U.N.C.L.E. script: Nazis and a femme fatale Part II

Solo is about to get the shock of his life when he realizes the identity of “the sleeper.”

Dick Nelson, in writing The Stamp Affair (renamed The Deadly Games Affair when broadcast) came up with a mix of a fugitive Nazi scientist, a femme fatale and (as we’ll soon see) a bit of science fiction.

This wouldn’t be The Man From U.N.C.L.E. without an “innocent,” an ordinary person who gets caught up in the adventure.

Nelson’s script supplies two: a college couple, Chuck Boskirk and Sue Brent (who would be renamed Terry Brent in the final version). They’re planning on getting married.

Chuck has been contacted by an anonymous person. It is Chuck who sold the rare stamp, acting as a middleman, in return for a percentage. For the couple it’s a chance to make extra money and get married sooner.

Chuck calls the auction house. The stamp fetched $6,500. Chuck arranges to come by later to pick up the proceeds.

We soon learn why Chuck was selected to perform this service. One of his instructors at the college is Professor Amadeus, who is none other than fugitive Nazi scientist Wolfgang Krug (Volp in the broadcast version).

Thrush Makes Its Move

At the auction house, U.N.C.L.E. agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin await. Chuck and Sue retrieve the money (all in cash, per the seller’s instructions). Before the agents make their move, a Thrush assault team disguised as security guards (the script calls them “Brinks” men) strikes.

A fight breaks out, some of the Thrush operatives are killed but the criminal organization still manages to kidnap Chuck.

Back at U.N.C.L.E. HQs, Sue is with Solo and Illya. Sue was brought through an alternate entrance (rather than through Del Floria’s), but it’s only described and not shown. Some reference sources refer this as the Mask Club entrance described in Sam Rolfe’s series proposal titled Ian Fleming’s Solo. But there’s no explicit mention of that in the script.

The scene also has Solo describe Thrush to Sue, in effect also reminding the audience about the villainous organization. Thrush was used less in the first season than it would be in subsequent seasons.

In any case, Solo says he has an idea where Chuck may be. In the next scene, Thrush operative Angelique, the story’s femme fatale, appears to rescue Chuck and kill one of the guards.

After Angelique speeds off in her Corvette (supplied by Chevrolet, sponsor for the first-half of the show’s first season), the guard “gets to his feet, unhurt, and brushes himself off.”

Cup of Coffee?

Angelique and Chuck arrive at Chuck’s home. She tells the college student that she’s with U.N.C.L.E. She offers to make him some coffee.

Solo, however, comes by. He’s brought a policeman with him, who arrests Angelique for immigration violations.

Solo fills Chuck in on the real situation and enlists his help. U.N.C.L.E. has been monitoring his telephone from its New York headquarters. Chuck has been getting calls at regular intervals.

Chuck is present at U.N.C.L.E. HQ for another one of the calls with the seller of the stamp and they set up a meeting. Chuck will wear a homing device so Solo can keep track of him.

The meeting goes bad, Professor Amadeus/Krug sets off a bomb and gets away. Sue is injured and is hospitalized. Once Chuck knows Sue is OK, Solo agrees to take Chuck back to the college so he can get Sue’s books.

Solo looks at him for a moment, feeling deeply sympathetic for the boy, who might very well feel resentment for what happened tonight. At this moment, Solo decides he likes Chuck very much. His voice and expression tell us so.

SOLO
It won’t be out of the way.

When Solo and Chuck arrive at the college, Angelique is prowling about. Solo decides to keep her busy while Chuck retrieves Sue’s books. Solo and Angelique engage in some banter for a bit.

Amadeus Runs For It

Unfortunately for Chuck, he encounters Professor Amadeus “who seems to be leaving the premises for good.”

Amadeus convinces Chuck to help load some of his papers to his pickup truck. The Nazi knocks out the student, leaving him in the rear of the truck. Amadeus/Krug drives off. But he’s unaware that Angelique is following him.

