trony's video: The Man From Uncle - IIlya Kuryakin -The Cool Spy

Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were well known actors before they worked on The Man From Uncle TV series.David had just made The Great Escape with Steve McQueen and Robert had made The Magnificent Seven with a stellar cast that also had the great Steve McQueen in it.The Man from Uncle pushed their fame into the stratosphere with the show attaining cult like status.In the beginning the role of Napoleon Solo with Vaughn was much more fleshed out.As David McCallum states in one of the DVD extras,the character of Illya was a blank page and he had to slowly bring him to life.What we see as the series progresses is that Illya begins to develop into an uber cool spy and his frosty demeanor towards women was an acceptance of the dangers of spy work.Eventually both Vaughn and McCallum developed an easy working relationship that mimics Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the Road movies.Some of the most blatantly funny scenes ever made for TV began to develop from what was originally a serious spy show.The series eventually evolved into camp theatrics and may have caused it's demise,but we as viewers still have this cult classic to enjoy.