The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series | 
| Directors: Eddie Saeta, James Goldstone, Theodore J. Flicker, Alex March, Don Medford
Actors: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Leo G. Carroll
Studio: Warner Home Video
List Price: $199.92
Buy New: $137.99
as of 11/22/2009 01:09 CST details
You Save: $61.93 (31%)
New (19) Used (3) from $137.99
Seller: AngelCity_media
Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 4869
Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 41
Running Time: 5620 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6
Dimensions (in): 14.2 x 8.6 x 4.2
MPN: 1000042020
UPC: 883929035380
EAN: 0883929035380
ASIN: B00005JM5Z
Theatrical Release Date: September 22, 1964
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Episodes: The Vulcan Affair The Iowa Scuba Affair The Quadripartite Affair The Shark Affair The Deadly Games Affair The Green Opal Affair The Giuco Piano Affair The Double Affair The Project Strigas Affair The Finny Foot Affair The Neptune Affair The Dove Affair The King of Knaves Affair The Terbuf Affair The Deadly Decoy Affair The Fiddlesticks Affair The Yellow Scarf Affair T |
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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 10/21/2008 Rating: Nr
Amazon.com
For Baby Boomers, owning a season or two of a fondly remembered TV series on DVD is enough to satisfy any nostalgic yearnings. The Man From U.N.C.L.E., though, warrants the full-series treatment. It's a wild '60s flashback to the Espionage era that was ushered in by Ian Fleming's James Bond adventures. According to a series retrospective that's just one of this cleverly packaged set's prodigious extras, Fleming himself was recruited to create a spy series for American television. His contribution was the name "Napoleon Solo," the moniker of a crime boss in Goldfinger. That movie, which would kick Bond and spy mania into overdrive, had not yet opened when viewers were introduced to Robert Vaughn's Solo and David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin, agents of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. This covert agency operated out of Del Floria's Tailor Shop in New York under the command of true Brit Alexander Waverly (Leo J. Carroll, playing much the same character he portrayed in North by Northwest). The Man from U.N.C.L.E. offered a bit of hope in Cold War America that an American and Russian could work together to stop a common enemy, THRUSH, a ruthless organization bent on world domination. The intriguing conceit of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was to give audiences an empathetic surrogate who would be plucked from their humdrum lives for whirlwind adventures with Solo and Kuryakin. In the pilot episode, Patricia Crowley guest-stars as a housewife who acts as bait to foil the plans of her former college boyfriend, who is plotting the assassination of a world leader. In a series benchmark, "The Never-Never Affair," a pre-Get Smart Barbara Feldon stars as an U.N.C.L.E. translator who unwittingly becomes involved in actual espionage. Seasons one and two are the series' best, with a stellar roster of guest stars ("The Project Strigas Affair" features the first onscreen pairing of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy), stylish direction by directors who would go on to some renown (Michael Ritchie, Richard Donner), smart scripts, and great action (a movie theatre shoot-out in "The Never-Never Affair"). In its third season, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. adopted Batman's campy and absurdist tone with shark-jumping results While this season has its share of groaners (in one episode, Sollo watusis with a gorilla), several "Affairs" stand out. Jack Palance and Janet Leigh as a long cool woman in a white dress are great villains in "The Concrete Overcoat Affair." Harlan Ellison wrote the witty "The Pieces of Fate Affair," in which he takes some sly digs at television and literary critics (a THRUSH operative is a book reviewer). Joan Collins makes like Eliza Doolittle in a dual role as a Bronx stripper and a countess in "The Galatea Affair." The series went back to basics in Season Four, but by then, The Avengers was a bigger hit and the writing was on the wall for this once trendsetting series. This lavish box set affair contains upward of ten hours of bonus features, including the unaired series pilot, a series retrospective, an interview with a reunited Vaughn and McCallum, dossiers on each season's guest stars, one of the U.N.C.L.E. feature films edited and expanded from a two-part episode, segments about the great gadgets and cool music, U.N.C.L.E. designs and blueprints, and season-specific booklets.This definitive box set does full justice to a series that had such an impact on popular culture (as witness the bonus Tom & Jerry cartoon, "The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R."). More than a blast from the past, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is still a potent blend of "cloak and swagger." --Donald Liebenson
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 122
 THE HOLY GRAIL OF SPY SERIES October 13, 2009
Tim Janson (Michigan)
So have you got a few weeks to spare with nothing to do? That's what it will take to get through this massive DVD set of one of the 1960's hippest TV shows, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. This set clocks in at an impressive 41 discs, which include all 105 episodes of the show along with two bonus discs. In all there are over ten hours of extras. The whole things comes packed in a neat attaché case.
For those of you who are not familiar with the show, and in truth it was before my time as well, UNCLE was a spy show set during the heart of the Cold War and inspired by the success of the James Bond film. UNCLE stood for the "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement", essentially an international law-enforcement agency. The show starred Robert Vaughn as American Agent Napoleon and David McCallum as Soviet Agent Illya Kuryakin. The British head of UNCLE was Alexander Waverly played by Leo G. Carroll.
The series premiered in 1964 on NBC and quickly became one of the top shows on TV and made huge stars out of Vaughn and McCallum. UNCLE was one of the first shows to truly take advantage of mass merchandising and licensing of its name. By 1965, the toy shelves were littered with model kits, games, die-cast vehicles, figures, and all sorts of other toys.