Amadeus arrives at his home but is intercepted by Angelique before he can get far. He forces her inside his garage. It turns out the garage is also the entrance to an underground laboratory.

The script has a bit from Angelique that didn’t make the final version where she describes how she made the connection between Krug and Amadeus.

ANGELIQUE
…and when we had young Mister Boskirk under sodium pentathol, we made him name all his acquaintances, you see. And, of course, Professor Amadeus was on the list. Now, earlier this evening, I had a few hours to think….and I recalled Doctor Wolfgang Krug had been named for one of my favorite classical composers…Wolfgang Mozart. I also remembered Mozart had an unusual middle name
(snip)

Angelique’s dialogue in the script goes on for a bit, but she put together that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might to a clue to Wolfgang Krug.

Solo, meanwhile, is on the way. Chuck’s homing signal still works and he finds the home of Amadeus/Krug. He contacts Illya at headquarters. Solo will break into the house while Illya and back up agents are on the way.

Solo finds a way to the underground lab. While Amadeus and Angelique talk back and forth, the U.N.C.L.E. agent find himself in a room full of tanks that “are vaguely coffin-shaped, are covered with heavy glass, and some kind of liquid bubbles softly inside them.”

In the other room, Amadeus/Krug tells Angelique just how important he was in the Third Reich hierarchy. As he talks/brags, Solo checks out the first tank. Inside is “something shaped like a man.”

CLOSER – SOLO

As he squints down through the vapor and liquid at the face, and in B.G., hears Amadeus’ voice continuing, he begins to realize who it is he is looking at. We see his dawning recognition, incredulity and then horror as Amadeus’ voice rises to a climax:

AMADEUS’ VOICE (O.S. offscreen)
The world thinks he died when Berlin fell…but like Barbarossa in the legend, he only sleeps, waiting to rise up when the fatherland needs him. And I who perfected a process for suspended animation — I alone can wake him!

Solo’s face confirms what Amadeus is saying……he stares as though hypnotized into the face (BELOW FRAME) in the tank. And then, too late, he realizes that the vapor he has been inhaling — the fumes from the tank — are poisonous. He tries to stifle a coughing fit, but does not succeed. Choking, clutching his throat, he slumps to the floor, unconscious.

FADE OUT

To recap, Solo has had a long, hard day. The hunt for a fugitive Nazi scientist has led the intrepid agent to finding ADOLPH HITLER in “suspended animation,” as Krug/Amadeus calls it elsewhere in the script.

What else can go wrong?

Fugitive Nazi scientist Prof. Amadeus about to drain Napoleon Solo of his blood.

Solo: The Human Blood Bank

Well, it turns out Krug/Amadeus tried to revive the SS officer with his own blood, preserved for 20 years. But to make the scientist’s rejuvenation process work, fresh blood (and the same blood type of the individual) is needed.

As an aside, this idea wasn’t new, even in 1964. A 1963 Fantastic Four comic book featured a villain called the Hate Monger, who was revealed to be Hitler. An episode of The New Avengers in the 1970s had Hitler in suspended animation. So did a 1980s story line in the Dick Tracy comic strip.

Amadeus/Krug needs blood that matches the same blood. He intended to discreetly purchase blood from blood banks. Time has run out. However, Solo’s blood type matches that of the sleeper.

As things turn out, Solo’s blood type actually matches Hitler’s. although this wouldn’t be established until a fourth-season episode. In any case, Krug/Amadeus now plans to drain all of Solo’s blood to revive the “sleeper.”

To ensure his privacy, the Nazi scientist detonates another bomb, destroying his own home.

So, to recap, Solo is about to be drained of his own blood while Angelique and Chuck look on.

Luckily, Illya is on the scene. And he’ll help Solo get out of this mess.

Amadeus/Krug was a little too quick to activate that last bomb. The scientist’s underground laboratory is about to catch fire. Solo begins to get himself out of his fix. Illya finds his way to the underground lair and overcomes Angelique.

