The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Re-Collector's Affair (1965)

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was an American TV show that aired for four seasons between September 22, 1964 and January 15, 1968 on NBC.  It starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as secret agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, who work for a secret international espionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). 

Jocelyn guest-starred in an episode called The Re-Collector’s Affair (Season 2, Episode 6), which originally aired on October 22, 1965.  Based on some notices in Variety, it appears that this episode was shot in mid-to-late August of 1965. 

The episode involves paintings that were stolen by a group of four Nazis during World War II.   A group known as “the re-collectors” have been hunting down those Nazis and offering to return the stolen paintings to the rightful owners, for a price. Solo and K are sent to Italy to find the re-collectors.  Jocelyn plays the part of Lisa Donata, a young woman who has been contacted by the re-collectors, because she is the sole remaining heir to one of the paintings.  She assists the secret agents as they track down the re-collectors and uncover their secrets.

Jocelyn performs well in her role, with a decent amount of screen time, and using a foreign accent that somehow seems to be a cross between German, French, and Italian.  She had an opportunity to perform a bit of light action work in this episode, though a stunt double was clearly used in a scene involving Lisa’s fall on a rooftop.  While Jocelyn certainly provides eye-candy for the episode, it was not otherwise very entertaining to me.  I am not familiar with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. series, but this episode did not inspire me to want to watch more of them.  I can accept the cheap-looking studio sets that double for the streets of Italy; that’s part of the charm for shows like this, but Vaughn seems more “smarmy” than anything else.  His fight scenes are laughable.  I found McCallum more suited for his role.  Jocelyn fans should probably check out this episode in order to see some of her mid-60’s TV work in color, but don’t expect classic TV, in my opinion.  [Note:  I realize that this series had/has a large following that like it a lot; this episode just didn’t peak my interest in the series.]

On an interesting side note, Vic Tayback appears as a tough-guy policeman-type speaking with an Italian accent.  He is remembered by most people as Mel on the popular 1970’s TV show Alice.

 

Here is a publicity still with Jocelyn in this episode:

The complete series of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was released in a deluxe edition with a number of extras on DVD in the U.S. in 2008.   

 

In 2014, it was re-issued in the U.S.