Peter Gunn, Set 1 (1958)

The show that started the P.I. wave

Look up "cool" in the dictionary and you might get a picture of "Peter Gunn." This show started a wave of private eye/detective shows in the late 50's, "77 Sunset Strip," "Johnny Staccato," "Mike Hammer," "M Squad," and many others. Craig Stevens starred as "Peter Gunn," sort of a lesser Cary Grant -- but solid nonetheless. Lola Albright was a real dish as his squeeze. Throw in Emmy winner Herchel Bernardi as his Lt. pal, Hope Emerson as the 6'2 "Mother," and last, but surely not least, Henry Mancini's jazzy score and you have a real winner. The show ran first on NBC, then ABC, for a total of three season. The discs are a bit pricey, but you'll get some terrific retro stuff. The picture quality of the 50-year-old prints are not pristine (as you might imagine) but the sound quality is first-class. Highly recommended viewing for a chilly, rainy evening. August 23, 2007

"Blue is Just the Color of the Sea"

Long before Crockett and Tubbs, before Magnum and Dan Tanna, and before Tony Franciosa as Matt Helm or Mike Conners as Mannix, there was Peter Gunn. He was cool. He was the guy every girl wanted and every guy wanted to be like. He lived in a cool world of jazz and bad guys, and girls who needed his help. He had a cool and sexy girlfriend, a little on the sweet side. Some of his friends, like Lt. Jacoby, were squares. It somehow made Gunn even cooler, that you didn't have to be cool yourself to be his pal.

Craig Stevens was Peter Gunn and Lola Albright was his girl, Edie Hart. Hershel Bernardi was his cop pal Lt. Jocoby. Hope Emerson was "Mother." She ran the jazz joint Gunn frequented. Blake Edwards was the guy who dreamed up Peter Gunn in the first place. By accident, he ran into a guy by the name of Mancini while getting his hair cut, and the music Mancini would write for Gunn would change television forever. It would also begin a long and fruitful friendship that would give moviegoers and music lovers such classics as "Days of Wine and Roses" and "The Pink Panther."

While there is an occasional washed out look to these black and white episodes, the convenience of having so many great episodes on the two discs sort of makes up for the occasional lack of quality. Volume one contains great episodes like "Rough Buck" and "Streetcar Jones," while the second disc contains fabulous entries such as "Death House Testament." My favorite "Peter Gunn" episode of all time, "Lynn's Blues," is included on the first disc.

This is one of the best episodes of Peter Gunn ever aired. Linda Lawson portrays Lynn Martell, singing hauntingly about being blue. It is obvious she needs someone on her side. Lynn is an old friend of Peter Gunn's girlfriend, Edie, and Gunn noses around the jazz club where she sings as a favor to her. He soon learns that Edie was right to be worried.

A knife-wielding guy named Santano (David Tomack) guards Lynn and doesn't take well to Gunn asking questions. Gunn's old pal, Lt. Jacoby, warns him about Santano, who works for the club's owner, Nat Kruger ( Guy Prescott). Peter suspects it all ties in to the murder of Roger Dwyer (William Masters). Gunn is just in the nick of time to keep Lynn from ending it all, and she finally tells him her story of love and sadness.

Linda Lawson gives a great performance as the distraught Lynn Martell, and sings beautifully, adding a lot of atmosphere to this episode. Gunn gets to flirt with his girl Edie and talk to "Mother." Lt. Jacoby will have Gunn's back when everything comes to a head, and the last scene of Gunn and Edie dining at the club and listening to Lynn's final number makes this one really special.