Solo uses the sudden change in fortune to put an end to the “sleeper,” which has managed to grab the agent while receiving rejuvenation fluid as part of the process.

CLOSE – SOLO AND SLEEPER

as Solo, face contorting in hate and revulsion, struggles to free himself from the thing’s inhuman grip. He finally rips free, and then in a reaction of pure animal hate, he gives the gurney [where the sleeper is lying on} a violent shove forward.

The gurney with the “sleeper” goes into flames. Amadeus “follows the ‘sleeper’ into the burning gasoline. There is one horrible cry, then silence.”

Illya tells Solo he better tend to the disturbance at the security entrance.

‘Better Attend To It’

After the long night, Chuck and Sue are at U.N.C.L.E. HQs. Solo tells them about the honeymoon they’ll receive for their cooperation. On top of that, U.N.C.L.E. has recovered Krug’s stamp collection and will give it to them.

Chuck and Sue, however, feel the latter gift isn’t correct. As a result, the stamp collection will be donated to the collection.

Just then, Illya arrives to inform Solo there’s a disturbance at the security entrance (Del Floria’s). “Better attend to it….before the place gets a bad name.”

Solo goes outside where Angelique awaits. After some banter, the sometime adversaries “drive off together.” One can only imagine the time Solo will have this coming evening.

NOT QUITE THE END

Like other early U.N.C.L.E. scripts, Dick Nelson’s The Stamp Affair had off-beat introductions where Solo broke the fourth wall. To read a summary of the one for this episode, CHECK OUT THIS NOVEMBER 2018 POST. It involves Solo at a coffin store.

The Nelson script also has a preview for the next episode where the fourth wall is smashed.

INT. COFFIN ROOM ROOM – MED. SHOT – NIGHT

The Girl is standing besides the coffin as Solo talks to The Camera.

SOLO
Now those are what I call real first class villains. I mean, they just don’t make them like that anymore…
(straight)
…at least let’s pray they don’t.
(lightens)
But now…for next week…
(indicates off stage.
FLASH PAN TO:
TRAILERS
A series of trailer scenes. Then:

BACK TO SCENE
Solo is signing the girl’s order book. He looks up Into Camera, smiles.

SOLO
With action like that coming up, I may have to ask for a raise.
(to girl)
Would you like..? cash…?check…? trading stamps…?

She reaches up, pulls his head down gently, and kisses him for a moment. As she releases he looks Into Camera:

SOLO (clears throat)
Well..! From each, according to his ability. to each, according to her needs.

He smiles, turns, picks up the coffin, and walks out with it under his arm (NOTE: or, if the coffin is too heavy, it is on a small dolly and he merely rolls it away with him). Girl turns, looks Into Camera and winks:

FREEZE FRAME
FADE OUT

THE END

We wish to thank the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement without whose assistance this blog post would not be possible.

U.N.C.L.E. script: Nazis and a femme fatale Part I

Thrush operative Angelique with her Corvette supplied by first-season sponsor Chevrolet.

The Stamp Affair would mark a foray by The Man From U.N.C.L.E. into science fiction, deal with a fugitive Nazi scientist and feature a femme fatale character, Angelique.

Before broadcast, as the fifth episode shown by NBC, it would be renamed The Deadly Games Affair. But the script by Dick Nelson would be close to the version seen by audiences.

However, the script (dated July 15, 1964, with some revised pages about a week later) does contain some interesting differences compared with the broadcast version.

Nelson’s script includes act titles. But some of his have a chess theme while the final act titles played off the Deadly Games title. Only one of Nelson’s act titles would be used.

