What we have here are two episodes of the old Man From U.N.C.L.E., TV series repackaged as a quasi movie. This was an attempt by MGM to squeeze as much money out of the then popular spy series as much as possible. Since it was the 1960's and the height of the spy movie craze, I guess this shouldn't have been a complete surprise that something like this would get released.
Considering that the film was shot on the back lot of the once formidable MGM studios and no one even bothered to edit out the TV transitions, the film is actually entertaining. Rip Torn amusingly plays an evil industrialist bent on taking over the world with a mind control gas. Dorothy Provine, who was a very underrated actor and comedian, is his wife trying to obtain a divorce. Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are the U.N.C.L.E agents assigned to stop Torn by their boss played by Leo G Carroll. Carroll was an expert at playing the head of secret spy agencies, he had worked with Alfred Hitchcock on a number of films.
The film does have that cheap TV look to it but the director Joseph Sargent keeps the plot moving and the writer Dean Hargrove had his tongue firmly in cheek as the story rolls along.
One Spy Too Many is at times almost a nostalgia piece for another time and world in movies that has now turned into an age of computer generated images and formula comic book stories.
The running time is 102 minutes.
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