Let's be realistic.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's interesting that so many of the reviews of the U.N.C.L.E. films are from Brits. The show was incredibly popular here in the 1960s and I can remember joining the U.N.C.L.E. organization set up by MGM (I still remember my number: 10472 Section 2 Operations And Enforcement and I am still at the ready in case I am ever called up for action) and you could also buy novels and annuals. There are a couple of good websites based on the show and there is an excellent book by Jon Heitland published in 1987. So there we were riding along on the crest of a spy wave and just having waved goodbye to "One Spy Too Many" which was released in February and then on 31 July 1966, "One Of Our Spies Is Missing" arrived in Glasgow and suddenly we went crashing to the ground. Here's what I thought... 'The Man From UNCLE' was still being made, but as there were so many imitators, the powers that be decided to change the format and make it more of a spoof (although there is no way they could outspoof TV's 'Get Smart') with the result that the new film at the Regal and Bedford, "One Of Our Spies Is Missing" was nowhere near as sharp and exciting as the previous efforts. It was a compilation of the two part episode 'The Bridge Of Lions Affair" which had been shown on American TV in February but was not going to be shown on British TV. David McCallum as Illya crawls around the streets of a very studio bound Soho looking for cats and Robert Vaughn is on the trail of Vera Miles who seems to know something about the formula that makes people much younger. It was a real disappointment for fans, and the title made no sense whatsoever in relation to the plot. To compound the poor quality, it played with "Hold On", which was a vehicle for Peter No one and Hermans Hermits to be chased by fans and be chosen as the first pop group to be launched into space, and they also launch into song including 'A Must To Avoid' which could describe this double bill. Poor, but their worst film was yet to come. Adapted with permission from the author from 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)'.Jim Doyle is the author of 'What We Watched In The 1960s (In The Cinema)', 'What We Watched In The 1970s (In The Cinema)" and 'What We Watched In The 1980s (In The Cinema And On Video)'

I vaguely remember The Man from Uncle TV series repeats as a kid but only got reacquainted with the show when the spliced together movies were regularly shown in the 1980s when its campy nature was more apparent.In this film, no spy seems to be missing unless you count Kuryakin wandering around the Soho area of London looking for pussy. I mean the four legged kind even though the producers would had been well aware that Soho was a notorious red light district!The plot involves reversing the ageing process and cats have been used for the experiments hence why Kuryakin is looking for missing cats in a studio bound London setting.Napoleon Solo gets to chase ladies as well as making sure THRUSH does not get the youth rejuvenating formula with a plot of a senior diplomat being at risk of being kidnapped, de-aged and put under the control of THRUSH.It is all very silly, all shot in California with the tunes of Rule Brittania every time the setting moves to England.Bernard Fox is the standout as the THRUSH villain Jordin who brings the right balance of menace and humour.

An attempt is made to reverse the aging process.I am a 1960s sci-fi nutcase so you would expect someone like myself to welcome this movie with open arms...wrong!This is without question the worst of the eight UNCLE movies (aka the UNCLE pilot and UNCLE two-parters). The other seven films were fine. The other seven movies had much less sci-fi going on and this film suggests that UNCLE does not do sci-fi too well. The other seven flicks looked like some effort was put into the scripts, direction and sets...not so with One Of Our Spies Is Missing.Set in a fake London, the acting and script goes from boring to all out painful to watch. Stay clear of this bomb!

ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING was the fourth big-screen spin-off from the cult spy series THE MAN FROM UNCLE. It was compiled from a two-part episode called THE BRIDGE OF LYONS AFFAIR. Part one was aired on 4 February 1966 and part two on 11 February 1966, and in common with most of the other films in the series, it was not televised in the countries where the film was released under the new title. Considerable changes were made from the TV version including the removal of the scene where THRUSH agent Jordin (Bernard Fox) receives his briefing from his superiors at Thrush's Hong Kong headquarters. There was also scenes added into the film that were not considered suitable for television including Robert Vaughn's scenes with Yvonne Craig.Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuriyakin (David McCallam) are assigned by UNCLE chief Alexander Waverley (Leo G Carroll) to prevent a youth rejuvenation formula from falling into the hands of THRUSH who intend to use it for their own evil ends.ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING is one of the best of the UNCLE pictures with plenty of slick tongue-in-cheek action, which made the original series so memorable and it boasts one of the show's most memorable villains in Bernard Fox's suave THRUSH agent Jordin. The series regulars, Vaughn, McCallam and Waverley are uniformly excellent, Gerald Fried's music is superb and the show's sets always looked impressive in Fred J Koenekampe's Metrocolor camera-work.