NELSON’S ACT TITLES

Act I: Queen’s Gambit Accepted
Act II: The Three Cornered Game
Act III: A King in Perpetual Check
Act IV: White Plus Black Equals Red Death

BROADCAST ACT TITLES

Act I: The Games Begin
Act II: A Game Of Hare And Hounds
Act III: The Three-Cornered Game
IV: The Game Is Up

At the start of Act I, the stage directions introduce the reader to a “small, bald clean-shaven elderly man” driving a pickup truck out in the country . He backs up the vehicle and parks it off the road near a stream.

Interestingly, the part would be cast with character actor Alexander Scourby (1913-1985), who wasn’t bald and had a beard. (In 1965, the actor would be a last-minute hire as narrator for the television special The Incredible World of James Bond.)

“Despite the old clothing he has worn for this task, he seems notably out of place here,” according to the stage directions. “He looks a good bit like a college professor, which, among other things, he is.” Eventually, the stage directions say he is known as Professor Amadeus.

An Interruption
The mysterious figure “begins to half-drag, half-roll” a drum stored in the back of the truck. “It’s a struggle — the drum must outweigh him by several pounds.” However, a group of boys emerges, firing sling shots. The man gets back in the truck and goes off with the drum rolling of the tailgate.

The drum is at the edge of the stream. By this time the boys notice it and start shooting their slingshots.

ANGLE – ON THE BOYS
They stare in open-mouthed terror at what is happening to the drum.

BACK TO THE DRUM
Its lid is being is being battered loose from within. As we watch, the lid gives way and a ghastly figure spills out into the daylight. Its form is of a man — but a man in the process of decay. His skin the color of pewter — his hair is dead white. The thing is mouthing insane gibberish that sounds somehow Germanic but is no recognizable language. The thing takes a few faltering steps up the slope of the bank, eyes rolling blankly, then with a last shriek of rage, collapses and rolls back down upon the drum. A final tremor passes through it and then it is mercifully dead.

Dead, maybe. But not without a calling card of a sort. The corpse has an SS tatoo on one of its forearms.

This leads into a scene where the pages are dated July 21, 1964. Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) is telling Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) about the incident.

Normally, you’d expect Alexander Waverly, the Number One of Section One, to be delivering the briefing. However, actor Leo G. Carroll was already in his 70s when the series began. It’s possible this is a rewrite made because Carroll wasn’t available.

Regardless, the audience is provided background for the story. The dead man was with the SS but had disappeared before the end of World War II. He was assigned to work with scientist Wolfgang Krug, described by Illya as “a brilliant medical researcher. His field was blood chemistry.”

Notes in the script indicate that Wolfgang Krug’s name was to be changed to Max Volp. However, the final version would split the difference and refer to his real name as Wolfgang Volp.

In any case, Krug (as he’s called in this script) was also a noted collector of rare stamps. One of his collection appears to be available at an auction in Manhattan.

Angelique’s Entrance
The agents show up separately. At a reception area there’s a reception table “where ILLYA KURYAKIN, in caterer’s white uniform, is dispensing punch, etc. He looks a bit sour.”

As an aside, that stage direction is written as though this was the first time Illya appears in the episode. But we’ve already seen him in the previous scene. That’s one reason why I suspect the previous scene was revised.

In any case, Illya is in a bad humor. “It is ANGELIQUE, looking ravishing.” Angelique is an operative for Thrush, the villainous organization of the series. Clearly that group is also interested in Krug.

Solo reacts with a slow smile. He’s beginning to like this assignment. At his shoulder, Illya looks more sour still.

SOLO
Angelique! Well!
(sees Illya’s look, loses smile)

ILLYA
Sometime you must tell me what’s like….romancing a woman who would kill you without a qualm, if Thrush ordered it. And knowing Thrush, that order might be given already.

SOLO
It adds spice, Illya
(about to start away)
And — I flatter myself that she might have a few qualms….just the slightest, fleeting regret.

He gives Illya a parting wink, and heads for Angelique.

As the two meet, Angelique “is all warmth and effervescence…she goes close against him, offering her cheek for a lover’s greeting kiss. Solo bestows it.”

