One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966)

An attempt is made to reverse the aging process.I am a 1960s sci-fi nutcase so you would expect someone like myself to welcome this movie with open arms...wrong!This is without question the worst of the eight UNCLE movies (aka the UNCLE pilot and UNCLE two-parters). The other seven films were fine. The other seven movies had much less sci-fi going on and this film suggests that UNCLE does not do sci-fi too well. The other seven flicks looked like some effort was put into the scripts, direction and sets...not so with One Of Our Spies Is Missing.Set in a fake London, the acting and script goes from boring to all out painful to watch. Stay clear of this bomb!

"One Of Our Spies Is Missing" (the title has very little to do with the content, by the way) is synthesized from a two-parter episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E", so you would think it would have enough coherence for a feature-length film, but it doesn't. The first half of this film makes it look like Solo and Kuryakin will have to battle one group of villains, then in the second half those are put aside to make room for a second group of villains; the problem with this strategy is that the most promising elements of the first half (like the lethal henchwomen Olga and Do Do) are underutilized. But there are still some memorable moments here, like Illya's fight with a man twice his size, or one reverse-aging image that pushes the film even further into sci-fi territory than before. ** out of 4.

Bearing a title which includes the in-word of the time "spy", but otherwise no other relation to the plot, to this fan of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." this was rather thin fare and escaped my brain almost the minute it entered it.Unlike others in these spliced-for-European-cinema features, this effort has very few redeeming features. There are few action set-pieces, no race-against-time death-trap from which to escape, no Mr Big" megalomaniac villain to tilt our heroes against and barely even a big-name celebrity cameo to divert the viewer's attention (unless you count Vera Miles, probably the biggest name in the cast here).David McCallum in particular gets almost nothing to do, chasing cats around "London", Robert Vaughn as ever, gets amongst the ladies but hardly memorably as the chase is on for a youth-regeneration invention. Even Mr Waverley's stepping out to join Solo in escaping from the bottom of a wine vat (unoriginally used twice for the same purpose) barely registers its novelty value.Somewhere in the cast you'll catch sight of Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig, James "Scottie" from "Star Trek" Doohan, but otherwise this adventure has potboiler written all over it and the awful soundtrack which plays variations from "Rule Britannia" throughout to attempt to fool us that we're all in Swinging England doesn't help either.

ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING was the fourth big-screen spin-off from the cult spy series THE MAN FROM UNCLE. It was compiled from a two-part episode called THE BRIDGE OF LYONS AFFAIR. Part one was aired on 4 February 1966 and part two on 11 February 1966, and in common with most of the other films in the series, it was not televised in the countries where the film was released under the new title. Considerable changes were made from the TV version including the removal of the scene where THRUSH agent Jordin (Bernard Fox) receives his briefing from his superiors at Thrush's Hong Kong headquarters. There was also scenes added into the film that were not considered suitable for television including Robert Vaughn's scenes with Yvonne Craig.Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuriyakin (David McCallam) are assigned by UNCLE chief Alexander Waverley (Leo G Carroll) to prevent a youth rejuvenation formula from falling into the hands of THRUSH who intend to use it for their own evil ends.ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING is one of the best of the UNCLE pictures with plenty of slick tongue-in-cheek action, which made the original series so memorable and it boasts one of the show's most memorable villains in Bernard Fox's suave THRUSH agent Jordin. The series regulars, Vaughn, McCallam and Waverley are uniformly excellent, Gerald Fried's music is superb and the show's sets always looked impressive in Fred J Koenekampe's Metrocolor camera-work.