Looking for a suit? Here’s an U.N.C.L.E. version for $735

Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo in 2015’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) wasn’t a big box office hit. But that hasn’t stopped the marketing of a suit based on the film.

Magnoli Clothiers is offering a three-piece suit based on the movie for $735. Here’s a description.

This retro three-piece suit features a three-button single-breasted jacket with cloth-covered buttons, three flapped pockets and a square-cut bottom. The six-button waistcoat has matching buttons and two welted pockets. The pleated trousers have angled side pockets and plain bottoms with no cuffs.

Shown in a premium wool blend, dark blue with double window-pane and hand-stitched detailing

Henry Cavill wore a variety of three-piece suits in the 2015 film. Cavill, a one-time contender to play James Bond, portrayed Napoleon Solo in the U.N.C.L.E. film.

Solo was the role originated by Robert Vaughn in the 1964-68 television series. The Solo character was created by television producer Norman Felton and James Bond author Ian Fleming. The bulk of the series was created by writer-producer Sam Rolfe.

When the U.N.C.L.E. movie came out, some who didn’t like the movie (done as a period piece set in 1963) commented about the costumes, including Solo’s suits.

High-end merchandise related to James Bond is old hat. Currently, you can buy a $6,000 backgammon set, a $3.5 million replica Aston Martin DB5 with gadgets (but not street legal so you can’t drive it on the open road) and another Aston Martin model for $700,007.

Also, clothier N. Peal has come out with a line of James Bond-related clothing such as sweaters.

h/t Robert Short of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — Inner Circle page on Facebook.

1964: U.N.C.L.E.’s Soviet history in-joke

For much of The Project Strigas Affair, Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) wears a disguise that appears to resemble…

Next month marks the 55th anniversary of The Project Strigas Affair, the ninth episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It’s mostly known today for being the first time William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy acted together.

However, it’s also an example of an in-joke, albeit one that many members of the audience might not catch.

For much of the story, U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) wears a disguise consisting of a black wig, fake mustache and wire rim glasses.

It’s part of an elaborate con to ensnare a diplomat (Werner Klemperer), whose government is plotting to get the United States and Soviet Union to declare war on each other.

…Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky

Students of Soviet history might recognize the disguise. That’s because the disguised Illya appears to resemble Leon Trotsky, a Russian revolutionary who had a falling out with Stalin. Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940.

Kuryakin was U.N.C.L.E.’s resident Russian operative. The U.N.C.L.E. series treated the agent’s nationality very gently. This was the 1960s, after all, and the Cold War was on.

The show mostly had subtle references (“Suddenly I feel very Russian,” he says as he parks near a Long Island party held by rich people in the first-season episode The Love Affair.)

Illya’s disguise for The Project Strigas Affair, assuming it really was an intentional in-joke, falls into this category. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was escapist entertainment, first and foremost. But the Kuryakin disguise shows there’s a bit more at work.

Happy 86th birthday, David McCallum

David McCallum in a Man From U.N.C.L.E. publicity still

Today, Sept. 19, is David McCallum’s 86th birthday.

There’s not a whole lot that needs saying. He’s had a great career. He still has many fans who admire him. Happy birthday. We’ll leave it at that.

Carol Lynley dies at 77

Carol Lynley (1942-2019)

Carol Lynley, an actress who was busy in movies and TV shows in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at 77, according to Variety.

In films, she appeared in Harlow, Bunny Lake Is Missing and The Poseidon Adventure.

Lynley also made the rounds on U.S. television shows, including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mannix, The FBI, It Takes a Thief and Hawaii Five-O.

Her IMDB.COM entry lists more than 100 acting credits from 1956 to 2006.

Without whom, etc. (55th anniversary)

Headline for a 1964 obituary for Ian Fleming

Today, Aug. 12, is the 55th anniversary of the death of Ian Fleming.

Without Fleming (1908-1964), much of the 1960s spy craze wouldn’t happen.

Without Fleming, there’d be no James Bond series of novels.

Without Fleming, there’d be no James Bond series of movies.

Without Fleming, there’s be no Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series. The show came about because an inquiry was made whether Fleming’s Thrilling Cities book could be turned into a television series.

Without Fleming, there’d be no attempts to cash in on 007 films.

U.N.C.L.E. fanfic: Adventures of George and Quentin

1998 fanzine with the first, and only (thankfully), installment of The Adventures of George and Quentin

Director Quentin Tarantino is a fan of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In the 1990s, he talked about directing an U.N.C.L.E. film with himself as Illya Kuryakin and George Clooney as Napoleon Solo.

This week, I found out he’s apparently a (silent) member of an U.N.C.L.E. page on Facebook. That caused me to recall a one-time fanfiction series, The Adventures of George and Quentin.