With that established, Solo and Angelique flirt and decide to avoid getting into a bidding war for the stamp, lest they scare off Krug.

As in the final version, the opposing operatives decide to decide who buys the stamp with a coin flip. Angelique attempts to use a double-headed coin but Solo isn’t fooled. The U.N.C.L.E. agent wins “by default.”

Afterward, Solo and Angelique pay an after-hours visit to a stamp expert while Illya waits nearby. The expert verifies the stamp is genuine. He says he saw the stamp as a boy. But it was one of a pair. It also lacks the identifying mark of Krug, which is presumably on the other stamp. Thus, it’s a dead end.

Slay It With Flowers
As she gets ready to depart, Angelique takes a flower from her purse and pins it to Solo’s lapel. Angelique then leaves, making “a Loretta Young exit.” Solo is pleased with himself. As Illya enters, he’s more wary. With good reason.

INSERT – ROSE AND SPIDER

The flower, as a spider emerges and starts up Solo’s lapel.

This actually sounds more suspenseful than the final version, where the spider wasn’t terribly convincing and wasn’t moving up the lapel.

Nevertheless, in the script as in the final version, “Illya slaps the spider to the floor and steps on it. The expert is alarmed and puzzled. Solo loses his smile.”

“A poisonous spider,” Illya says in the script. “One of Angelique’s relatives, perhaps?”

TO BE CONTINUED

The Incredible World of James Bond’s 50th

Thunderball British quad that was auctioned this month

This post is both to wish readers a Happy Thanksgiving Day and to note the 50th anniversary of The Incredible World of James Bond.

Incredible World first aired Nov. 26, 1965, in the United States. NBC pre-empted The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to air the special, which reviewed the first three 007 movies and promoted the upcoming Thunderball, due out the following month.

In the 21st century, business types would call this “synergy.” U.N.C.L.E. was at its peak of ratings. Bond was at his peak of popularity. Even though 007 producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had once tried to stop production of U.N.C.L.E., putting the Bond special in U.N.C.L.E.’s time slot made perfect business sense.

For this blog, there’s also a personal note. Incredible World was how the Spy Commnader first discovered 007.

Originally, Sean Connery was to host the special but he pulled out at the last minute. As a replacement, character actor Alexander Scourby was hired to narrate.

Scourby (1913-1985) had already acted as a narrator on other documentaries. He was blessed with a pleasant sounding, but firm, voice that conveyed authority. He was perfect for the project.

Had Connery gone through with it, Incredible World might have seemed like a cheesy infomercial (though the term hadn’t been coined yet). Scourby gave Incredible World a sense of heft, perhaps more than it actually deserved. It came across as a documentary, not a promotional vehicle (which it also was).

The narration spoken by Scourby covered both the movies and Ian Fleming’s novels, including a sequence providing a biography of Bond taken from the obituary chapter of You Only Live Twice. In short, Incredible World was the perfect vehicle to entice even more new followers for the exploits of agent 007.

So, Happy Thanksgiving. And happy anniversary to The Incredible World of James Bond.

UPDATE: A couple of other things of note about The Incredible World of James Bond:

–It shows part of the casino scene from Thunderball. Adolfo Celi and Claudine Auger can be heard speaking in their own voices. They were dubbed for the movie.

–Over at The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle page on Facebook, an original viewer notes that U.N.C.L.E.’s David McCallum was seen at the end of The Incredible World of James Bond saying the show would be back next week but not sounding very pleased it had been pre-empted in the first place.

Napoleon Solo’s blood type and continuity

Fugitive Nazi scientist Volp about to drain Solo of his blood in The Deadly Games Affair.

In the 1960s, continuity wasn’t a high priority for the makers of television series. It turns out The Man From U.N.C.L.E. had a remarkable piece of continuity — intended or not.

In the first season, in The Deadly Games Affair, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) are on the trail of a fugitive Nazi scentist, Wolfgang Volp (Alexander Scourby). It turns out Volp, who now calls himself Professor Amadeus and teaches in a New York City-area college, is selling off rare stamps.