Uniquely hip was that every episode title ended in the word "Affair" such as "The Arabian Affair" or "The Foreign Legion Affair". The main nemesis of UNCLE was international criminal and terrorist organization known as THRUSH. Everything got started with "The Vulcan Affair" as Solo is assigned to prevent THRUSH agents from assassinating a new African delegate. One of the best episodes from season one is "The Deadly Games Affair". Solo and Kuryakin are after a Nazi scientist who has Adolph Hitler in suspended animation and is looking for the correct blood type to revive him.
The first season was filmed in black & white before switching to color for season two. By today's standards the show looks dated in terms of its gadgets but not in their use. There was the pocket radios that were disguised as cigarette packs or ink pens that were the forerunners of our modern day cell phones. And perhaps most fans fondest prop was the UNCLE special gun. The Gun (one of the most popular of the 1960s toys) was a Walther P38 that could be converted into a rifle.
Also unique about the show was it's pairing of an American and Russian agent together, which was a pretty radical concept during the era. Afterall, it was only two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the incident that nearly sparked a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But fans did not seem to mind. The two actors enjoyed a wonderful chemistry together and the banter between them is still fresh today. This is one of those great series that was made for DVD. Now, why Warner Bros. chose to release the entire series in one set instead of individually is a bit curious. Afterall, retail price on this bad boy is nearly $200 although considering the enormous amount of content, that is a reasonable price although I still suspect it will put off a lot of buyers who are not already fans.
Extras
When it comes down to it, there are just too many to list. You not only get extras on the season discs but there are also two bonus discs as well. I will provide a summary though.
The Bonus Discs come with numerous featurettes including:
Cold War, Hot Spies: U.N.C.L.E. and the Cold War This 21:00 minute featurette explores the series as it played out against the real Cold War and the politics of the era.
Guns, Gizmos, Gadgets and Garb (19:00) looks at the creation of the shows notable props such as the special gun, pen communicator, and Ilya's many trademark disguises
Behind the Wheel: U.N.C.L.E.'s Piranha (17:00) this wonderful featurette looks at the specially manufactured Pirahna car. It includes an interview with Gene Winfield who designed the car, and with Robert Short who is the current owner of the one-of-a-kind vehicle which is still drivable to this day.
Fandemonium (25:00) is a tribute to the show from its loyal base of fans who are now in the 50s or older. Many of them produced their own fanzines and organized fan clubs back in the 1960s and now are running websites dedicated to the show.
The bonus disc also feature special "debriefing" interviews with cast and crewmembers. These are brand new interviews with the likes of Vaughn, McCallum, Writer Dean Hargrove, and Directors Richard Donner and Joseph Sargent,
You also get original TV spots advertising the show, clips from Vaughn and McCallum's appearances on various other TV shows.
This is one of those sets that fans will definitely have to have. If you're a fan of spy shows or 1960s TV, this is a set that is worth the investment.
man from uncle September 12, 2009
Steven P. Grate
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this show as a child and I was not disappointed at all watching them again.
Great series, great packaging July 26, 2009
Kevin R. Ciser
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This series laid the groundwork for the "spy craze" of the mid 1960's. Super cool agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin globe-trot in order to put the kibosh on THRUSH, an evil and megalomaniacal organization bent on world domination. American and Russian ideologies clash, but are subsequently sublimated, for the good of the team while on these assignments. (Yes, we all can get along!). Presiding over these "affairs" and refereeing between the two protagonists is head of UNCLE Alexander Waverly, played by the great Leo G. Carroll. Famous guest stars like Joan Crawford, Broderick Crawford, Chad Everett and Maurice Evans abound.
The set itself comes in a terrific attache case that almost makes you want to open channel D yourself. Each of the 4 seasons comes in its own well-protected individual case and there is a truckload of bonus material-enough to satisfy almost any fan. The only qualm here is how difficult the individual DVDs are to remove. More than a few times I thought I was going to break one trying to finagle it. Despite that, The Man From UNCLE is a superb piece of our television heritage.
 Savoring the 60's July 6, 2009
V. Cruz (Ontario, Ca.)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Just can't get enough of the 60's. The Man From Uncle set is just another piece of my childhood. Long time in coming, but boy has it ever been well received. I understand the grinches that say "It doesn't compare to the slick presentation of todays shows". Yes that is true but It was our show, all of us who grew up in the 60's had the best...Beatles for music, Kennedy for president and The Man from Uncle, Wild Wild West, Mission Impossible and the original Twilight Zone, still the best science fiction/fantasy show ever; just to name a few. It was what I grew up with, they can't take that away from me. Now when the suits realize that 77 Sunset Strip, Naked City and the very rare The Greatest Adventure, one of my favorites, broadcast on CBS needs to be on dvd, then I will be happy.
Let's get the dvd production line rolling on all those shows and many others, before we, the Baby Boomer Generation say "hasta la vista baby" , we were here and left our mark. Nuff Said.
 Man from U.N.C.L.E. box set DVD release July 3, 2009
G. stone (Los Angeles, CA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
The U.N.C.L.E. series has been available on DVD over in Europe for about 10 years, in PAL format, but the country that created the series could not seem to get past the legal red tape to release it here! until now!
This is a truely beautiful set, all four seasons with added two DVDs of bonus material, including the original FULL COLOR pilot "Solo", written by Bond creator Ian Fleming. The only reservation that I have with these copies, transferred from the master films, is that the sound is very hissy, and MONO! Now, the people who released the DVD series of "Star Trek" had gotten it transferred to 5.1 surround, with rear channels of music only, and stereo sound effects, why can't the people who released this DVD set do that? At least some Dolby noise reduction, PLEASE! I cannot believe that this top selling DVD set is not worth the extra effort to create a DVD library that will be loved for decades to come!
But, all in all, it still is a wonderfull collection.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 122
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