The global success of the James Bond films met a speedy response from television where programmes like The Avengers (1961-1969) in the UK (which actually predated Dr. No (1962) but really came into its own during the height of Bondmania) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) and Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) in the States helped to create a whole new genre, dubbed “spy-fi”. The Bonds would become increasingly fantastic in content as the absurdity of the gadgets and situations were ramped up and so the TV series became increasingly odd, introducing many science fiction, fantasy and surreal bits and pieces into the more mundane espionage business.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. remains one of the most popular of these new, hi-tech spy shows, following the exploits of secret agents Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement and their battles to protect the world from the agents of THRUSH (the name was never explained on air but in his spin-off novels, David McDaniel reckoned it stood for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity).

There was a spin-off series, the short lived The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966-1967), a big screen remake in 2015 and a number of theatrically released in the 60s pieced together from existing episodes, sometimes with some new material added. To Trap a Spy was the first out of the gate and, like the early episodes of the series, is less fantastical than the show would eventually become, the very borderline science fiction elements coming from the few gadgets that Solo takes into the field with him.

Originally released on a double bill with the second spin-off film, The Spy with My Face (1965), To Trap a Spy might look a bit odd to many fans of the series with some characters side-lined and others missing altogether, but as we’ll see, there’s a good reason for this. U.N.C.L.E. has come to suspect that the industrialist Andrew Vulcan (Fritz Weaver) is really an agent of the international criminal conspiracy known as WASP and is planning to assassinate Sekue Ashumen (William Marshall, later to play the title role on Blacula (1972) and Scream Blacula Scream (1973)), leader of the newly independent African state of Western Natumba. Head of U.N.C.L.E. Mr Allison (Will Kuluva) dispatches Solo to tackle the case. He only briefly consults with Kuryakin who otherwise stays at home base for the duration and instead teams up with suburban housewife Elaine May Donaldson (Pat Crowley), a former girlfriend of Vulcan’s. This would become a trait throughout the series, of Solo recruiting civilians to help him out on his missions. Together, they infiltrate Vulcan’s operations and find that Ashumen isn’t really the target after all, but two of his ministers, WASP planning to take covert control of Western Natumba. Along the way, Solo – much more Bond-like here than he would be in later adventures – dallies with glamorous WASP agent Angela (Luciana Paluzzi).

To understand why this all feels different to what we would later come to know and love as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., we have to explore how the story got to the screen in this shape. As was common in the 1960s, a pilot episode was shot, in colour, in order to demonstrate to network executives just what the subsequent programme would look like. In late 1963, a 70-minute pilot titled Solo was shot by Arena Productions and impressed the heads of NBC enough for them to commission a full series. There were of course some things they wanted changing – Kuluva was removed to make way for the now more familiar Leo G. carroll as Mr Waverly and the episode had to be edited down to 50 minutes and, retitled The Vulcan Affair, it was broadcast in black and white as the first episode of the series on 22 September 1964. By that time, the decision had already been made to do something with the original pilot and additional footage was shot in April 1964 featuring Luciana Paluzzi, who would soon sign on to appear in the Bond film Thunderball (1965), that added a new prologue and a love interest for Solo as well as fleshing out the climax. This is the version that was then released, initially overseas, but then in the States, as To Trap a Spy.

One might expect that all this chopping and changing would have had a detrimental effect on the story but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Sam Rolfe’s screenplay seems to accommodate all of the new material with ease and Don Medford’s direction is so slick that if there are any plot holes or loose ends we don’t really notice them, the plot rattling along so quickly that we barely have time to draw breath. The fact that it’s largely derived from the original pilot accounts for some of the oddities, like the lack of Mr Waverly and the fact that Kuryakin is barely in it (it’s called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as it was originally meant to revolve just around Solo – Kuryakin started to get more involved when audiences warmed to McCallum’s character and started demanding more). The television budget only occasionally makes itself felt, but otherwise It’s all exciting and good-looking stuff, Medford and his photographer Joseph Biroc, art directors George W. Davis and Merrill Pye and composer Jerry Goldsmith giving it the look, sound and feel of the theatrical release it would eventually become.

The Vulcan Affair was a decent enough start to a series that would become wilder and more fun as it went along, but To Trap a Spy might just have the edge. The colour, the addition of Paluzzi and more room for the story to breath all help no end and fans would have been unlikely to disappointed by any of this. It was followed to the screen by seven more films (its double-bill mate The Spy with My Face (1965), One Spy Too Many (1966), One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966), The Spy in the Green Hat (1966), The Karate Killers (1967), The Helicopter Spies (1968), and How to Steal the World (1968)). There would be less new footage in the films as the series wore on but the opportunity to see the men from U.N.C.L.E. going about their increasingly bizarre business on a big screen would have proved irresistible and films were all decent hits at box offices around the world.