"Baby wants technicolor cinemascope, baby gets technicolor cinemascope"

I don't know how it would stand up today -- I have refrained from looking at the DVD editions -- but I remember really liking the television show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. back in the mid-'60s. I even remember what U.N.C.L.E. stood for (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement -- loved that superfluous "and"). However, I never did learn what T.H.R.U.S.H. (the acronym for the organization that U.N.C.L.E. battled in its attempt to take over the world) represented. Each show had the word "Affair" in its title, such as The Vulcan Affair, The Green Opal Affair and during its parody season (Season 3) The Indian Affairs Affair. And within each show, every segment had its own chapter heading, my favorite, in a program featuring a gangland chief who wants his girlfriend to be the movie star she desires to become, being the headline to this entry. Inspired by the success of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., its production company commissioned Mel Brooks and Buck Henry to write a spoof of the show which became the popular Get Smart television series.

I bring this up because I leaned today that George Clooney is talking to filmmaker Steven Soderbergh about starring in Soderbergh's movie adaptation of the spy vs. spy television classic. Clooney and Soderberg have a history of working together on such worthwhile projects as Out of Sight, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck and the much underrated and overlooked Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. One report has Soderberg keeping the story in its original 1960s setting. I assume Clooney would play Napoleon Solo, the character created by Robert Vaughn on the television program. (A little piece of trivia: The name Napoleon Solo was conceived by James Bond-creator Ian Fleming, who contributed to the television show's creation. Fleming named him after Mr Solo, a character in Fleming's book Goldfinger.) No word yet on who would play Solo's Russian partner Illya Kuryakin, originally played by David McCallum. (Another piece of trivia: Fleming named the hero Solo because he was supposed to be the show's only hero, but an early, albeit brief appearance by McCallum was so popular, it was decided to pair the two.) Nor is their any notice about who would play the show's third major character, Alexander Waverly, the chief of U.N.C.L.E., played by the marvelous Leo G. Carroll in the original TV show.