Sunday 27 May 2018

Television: 'The Man From UNCLE: The Yellow Scarf Affair' (1964) (Aired 1x17, Produced 1x16)

Vito Scotti! India! A one-on-one contest of wits with THRUSH! Women!

It's time for an always welcome Napoleon-rich episode, with not an Ilya in sight, and Vaughn pulls it off again. He doesn't have as much to work with as usual, but it still works, partly because of some excellent guest casting, and also due to an unexpected trip to India. Yes, it's time to go international again over there in UNCLE land. (It's also time to makeup some actors to look Indian, but there are two genuine actresses, so they definitely made an effort.)

In 'The Yellow Scarf Affair', a prototype decoding device that has been restolen from THRUSH by our friendly UNCLE is unwittingly restolen again by a mysterious third party. It wasn't just restolen though, for the plane it was travelling on was crashed and the passengers murdered. Could it be a Thuggee plot?

The trail of this prototype, concealed as it is within an explosive typewriter case, leads Solo and an air stewardess ultimately into the lair of her secretly Thuggee father, and only being rescued accidentally and unwillingly by the interference of a THRUSH agent who has been tangling with Solo throughout the whole plot. It all works very well, especially the THRUSH complications, which rhymes with some of the great THRUSH interferences of previous stories. It's a man this time, so none of the sauciness recurs, but it's nice to have a stylish anti-Solo wandering around. We also get a brief appearance from Madge Blake as a genial UNCLE courier and Vito Scotti, the all purpose character actor!

This is a solid example of the great first season of UNCLE, with yet more realistically super-beautiful women, a great escape from a Thuggee temple, and humorous interactions with the despicable THRUSH. Who exactly is the mastermind behind THRUSH, anyway? We know that it's a person, from the information given in previous episodes. The joy here is that this is a show which can be both serious and humorous. What a wonder that would have been in 1964!

O.



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