Of course, I wrote it. So naturally I’d remember it.

It was a Mad magazine-like takeoff. It was written after 1997’s Batman and Robin, where Clooney got a lot of flak for his portrayal of Batman. Also, the takeoff imagined a Pulp Fiction version of Kuryakin.

All of this was filler for a fanzine with more conventional U.N.C.L.E. stories. The format was to rewrite, in script form, original U.N.C.L.E. scripts with the George and Quentin team.

Here’s one example:

THE ADVENTURES OF GEORGE AND QUENTIN IN THE DEADLY GAMES AFFAIR

INT. NIGHT. STAMP SHOP

STAMP EXERT (holds tweezers)
It is a desecration!

SOLO
Uh, is that bad?

STAMP EXPERT
Would you wipe the smile off the Mona Lisa?

ANGELIQUE (Uma Thurman)
Well, hotcakees, I guess we’re back to square one.
(pins flower on SOLO)

ANGELIQUE
Maybe I’ll see ya around.

ANGELIQUE leaves. In comes ILLYA who has been observing this scene from the window of the front door.

ILLYA
Why is that b**** so f****** happy? Who got killed?

SOLO
(bobs head, smiles)
Aw lay off, Illya. Everything is OK.

CUT to another angle where we see the flower has gotten ILLYA’s attention.

CUT to extreme close up of the flower. There is a deadly spider on it.

CUT BACK to the original shot. ILLYA swats the spider off the flower and then stomps on it.

CUT to close up of ILLYA’s foot stomping the spider. The camera lens is stained.

CUT back to the original shot.

ILLYA
G****** it. Napoleon! Can’t you keep your f****** fly zipped?

STAMP EXPERT
You mean that beautiful woman just tried to kill him?

ILLYA
Do you have s*** for brains? Of course she tried to f****** kill him!

SOLO
You know Shakespeare, my friend?

STAMP EXPERT
No.

SOLO
(smiles, bobs head)
Oh. Well never mind then.

There were four others of these, with George and Quentin versions of The Shark Affair, The Foxes and Hounds Affair, The Mad, MAD Tea Party Affair and The Project Strigas Affair.

Dean Hargrove talks about U.N.C.L.E.

Dean Hargrove

Writer-producer Dean Hargrove gave a March interview to the Writers Guild Foundation. A chunk of it concerned The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the 1964-68 series where he was one of the main writers.

Here are some of the U.N.C.L.E.-related comments made by Hargrove, 80, during the interview.

First-season producer Sam Rolfe: “Sam Rolfe…was a superior writer and a brilliant guy to devise formats for television shows. Sam was a tough cookie. Writers were going through this show like rabbits on the run. We sort of hit it off.”

Hargrove becomes staff writer in Season Two: Rolfe departed after the first season. Hargrove wrote two Season One scripts and was hired on for Season Two.

“I sort of had a handle on the show so it came easy to me… It was considered I had the Holy Grail. I was the one who knew the show. Nobody else really kind of understood it.

“People would turn to me and ask me should it be like this or like that. I’m saying, ‘Try that, I really don’t know.’ I just knew I had a facility for writing that show. And from a career standpoint, it’s like somebody turned on the lights.

“The show I thought was a bit of a hula hoop because it wasn’t based solidly on character, you know, it was based on style and other superficial things which were very entertaining. I loved the show and really loved working on it.”

David McCallum and Robert Vaughn in The Never-Never Affair, the first U.N.C.L.E. episode written by Dean Hargrove.

Executive Producer Norman Felton: “Norman was a very nice man and a character at the same time. He was always afraid of having to pay people money. This was one of his quirks. He didn’t like giving people raises.

“At one point, because he was getting more and more successful, he moved down into a little office…when he had a big office up in the Thalberg Building (at MGM). That way, he felt people would be less entitled to come down and ask him for raises.

“He drove an old Chevrolet. The studio asked if would he please let them give him a new car because it’s embarrassing a guy who’s producing all these shows is driving this old car.

Producer turnover on U.N.C.L.E.: Three different men filled the producer’s chair in Season Two. “I don’t think it helped the show. I don’t think any of the guys who came on really had a good handle on the show…I don’t think the producers had a good handle on the material….I thought one producer in particular didn’t understand the show at all.”

Hargrove declined to name that producer. During the second season, David Victor, Mort Abrams and Boris Ingster served as producers. Ingster returned for Season Three. He was replaced in Season Four by Anthony Spinner, who brought a more serious approach.

U.N.C.L.E.’s legacy: “I don’t think there’s a real legacy. I don’t think you can point to shows on television and say this is the spiritual grandchild of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

The U.N.C.L.E. portion of the interview starts after the 35:00 mark of this first part.

Part two begins with U.N.C.L.E. and that lasts about 20 minutes.