The U.S. military has developed a 'dehydrator' which is capable of turning people into skeletons. When said machine is stolen by fake nuns in the pay of KARTEL villain Erik Clawson, Priority One U.N.I.T. agent Thomas Remington Sloane The Third is put on the case.
Surviving an attack by poisonous snakes, he travels to Lucerne, where Clawson, aided by his cybernetic-handed henchman Torque ( Ji-Tu Cumbuka ) plans to cause global chaos by wiping out the World Disarmament Council.
This Quinn Martin produced pilot is hampered by low-grade production values, a plodding script, and Robert Logan, miscast as a Matt Helm-type secret agent. There is little action to speak of, and what there is is not all that thrilling. The 'dehydrator' idea was clearly borrowed from the 1966 film 'Batman'.
As originally conceived, Sloane was an eccentric antiques dealer who wore old-fashioned clothes whilst driving a vintage, cream-coloured Cord automobile. He had a cute secretary in the shape of 'Miss Blessing', who is hopelessly infatuated with him. Neither shop nor secretary made it into the subsequent series.
Ann Turkel provided glamour, and Clive Revill gleefully hammed it up as the maniac Clawson. Dan O'Herlihy was splendid as 'The Director', Sloane's boss. Comic relief came from E.F.F.I.E. the computer ( voiced by Michele Carey ). When N.B.C. President Fred Silverman saw the finished film, he liked the basic concept and commissioned a series, but minus Logan. In his place came Robert Conrad.
British viewers were supposed to have seen this on I.T.V. as part of their Autumn ( Fall ) line-up in 1979, but an industrial dispute blacked out the whole of the network for ten weeks, and it was held over to Christmas. 'The T.V. Times' billed it under the title: 'T.R. Sloane Of The Secret Service'.
When broadcast in the States, the series - 'A Man Called Sloane' - had been and gone, hence the pilot was retitled 'Death Ray 2000', though the year is never mentioned on screen. The '70's fashions on display clearly make nonsense of the new title.
One stand-out moment; in his villa, Clawson menaces Sloane with various weapons, all the time indulging in polite conversation. The agent retaliates in kind, the sequence ends with him lighting the fuse on a cannon.
My copy of this movie has a different musical score to the one used on the 1979 U.K. broadcast. Sloane originally had his own theme in the form of a clarinet solo, presumably intended to reflect the character's eccentricity. It was by Patrick Williams, later to compose the upbeat, disco flavoured theme for 'A Man Called Sloane'.
Surviving an attack by poisonous snakes, he travels to Lucerne, where Clawson, aided by his cybernetic-handed henchman Torque ( Ji-Tu Cumbuka ) plans to cause global chaos by wiping out the World Disarmament Council.
This Quinn Martin produced pilot is hampered by low-grade production values, a plodding script, and Robert Logan, miscast as a Matt Helm-type secret agent. There is little action to speak of, and what there is is not all that thrilling. The 'dehydrator' idea was clearly borrowed from the 1966 film 'Batman'.
As originally conceived, Sloane was an eccentric antiques dealer who wore old-fashioned clothes whilst driving a vintage, cream-coloured Cord automobile. He had a cute secretary in the shape of 'Miss Blessing', who is hopelessly infatuated with him. Neither shop nor secretary made it into the subsequent series.
Ann Turkel provided glamour, and Clive Revill gleefully hammed it up as the maniac Clawson. Dan O'Herlihy was splendid as 'The Director', Sloane's boss. Comic relief came from E.F.F.I.E. the computer ( voiced by Michele Carey ). When N.B.C. President Fred Silverman saw the finished film, he liked the basic concept and commissioned a series, but minus Logan. In his place came Robert Conrad.
British viewers were supposed to have seen this on I.T.V. as part of their Autumn ( Fall ) line-up in 1979, but an industrial dispute blacked out the whole of the network for ten weeks, and it was held over to Christmas. 'The T.V. Times' billed it under the title: 'T.R. Sloane Of The Secret Service'.
When broadcast in the States, the series - 'A Man Called Sloane' - had been and gone, hence the pilot was retitled 'Death Ray 2000', though the year is never mentioned on screen. The '70's fashions on display clearly make nonsense of the new title.
One stand-out moment; in his villa, Clawson menaces Sloane with various weapons, all the time indulging in polite conversation. The agent retaliates in kind, the sequence ends with him lighting the fuse on a cannon.
My copy of this movie has a different musical score to the one used on the 1979 U.K. broadcast. Sloane originally had his own theme in the form of a clarinet solo, presumably intended to reflect the character's eccentricity. It was by Patrick Williams, later to compose the upbeat, disco flavoured theme for 'A Man Called Sloane'.
