A generation confronts its mortality

Dean Martin as Matt Helm with Stella Stevens in The Silencers.

The Baby Boomer generation is confronting its own mortality.

Just this month, the obituary pages included entries for Burt Bacharach, Raquel Welch, Stella Stevens and Gerald Fried. As this is being written, former President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) has entered hospice care.

The Boomers, roughly born from 1946-1964, have already seen many of their icons pass away. But in February 2023, the toll has come fast and heavy.

The post-World War II generation caused many disruptions: A surge of children after World War II disrupted public schools. A generation that had an impact with protests during the Vietnam War. Etc., etc.

The broader social issues associated with the Boomers can’t be examined in detail here. Nevertheless, the Boomer impact was felt in a serious way in the 1960s and ’70s. That impact still is felt a half-century after the Boomer peak.

Things move on. Boomers are moving to the long goodnight. The Spycraze was driven by Boomers. We probably won’t see anything quite like the Spycraze.

That’s how life works.

Gerald Fried, Emmy-winning composer, dies

Gerald Fried

Gerald Fried, an Emmy-winning composer who had a big impact on spy television series, has died at 95. His death was announced on Twitter by Trek Long Island, a Star Trek convention organization.

Fried won an Emmy for the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley. It was an enormous popular and critical hit, and Fried was a major contributor.

However, Fried was incredibly versatile. He could score slapstick comedy (the Sherwood Schwartz-produced comedies Gilligan’s Island and It’s About Time) as well as serious science fiction and adventure (Star Trek).

The composer frequently won assignments to score spy TV shows. Among them: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (starting in the second season into the early part of the fourth)  as well as Mission: Impossible.

With U.N.C.L.E., Fried became the show’s go-to composer. His first effort, the two-part Alexander the Greater Affair, was extremely energetic. Fried carried the composing burden for the show’s second and third seasons. That included providing the third-season arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s U.N.C.L.E. theme.

Fried said in a 2003 interview for the Archive of American Television that U.N.C.L.E. was a challenge.

“They didn’t have much money for an orchestra budget,” Fried said. “Sometimes you had to do an hour TV show with like six or seven musicians.” His solution was “using a lot of percussion” to generate a “full sound” for the audience.

In the show’s campy third season, Fried did a score for one episode (The Hot Number Affair with Sonny and Cher as guest stars) where the music was played by kazoos. He was asked about it in the Archive of American television interview and lit up. “You remembered,” he told the interviewer.

Gerald Fred’s title card for Part Two, Alexander the Greater Affair

Things took an abrupt turn in the fourth season. The new producer, Anthony Spinner, opted for a more serious tone.

Fried produced another arrangement of the theme but it was rejected. A Fried score for The Deadly Quest Affair also was rejected. He scored one more episode, The Test Tube Killer Affair, which sounded more serious than most of his third-season efforts.

Regardless, Fried ended up doing one more U.N.C.L.E. score for the 1983 television movie, The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Fried also scored the Star Trek episode Amok Time, which involves a Vulcan mating ritual. Things get complicated and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock get into a battle to the death.

Fried’s music was so memorable that others referenced it over the years, including the Jim Carrey film The Cable Guy. Carrey would actually “sing” Fried’s music.

Fried’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 100 composing credits, going back to the 1950s.

The composer’s break came with scoring a 1951 short documentary directed by Stanley Kubrick, Day of the Fight. It showed a day in the life of a boxer. Fried scored other Kubrick films including The Killing and Paths of Glory.

In the Archive of American Television interview, Fried recalled how he met Kubrick. According to the composer, the director said Fried was the only musician that Kubrick knew.

In their early collaborations, Kubrick deferred to Fried on music. As they worked more often, Kubrick asserted more control. Eventually, Fried said, there were “knockdown battles.” With Paths of Glory, “I had to justify every note.”

In 2014, Fried was one of the guests at The Golden Anniversary Affair, a fan event for the 50th anniversary of U.N.C.L.E. Fried was among those who watched musicians perform music from the series, including some of Fried’s compositions.

