jacegaffney In a way, PETER GUNN was (and is) to be enjoyed as Hollywood's own modest version of the virtues of French auteur, J.P. Melville: a dreamily nocturnal jazz-laced exercise of style over content in which the achingly desirable Lola Albright provides counterpoint sultriness to the stone-faced stoicism of Craig Stevens' Cary Grant-like Gunn.But there is one episode entitled "The Comic," starring Shelly Berman as a neurotic funnyman (Danny Arnold) who insists his wife is out to destroy him and enlists the hero's help to prevent it. The show is basically two monologues: the first one is of Arnold explaining the cause of his concerns to Gunn; the second is of a crucial portion of the nightclub stand-up act itself, in which through metaphor and analogy, it becomes increasingly more clear that it is Arnold who is a mortal threat to his wife and not the other way around. His monologue which is "killing" the audience is thus transformed in the story from being merely comic to a confession of first degree murder.Berman's performance defines what tour-de-force means and is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) neglected acting job in the history of network television (he received no Emmy). It is also quite possibly the most personal, successfully concentrated expression by Edwards of his divided, comedic/depressive sensibility. So direct, so simple, but the final effect is enormous.That this half-hour installment is not one of the legends in the annals of the golden age of television is one of the Industry's cruelest mysteries.Rating for the Series: A generous 8for this one sterling episode: a steely 10Composite Score: 9

ciaoetshana I take exception to the present commentary in that the movies were large and more impressive due to the sound and filming. However, the television characters that had a good, strong, character or persona were definitely their own and I respectfully do not see the comparison.Gable, Brando and Grant can never be duplicated in any way. Each man had a distinctive personality and body language that expresses their individual persona which comes through the camera. Jones and Davis have nothing in common. Jones can be compared to Lola Albrights character somewhat from her movies, being in the same era. Her performance in comedy (the Adams Family) is a good reference of her acting abilities. William Shatner is what I call a very lucky actor being at the right time and place all during his career. Not an impressive nor commanding actor.Edward G. Robinson is another actor with extreme body language that meets his verbal lines. However, Craig Stevens has some romance in his persona and combining this with being a detective brings a new and fresh character. I have seen him in a movie with Lucille Ball and he did not have as much presence as he did in Peter Gunn.Ephram Zimbalist, Jr., played the same persona type actor in his movies as he did in television. A very personable, attractive male but not the leader. He is a well poised and groomed actor but lacks a certain strength. John Vivyan was great. I loved his facial expressions, his voice and body language. The all matched the character. Comparing Grant to Barry is somewhat close, however, we have a definite individual persona behind the characters that is strong and distinct. Grant is Grant after so many pictures and Barry did an outstanding job at his character. Looking back at the program and the comparison commentary, brings the thought to mind that being a female, of that era, makes me think the commentary was written by a male. I hope I am right.

jbacks3-1 I just finished watching 3 compilation series DVD's and was hoping to have a flashback on what I had thought was the coolest show (actually even then in syndication) from my early 1960's childhood. Yup, there was Craig Stevens racing around in his Plymouth Fury convertible (wearing "$30 shoes, a $200 suit and carrying a solid gold cigarette lighter") and guitar strumming Lt. Jacoby, complete with Charlie the Tuna's voice (even he drove a Christine-like Plymouth) and Lola Albright's "Edie" was as sexy as I remembered. Mancini's music is still way cool. But Jeez-Louise, the scripts stink! The problem is the :30 minute format allowed for maybe :22 of story and it appears that the producers just opted for atmosphere over cohesive plot. The series begged for an hour format. Several episodes I watched are completely illogical and/or just plain silly--- some make the revamped Amos Burke, Secret Agent or the 77 Sunset Strip clone, Surfside Six look Masterpiece Theater. Frankly most of the scripts are pointlessly stupid, and follow a format that invariably contain an immediate homicide (victims are quickly dispatched by bullets or the obligatory knife in the back), introduce a superfluous oddball character (Jack Webb used to do this with Dragnet, but usually less outrageously and certainly more sparingly)--- often a stereotypical beatnik, that simply wastes precious plot time. Next comes the fists and cut to a scene at Mother's Jazz Club where Edie makes googly eyes at Pete. Murders are solved somewhere around :19 and you can bet a Franklin half dollar that it was someone Pete met before the first cigarette commercial. It was kind of weird seeing several cast members of future Andy Griffith Show in one episode. In retrospect, it's odd that the perennial 1950's-60's also-ran ABC network (remember it's first #1-rated series wasn't until "Marcus Welby" a decade later) never realized they had all the elements here for a much better hour-long show. Peter Gunn is one of those television memories better left rattling around in a nostalgic corner of your head... I'll look for the two RCA albums of the show's music instead. Blaaech! 3/10 for Mancini, the threads and cool 50's Mopar wheels + the occasional glimpse of a talented-yet-under-employed character actor working for $250 1958 scale rent money. If Herschel Bernardi were still alive I'd love to ask him what it was like to work for 3 minutes screen time every week. Those Starkist commercials would be like Shakespeare.