This particular episode was written by Lewis Reed and the show's creator, Blake Edwards. Like all the others, it had Mancini's West Coast jazz score. Craig Stevens will always have a special place in TV history as the very cool, Peter Gunn. This show broke new ground in television for its blend of music and action, and set a tone for what cool really was. This is a must have for "Peter Gunn" fans and anyone else who loves classic television. There may indeed not be much that's new here, but that is only because Craig Stevens as Peter Gunn started it all. September 14, 2006

Essence of cool

Great entertainment from the fifties. Peter Gunn was the cool detective of his day. From the great opening theme to the fine cast of supporting and guest characters, this show is an institution from the golden days of television. In watching these episodes, it is hard to believe that they only run thirty minutes each rather than the hour long dramas we have become accustom to. Drop into Mother's for a nightcap, some cool jazz and good tv. August 13, 2006

Peter Gunn

I was hoping this was going to be a lot cooler than it was. PETER GUNN has a solid reputation, the redoubtable Blake Edwards behind it as creator and, of course, Henry Mancini's justly famous, driving theme song. In this series set you get two disks covering the first 16 half-hour episodes of the show.

Anyway, here's what I learned from the first seven-hours (series set number two is in transit, but the mold was cast by episode two, and I don't think it's gonna change much.) PETER GUNN stars actor Craig Stevens in the title role. At certain angles Stevens is a dead ringer for Cary Grant, a fact not lost on the show's producers. Gunn is suave, cool, unflappable, and well dressed in the latest of late-`50's fashions. Each episode, which lasts about 25-minutes without commercials, begins with a crime or a scene of violence happening to someone we've never seen before. A girl falls through a swank nightclub skyline to her death, for instance. Opening credits and theme roll and Peter Gunn is soon drawn into the case. Gunn can usually be found at Mother's, a smoky jazz joint on the right side of the river run by `Mother,' played by the imposingly tall (6'2") Hope Emerson. Pretty Edie Hart (Lola Albright) is the lead singer at the club and, not surprisingly, Gunn's girlfriend. Rounding out the continuing cast is Herschel Bernardi as police Lieutenant Jacoby. For those who keep track of such things, Gunn has a cordial, respectful, and mutually supportive relationship with Jacoby.

The episodes may start with a bang, but there's an awful lot of whimper that follows. The crimes aren't terribly imaginative, the guest stars sturdy but unspectacular (the names I recognized from disks 1 & 2 include Gavin MacLeod, Whit Bissell, J. Pat O'Malley, Billy Barty, Ross Martin and - for old music fans - Nino Temple plays the girlfriend of a young hood in disk two's "Sisters of the Friendless,") and, although a time or two the light'll grow harsh and the shadows grow long and fat, for the most part the stories aren't all that visually appealing, either. A lot of dingy back alleys and under-furnished rooms, mainly.

The show did make me laugh once, unexpectedly. Poor Lola Albright's Edie is left without much to do besides look beautiful - which she does uncommonly well - breath a tune every half-dozen episodes or so, and worry, wait, and be elegantly wooed by Cary Grant-clone Stevens. Some of my favorite scenes involve the two of them, leaning over a railing in the back of Mother's, nuzzling. In the episode entitled "The Frog" Whit Bissell plays a character named Daniel Swink (a debonair crime boss from `the other side of the river.') Another character's name is Vernon Lilly, yet another is simply called The Frog. When Gunn tells Jacoby and Edie he has to go see Loretta Gymps Edie exclaims `Gymps! What is it with these names!?' If PETER GUNN had spent more time gently poking fun at itself, in particular, and crime thrillers, in general, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. There's a beatnik bar Gunn visits in a couple of episodes that was fun, too, as was a rockabilly bar. Beatniks and rock-a-billers lost their edge a long, long time ago, but they were `out there' back then, and they add a nice sense of time to the program. Too bad there isn't more of that here.




July 31, 2006

Sophisticated television Noir

Craig Stevens is the poor man's Cary Grant--perfect for the small screen. The show is the epitome of 50's cool from the long cars with the big fins to the beat coffee houses,jazz clubs and interesting characters. For a half hour show the stories are fairly well rounded too. I only wish the episodes had been an hour long, but, alas, they were not. Our loss. November 22, 2004

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