55th anniversary of the end of U.N.C.L.E. (and ’60s spymania)

The symbolism of a 1965 TV Guide ad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came true little more than two years later. (Picture from the For Your Eyes Only Web site)

Originally published Dec. 28, 2012. 

Jan. 15 marks the 55th anniversary of the end of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was also a sign that 1960s spymania was drawing to a close.

Ratings for U.N.C.L.E. faltered badly in the fall of 1967, where it aired on Monday nights. It was up against Gunsmoke on CBS — a show that itself had been canceled briefly during the spring of ’67 but got a reprieve thanks to CBS chief William Paley. Instead of oblivion, Gunsmoke was moved from Saturday to Monday.

Earlier, Norman Felton, U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, decided some retooling was in order for the show’s fourth season. He brought in Anthony Spinner, who often wrote for Quinn Martin-produced shows, as producer.

Spinner had also written a first-season U.N.C.L.E. episode and summoned a couple of first-season writers, Jack Turley and Robert E. Thompson, to do some scripts. Spinner also had been associate producer on the first season of QM’s The Invader series. He hired Sutton Roley, who had worked as a director on The Invaders, as an U.N.C.L.E. director

Also in the fold was Dean Hargrove, who supplied two first-season scripts but had his biggest impact in the second season, when U.N.C.L.E. had its best ratings. Hargrove was off doing other things during the third season, although he did one of the best scripts for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. during 1966-67.

Hargrove, however, quickly learned the Spinner-produced U.N.C.L.E. was different. In a 2007 interview on the U.N.C.L.E. DVD set, Hargrove said Spinner was of “the Quinn Martin school of melodrama.”

Spinner wanted a more serious take on the show compared with the previous season, which included a dancing ape. Hargrove, adept at weaving (relatively subtle) humor into his stories, chafed under Spinner. The producer instructed his writers that U.N.C.L.E. should be closer to James Bond than Get Smart.

The more serious take also extended to the show’s music, as documented in liner notes by journalist Jon Burlingame for U.N.C.L.E. soundtracks released between 2004 and 2007 and the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE.

Matt Dillon (James Arness), right, and sidekick Festus (Ken Curtis) got new life at U.N.C.L.E.’s expense.

Gerald Fried, the show’s most frequent composer, had a score rejected. Also jettisoned was a new Fried arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme music. A more serious-sounding version was arranged by Robert Armbruster, the music director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most of the fourth season’s scores would be composed by Richard Shores. Fried did one fourth-season score, which sounded similar to the more serious style of Shores.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, however, weren’t a match for a resurgent Matt Dillon on CBS. NBC canceled U.N.C.L.E. A final two-part story, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, aired Jan. 8 and 15, 1968.

U.N.C.L.E. wouldn’t be the only spy casualty.

NBC canceled I Spy, with its last new episode appearing April 15, 1968. Within 18 months of U.N.C.L.E.’s demise, The Wild Wild West was canceled by CBS (its final new episode aired aired April 4, 1969 although CBS did show fourth-season reruns in the summer of 1970). The last episode of The Avengers was produced, appearing in the U.S. on April 21, 1969.

NBC also canceled Get Smart after the 1968-69 season but CBS picked up the spy comedy for 1969-70. Mission: Impossible managed to stay on CBS until 1973 but shifted away from spy storylines its last two seasons as the IMF opposed “the Syndicate.” (i.e. organized crime or the Mafia)

Nor were spy movies exempt. Dean Martin’s last Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew, debuted in U.S. theaters in late 1968. Despite a promise in the end titles that Helm would be back in The Ravagers, the film series was done.

Even the James Bond series, the engine of the ’60s spy craze, was having a crisis in early 1968. Star Sean Connery was gone and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pondered their next move. James Bond would return but things weren’t quite the same.

U.N.C.L.E. script: A change in direction

Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya (David McCallum) at the climax of The Deadly Quest Affair

The fourth season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would take a serious turn compared with the campy third season. The new tone was reflected in one of the fourth season’s early scripts.

The Deadly Quest Affair was written in May 1967. Some pages of the script by Robert E. Thompson are dated as early as May 2. Other pages are dated May 16, with some pages revised on June 5. However, the episode wouldn’t be seen until Oct. 30, the eighth episode actually broadcast.

Thompson had written one first-season episode, The Green Opal Affair. The new day-to-day producer, Anthony Spinner, sought to bring back as many first-season scribes as possible. Spinner, in fact, was one of them, penning The Secret Sceptre Affair.

The copy of the script the blog has is pretty close to the episode as aired. But, as often is the case, there are some interesting differences.

Originally, the villain was named Viktor Karnak. Spinner or someone else involved with the production may have felt the name was too close to the Johnny Carson character Carnac the Magnificent. He’d be renamed Karmak. Most of the pages of the script the blog retain the Karnak name.

Karnak/Karmak had tangled with U.N.C.L.E. agents Solo and Kuryakin (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) two years before. It had appeared the villain perished (we’re told the agents had only recovered bones and a few remains). However, Karnak/Karmak really hadn’t died and is back to get even.

In the script, the villain is described thusly: “His blond haiar is cropped short. His eeyes, though masked now by dark glasses are a startling blue. Only a single scar gashed across one cheek mars the harsh, cold symetry of his features. He seems to project a vaguely Baltic loo. His accent is vaguely reminiscent of a foreigner’s overly precise Oxonian.”

The production team ended up casting brown-haired actor Darren McGavin in role, though he’d be made up with a scar.

In the pre-titles sequence, Illya is in the hospital, recovering from a concussion from a recent assignment. Solo is visiting and is “in black tie.” As filmed, he’d be wearing a suit, rather than a tuxedo. Two henchmen of Karnak/Karmak kidnap Illya after Solo departs.

The script has a scene not in the episode where KarnakKarmak asks, “The…message has been delivered?” The henchman dubbed “Steel Rims” in the script answers, “Exactly at nine o’clock.”

At U.N.C.L.E.’s New York headquarters, bossman Alexander Waverly (Leo G. Carroll) has called Solo in. The U.N.C.L.E. chief informs Solo that Karnak/Karmak is alive. The script describes how the villain has delivered his message.

There is a shrouded, box-like object in f.g. Waverly and Solo stand in front of it. Waverly reaches out and raises the covering on the unseen side of the shrouded object. We are aware of a very slight reaction of surprise from Solo.

It turns out to be a myna bird. “Solo…Solo: Twelve o’clock at twelve…or Illya die.”

Eventually, Solo figures out, without informing his boss, that Karnak/Karmak is hiding out in a 10-block section of Manhattan that’s been condemned for re-development. We get a variation on the plot of The Most Dangerous Game, with Karnak/Karmak hunting Solo.

Before the hunt begins, Solo meets up with the episode’s “innocent,” Shiela (Marlyn Mason), a “starving artist” who’s the daughter of a rich man. Now, she has to accompany Solo during the hunt. The only weapons Solo has are a hammer and chisel Shiela used to make sculptures.

The hunt begins at midnight. Solo has to find Illya by 6 a.m. or he dies. The Russian U.N.C.L.E. agent is in a tight spot. He’s in a gas chamber that will dispense cyanide gas at the appointed hour.

Toward the end, Karnak/Karmak corners Solo and Shiela. He sics his pet cheetah Bruno (who’d be called Ying in the episode) on Solo. As described, it’s not much of an encounter

A claw rips the chisel from Solo’s hand. He twists free of the animal…retrieves the chisel…turns back in time to meet another lunge from the cheetah — striking home this time with the chisel.

The scene was staged more elaborately by director Alf Kjellin. Of course, there was no way a live cheetah was going to get close to Robert Vaughn. So we have shots of the actor wrestling with a fake cheetah. Still, the scene comes across more dramatically than what was on the page.

During the fight, Shiela followed Karnak/Karmak to Illya and the gas chamber. The villain momentarily get the drop on the U.N.C.L.E. agents. With help from Shiela, the agents get the upper hand.

Karnak/Karmak “hurtles helplessly into the gas chamber — but with his hands flailing wildly, trying vainly to catch hold of something to steady himself. In his instinctive frenzy, what he grabs hold of is the door to the chamber — dragging it shut after him as he falls into the chamber.”

Of course, it’s now 6 a.m. and the poison gas fills the chamber.

At the end, we’re back at the hospital, Illya is in black tie and Solo (him arm chewed on by the cheetah) is a patient. “Illya waves  jauntily and leaves” while a nurse tries taking Solo’s temperature.

There was more drama behind the scenes than was contained in the script. Composer Gerald Fried had emerged as the show’s go-to composer during the second and third seasons. He did a score for this episode but it was rejected, apparently because it didn’t match the more serious tone that Spinner was implementing. (This became known following the release of original U.N.C.L.E. soundtracks in the 2000s.)

First-season music composed by Jerry Goldsmith (who also wrote the U.N.C.L.E. theme) was re-recorded for use in fourth season episodes. This episode would mostly use that music, although some music by Richard Shores, the primary composer this season, would be used at the end of Act I. The credit for this episode was just, “Music by Jerry Goldsmith.”

Fried, however, got a second chance. He composed a score for The Test Tube Killer Affair that very much matched the more-serious tone of the fourth season. It would be Fried’s final work for the series, although he’d be back for the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

U.N.C.L.E. music tracks surface (?)

Gerald Fred’s title card for a second season episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Some never-used music tracks from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. may have surfaced on YouTube.

A YouTube video, posted on April 2, 2017, says it is “Man From UNCLE 8467, four cues.”

The Deadly Quest Affair, the first U.N.C.L.E. episode produced in its fourth season (and the eighth broadcast by NBC) had a production number of 8467, according to Jon Heitland’s 1980s book, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. book.

The first cue in the video was Gerald Fried’s arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s U.N.C.L.E. theme that Fried submitted for the fourth season. It was rejected and a different arrangement by Robert Armbruster was used instead. The Fried fourth-season arrangement was included in an U.N.C.L.E. soundtrack release in the 2000s.

Gerald Fried

Fried also composed a score for The Deadly Quest Affair but that, also, was rejected, according to the U.N.C.L.E. soundtracks produced by Jon Burlingame. The soundtracks didn’t have any selections from the unused Fried score. For the final version of The Deadly Quest Affair, the production team re-recorded Jerry Goldsmith music from the show’s first season.

Fried, who was the show’s go-to composer in seasons two and three, ended up scoring one fourth-season episode, The Test Tube Killer Affair.

There are no titles (and thus no clues) for the other three tracks on the video. The video surfaced on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — Inner Circle page on Facebook. You can listen below:

 

50th anniversary of the end of U.N.C.L.E. (and ’60s spymania)

The symbolism of a 1965 TV Guide ad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came true little more than two years later. (Picture from the For Your Eyes Only Web site)

Originally published Dec. 28, 2012. Adjusted to note it’s now the 50th anniversary along with a few other tweaks.

Jan. 15 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was also a sign that 1960s spymania was drawing to a close.

Ratings for U.N.C.L.E. faltered badly in the fall of 1967, where it aired on Monday nights. It was up against Gunsmoke on CBS — a show that itself had been canceled briefly during the spring of ’67 but got a reprieve thanks to CBS chief William Paley. Instead of oblivion, Gunsmoke was moved from Saturday to Monday.

Earlier, Norman Felton, U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, decided some retooling was in order for the show’s fourth season. He brought in Anthony Spinner, who often wrote for Quinn Martin-produced shows, as producer.

Spinner had also written a first-season U.N.C.L.E. episode and summoned a couple of first-season writers, Jack Turley and Robert E. Thompson, to do some scripts.

Also in the fold was Dean Hargrove, who supplied two first-season scripts but had his biggest impact in the second, when U.N.C.L.E. had its best ratings. Hargrove was off doing other things during the third season, although he did one of the best scripts for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. during 1966-67.

Hargrove, however, quickly learned the Spinner-produced U.N.C.L.E. was different. In a 2007 interview on the U.N.C.L.E. DVD set, Hargrove said Spinner was of “the Quinn Martin school of melodrama.”

Spinner wanted a more serious take on the show compared with the previous season, which included a dancing ape. Hargrove, adept at weaving (relatively subtle) humor into his stories, chafed under Spinner. The producer instructed his writers that U.N.C.L.E. should be closer to James Bond than Get Smart.

The more serious take also extended to the show’s music, as documented in liner notes by journalist Jon Burlingame for U.N.C.L.E. soundstracks released between 2004 and 2007 and the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE.

Matt Dillon (James Arness), right, and sidekick Festus (Ken Curtis) got new life at U.N.C.L.E.’s expense.

Gerald Fried, the show’s most frequent composer, had a score rejected. Also jettisoned was a new Fried arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme music. A more serious-sounding one was arranged by Robert Armbruster, the music director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most of the fourth season’s scores would be composed by Richard Shores. Fried did one fourth-season score, which sounded similar to the more serious style of Shores.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, however, weren’t a match for a resurgent Matt Dillon on CBS. NBC canceled U.N.C.L.E. A final two-part story, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, aired Jan. 8 and 15, 1968..

U.N.C.L.E. wouldn’t be the first spy casualty.

NBC canceled I Spy, with its last new episode appearing April 15, 1968. Within 18 months of U.N.C.L.E.’s demise, The Wild, Wild West was canceled by CBS (its final new episode aired aired April 4, 1969 although CBS did show fourth-season reruns in the summer of 1970) and the last episode of The Avengers was produced, appearing in the U.S. on April 21, 1969.

NBC also canceled Get Smart after the 1968-69 season but CBS picked up the spy comedy for 1969-70. Mission: Impossible managed to stay on CBS until 1973 but shifted away from spy story lines its last two seasons as the IMF opposed “the Syndicate.”

Nor were spy movies exempt. Dean Martin’s last Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew, debuted in U.S. theaters in late 1968. Despite a promise in the end titles that Helm would be back in The Ravagers, the film series was done.

Even the James Bond series, the engine of the ’60s spy craze, was having a crisis in early 1968. Star Sean Connery was gone and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pondered their next move. James Bond would return but things weren’t quite the same.

Lawrence Montaigne, busy character actor, dies

Lawrence Montaigne (1931-2017)

Lawrence Montaigne, a character actor frequently seen on television in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at 86.

His death was announced on Facebook by his daughter, Jessica. The startrek.com website published an obituary.

Montaigne may be best known for the 1967 Star Trek episode Amok Time. He played Stonn, the Vulcan boyfriend of T’Pring (Arlene Martel), who is betrothed to Spock (Leonard Nimoy).

It’s one of the best-remembered episodes of the 1966-69 series in part because it includes a fight between Spock and Captain Kirk (William Shatner), which is heightened by a Gerald Fried score. Years later, the Jim Carrey movie The Cable guy did a parody, including Fried’s music.

Montaigne also was in the cast of an earlier Star Tre episode, Balance of Terror, in a different role.

The actor was more than Star Trek. He was in the large cast of the 1963 movie The Great Escape. Montaigne also appeared in many spy and detective shows, usually as a villain.

Lawrence Montaigne in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Among them: two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; two episodes of Mission: Impossible; one episode of I Spy; one episode of Blue Light, the World War II spy series with Robert Goulet; one episode of Hawaii Five-O; one episode of It Takes a Thief; and eight episodes of The FBI.

Montaigne’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists 69 acting credits.

Mission: Impossible TV scores coming next month

Original scores from the 1966-73 television series Mission: Impossible are coming out next month from La-La Land Records, according to an announcement on the FILM SCORE MONTHLY MESSAGE BOARDS.

An excerpt:

La-La Land Records and CBS proudly announce the release of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE TELEVISION SCORES, a limited edition 6-CD box set, showcasing the restored and remastered original music scores from the classic 1966-1973 television series MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, starring Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Martin Landau.

The set was produced by music journalist Jon Burlingame, who also produced four CD sets of soundtracks from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. in the 2000s.

The retail price is $99.98 and is limited to 1,500 units. The M:I set will be available for order at http://www.lalalandrecords.com starting at 3 p.m. ET on July 28 and be shipped starting Aug. 10.

The set includes music by Lalo Schifrin, who also composed the iconic M:I theme, Gerald Fried, Robert Drasnin, Jerry Fielding and others.

Mission: Impossible was the first of three series where Schifrin collaborated with producer Bruce Geller. Mannix (another hit) and Bronk (not so much) were the others.

La-La Land Records also is releasing the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION SOUNDTRACK.

U.N.C.L.E.: the week that was

“I can’t believe everything that’s going on, Illya.”

The week of Sept. 21-27 may be the busiest U.N.C.L.E.-related week since the 1964-68 series ended its first television run in January 1968. At least social media amplifies activity to make it seem that way.

It was also the week where news about U.N.C.L.E. 1.0 (the original series) and U.N.C.L.E. 2.0 (a movie version scheduled for release in August 2015 and starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer) collided.

Here’s a look:

Sept. 21: In the U.S., the MeTV channel runs the third episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Quadripartite Affair. It’s one of the best of the entire series and was the first to include significant screen time for David McCallum’s Illya Kuryakin character. The director was future movie director Richard Donner and scripter Alan Caillou would do much to develop Kuryakin in several first-season stories.

Sept. 22: Fans celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary across a variety of social media.

Sept. 23: Composer Daniel Pemberton confirms via Twitter that he’s written the score for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie directed by Guy Ritchie and that recording of the music begins on Sept. 24.

Sept. 24: Recording sessions of the U.N.C.L.E. score begin at Abbey Road Studios. Separately, the movie gets a rating of PG-13 from the Motion Picture Association of America, according a list of MPAA ratings compiled by Box Office Mojo.

Sept. 25: Warner Home Video announces plans to re-release The Man From U.N.C.L.E. series, according to TVSHOWSONDVD.COM. The re-release, scheduled for Nov. 4, will have all the extras a 2007 release had but the packaging will be different.

Sept. 26: The Golden Anniversary Affair, a two-day gathering of 100 fans, begins in Culver City, California, at the site of the former MGM studio where the show was produced.

Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, stars of the original series, aren’t able to attend but post greetings on the event’s website. Fans post pictures on social media of crew members, including associate producer George Lehr and composer Gerald Fried, who scored the most episodes of the show.

Also posted are photos of original props, including the U.N.C.L.E. special, such as THIS ONE by author Paul Bishop.

Half a world away, composer Pemberton makes a posting on Twitter that appears to reveal one track of his movie score will be titled His Name Is Napoleon Solo.

Sept. 27: The Golden Anniversary Affair and the U.N.C.L.E. movie recording sessions continue. Andrew Skeet, a musician working on the recording, Tweets a picture of Pemberton working on his keyboard at Abbey Road.

U.N.C.L.E. movie score recording starts Sept. 24

Shoutout to @laneyboggs2001 at Twitter who re-Tweeted the composer as the postings went online.

Daniel Pemberton, composer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie, took to Twitter to announce he’ll begin recording his score tomorrow, Sept. 24.

Pemberton follows in the footsteps of Jerry Goldsmith (who scored the pilot for the 1964-68 television series and composed its theme music), Morton Stevens, Lalo Schifrin, Gerald Fried and others as U.N.C.L.E. composers. Pemberton didn’t provide a lot of details. For example, he didn’t say if Goldsmith’s theme is incorporated into the score.

Still, after reshoots and test screenings, news — delivered one day after the show’s 50th anniversary — showed how the movie’s post production is proceeding. It’s scheduled to be released in August 2015.

Here are three of the Twitter postings:

For the entire year I have had no life and been slaving away on the soundtrack to a new film…

— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) September 23, 2014

So it gives me enormous pleasure to announce that tomorrow I start recording my score to the new Guy Ritchie film “The Man From U.N.C.L.E”..

— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) September 23, 2014

..and for those who want a sneak peak of the score here it is.. #TheManFromUNCLE.. I will tidy up – promise. pic.twitter.com/S9pSjQnfac

— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) September 23, 2014