Volp/Amadeus isn’t working on any ordinary project. It turns out he has Adolf Hitler in suspended animation. But the scientist needs “fresh, whole blood” to reanimate his former boss. He’s selling off his rare stamps to buy enough blood for the task. Solo falls into Volp’s hands. This turns out to be the answer to Volp’s “last, desperate prayers” because Solo has the same blood type as Hitler.

Needless to say, things don’t go the way Volp wants. Solo wheels Hitler into a fire. Volp, who can’t stand it anymore, throws himself into the flames as well.

To be sure, the name “Hitler” isn’t actually uttered. But in the context of the episode (particularly Solo’s look of horror when he finds Hitler in suspended animation) it can’t be anybody else.

Flash forward to the show’s final season. In The Thrush Roulette Affair, around the 38:00 mark, the viewer gets a look at a Thrush dossier of Solo. We’re told he’s 6-foot tall (taller than actor Robert Vaughn) and weights 175 pounds. It also says Solo’s blood type is A.

Well, according to the website WHAT’S MY BLOOD TYPE, the two episodes are actually consistent. Solo had type A. Hitler had type A. (So did Alan Alda, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.)

Was this actually planned? Doubtful. The Deadly Games Affair was written by Dick Nelson, who penned three first-season episodes and never worked on the show again. The Thrush Roulette Affair was written by Arthur Weingarten, who never worked on the series before its final season. Also, there’s no guarantee that Weingarten supplied the Solo dossier materials.

Anyway, given how continuity was normally an afterthought in 1960s shows, it’s remarkable the two references actually match up.

UPDATE (March 20): In case you’re wondering how common Type A is, the answer is at LIVESCIENCE.COM.

In the U.S.,34 percent of the population has A-positive and 7 percent has A-negative. The most common type is O-positive at 38 percent. The rarest is AB-negative at 1 percent.

45th anniversary of The Incredible World of James Bond

This week (Nov. 26 to be precise) marks the 45th anniversary of the 007 infomercial, The Incredible World of James Bond. The program reflected how Agent 007 was reaching his peak popularity.

NBC pre-empted The Man From U.N.C.L.E., enjoying the best ratings that ’60s spy show would achieve, to show Incredible World. The move made a lot of sense for a number of reasons. It was a holiday week, when a lot of people would be at home. The special would inherit U.N.C.L.E.’s audience as well as drawing in Bond fans. And it aired as United Artists was already drumming up publicity about the upcoming fourth Bond film, Thunderball. In fact, Incredible World was a big part of that effort, with UA joining forces with David L. Wolper’s production company.

Producer-Director Jack Haley Jr. brought in actor Alexander Scourby (who had played an U.N.C.L.E. villain the season before) to read the narration written by Al Ramrus (who’d co-write an U.N.C.L.E. episode the following season). Scourby’s voice had an air of soft-spoken authority, as he described the Bond movies as comic strips for adults, which were kindred spirits of adventure stories of centuries past.

The term infomercial hadn’t been coined yet and, to be technical, Incredible World wasn’t exactly an informercial because NBC sold ads to other companies. (Thus, it was a great deal for UA — an hour-long promotion without having to pay for the time.) But the program certain shared some of attributes of infomercials; it was essentially a longer, extented promotion for Thunderball by showing viewers 007’s first three film exploits. Plus there were “candid” shots (which, truth be told, probably weren’t that candid) showing production of the upcoming Bond film.

In a cute touch, the end titles had a “cast of characters” list just like the end titles of a movie. Thus, for one occasion, you had “James Bond…..Sean Connery” heading a list of the major actors and characters of Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. Also, in the special, viewers could hear Thunderball’s Claudine Auger and Adolfo Celi *before* they were dubbed over in the final film.

Here’s the start of what viewers first saw 45 years ago: