The Spy in the Green Hat

Plot

During the Cold War, U.N.C.L.E. agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are assigned to retrieve former Nazi missile expert Dr. Heinrich von Kronen. He is kidnapped by THRUSH operative Louis Strago, a Sicilian vintner and importer. The agents infiltrate Strago's secret heavy water base disguised as a winery. THRUSH plans to detonate atomic bombs in the Caribbean to divert the Gulf Stream, warm Greenland for a THRUSH Fatherland, and cause chaos in Europe and the United States.

After a security encounter, Solo hides in the bedroom of Pia Monteri. Her grandmother forces a shotgun wedding despite Solo's protests; he escapes with Kuryakin's help. Grandma Monteri enlists Pia's uncles, the Stiletto brothers, former Prohibition-era Chicago Mafia dons, to find Solo. Kuryakin is captured and tortured by Strago's assistant Miss Diketon.

The Stilettos find Solo, but he and Pia are kidnapped by Strago. Solo escapes and learns from Alexander Waverly that Pia is at Strago's island base, which U.N.C.L.E. plans to bomb. Solo resigns to rescue her; Waverly relents. Diketon brings Kuryakin to the missile base.

Solo survives a boat explosion and is captured by the Stilettos, who gun down a patrol boat crew and take its captain hostage, gaining key information.

Production

The announcement of "The Concrete Overcoat Affair" as a two-part episode with an expensive all-star cast led critics to believe it would become a feature film. Unlike the four earlier Man from U.N.C.L.E. movies, The Spy in the Green Hat made minimal changes to the episodes, keeping the same musical cues and adding no major scenes. Short scenes more violent, sexy, and disturbing than typical network television were inserted: Pia Monteri's nude back (waist up) briefly appears in the film but was edited from the TV broadcast; Miss Diketon's lines making clear she receives sensual pleasure from inflicting pain also did not air on television.

The series theme under the main titles was a faster tempo reworking by Nelson Riddle of Gerald Fried's third season arrangement. The titular Spy in the Green Hat is Mr. Thaler of THRUSH, played by Will Kuluva, who had previously played U.N.C.L.E. head Mr. Allison in the unaired pilot. In one scene, Arturo "Fingers" Stiletto smashes a grapefruit half into his wife's face; Joan Blondell, playing the wife, breaks the fourth wall by staring at the camera, referencing her role in 1931's The Public Enemy.

Later, Miss Diketon rescues Illya Kuryakin by stabbing a THRUSH thug with a dagger, a possible nod to Janet Leigh's role as stabbing victim Marion Crane in Psycho.

Release

The 1966 film The Spy in the Green Hat was assembled from two episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. titled "The Concrete Overcoat Affair," which aired on NBC in late 1966. Warner Archive Collection released it on DVD on November 2, 2011. Newspaper ads for the TV version promoted a catfight still of Pia and Diketon, with taglines highlighting a "cat-like knife fight" between Janet Leigh and Letitia Roman.