feels like just the right tone. And despite his claims that he wasn't watching the original series in preparation for the role, I seem to detect a certain tribute to Robert Vaughn in his delivery. This looks truly fantastic. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the music. (A Temptations funk song from the early Seventies doesn't seem to convey that early Sixties spy feel to me.) I'd certainly prefer Jerry Goldsmith's classic TV theme. But that's a minor gripe. I can't wait for August, when we'll get Mission: Impossible 5 and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. within mere weeks of each other!