rrichr Television from the mid '50's to the mid '60's, probably due to its roots in the theater, was far more stylized than today's fare. Most of us who watched it then, certainly as kids growing up, were probably not really aware of this aspect. We just watched and enjoyed. But in retrospect, or through seeing various classic shows on disc or tape, this stylistic aspect becomes very clear. Also lacking then was today's bottomless well of technological possibility, giving most productions of the time a rather cut-and-dried feel that might seem hopelessly lacking in dimensionality to the young viewer of this time. But there were true gems lying about in this older, rougher ground. It was this era, lest we forget, that spawned the peerless, original Twilight Zone, a series that perfectly sampled the over and undercurrents of its time as no other ever has, and which owed much of its power to the stark realities of low-tech TV. Also produced in this era was the superb Have Gun Will Travel with its perfect blend of psychological and physical intensity, one of several excellent western series that aired then.But in terms of pure style, no TV series of that time, of any genre, could match the half-hour crime drama Peter Gunn, a production so stylized and stylistically detailed, and so measured, that it almost resembled Japanese Kabuki. Every aspect of this Blake Edwards-produced series was meticulously detailed and managed, from the near-blank style of its acting to even the visuals that preceded and terminated breaks for commercials. In fact, it was the pre-commercial segue that became my favorite. In the sequence, a musical G-clef unwound itself and morphed into a Giacommeti-like human figure, all against a slowly-arpeggiated, extremely cool jazz guitar chord. This very slick sequence got past me the first time around, when the show was in its network run and I was too young to really appreciate it. But years later, when the series was in local syndication and airing at midnight, I stayed up just to watch and listen to it. It was that cool.Most Peter Gunn episodes were cut from a similar template: the caper to be addressed transpired in a pre-credit sequence (Peter Gunn was one of the first shows to jump directly to story before rolling opening creds.) Then Craig Steven's almost impossibly urbane private eye, Peter Gunn, would step onto the case, always bending the law just enough to keep Herschel Bernardi's way dour NYPD detective, Lt. Jacobi, unsure of whom to arrest first: Gunn or the perps in question. The often-repeated sight of Jacobi arriving on the scene, snub .38 drawn, ready to arrest the suspect, only to find Gunn already there and in control, never failed to amuse. When Gunn was not effortlessly staying two steps ahead of Jacobi, he was lizarding at Mother's, a waterfront jazz club, and getting his flirt on with its sultry headlining singer, blonde neutron bombshell Edie Hart, played by Lola Albright, a type of lady that might be defined as Marilyn Monroe's far more experienced sister. The show's sense of cool was almost too much, but not quite, a fact that made it eminently watchable then, and has allowed it to live on even now in syndication.Underpinning and significantly defining the series was Henry Mancini's superb music. Mancini passed away in the mid 90's and is just now getting his due, including a postage stamp in his memory. His Peter Gunn theme is still being covered today but it was his incidental music for the series that I loved best, especially the stuff that played as the pre-credit story opened. Mancini took the then-popular West Coast, cool jazz sound and further iced it down, doing things like blending flute and tremoloed vibraphones to sustain a menacing, ever-darkening cloud behind the plot. Mancini was a master of all moods, which he crafted with lush harmonies and gliding melodies (The ageless Days of Wine and Roses and Moon River are his; lyrics by Johnny Mercer.) Mancini was very prolific and did many great things that sort of slid by while no one was really looking, probably because he never tried to acquire the spotlight himself, as himself. He mainly let his work do the walking and talking. His soundtrack to the movie Hatari (an intermittently very entertaining action flick with John Wayne as an African big game capture expert) remains worthy and remarkable to this day. As a freshman at the University of Idaho, I watched Mancini guest-conduct the university orchestra; the Maestro forbearing graciously as his `Baby Elephant Walk', an incidental piece from the Hatari soundtrack that became an international hit, was butchered by the inept flute section. It was heart-rending. Mancini also did the music for another similar but unsuccessful TV series, Mr. Lucky, based on the Cary Grant movie character from the mid-forties. Mr. Lucky died fairly quickly, but its theme music, featuring the squishiest, most liquid Hammond organ voice ever recorded, lives on, in my memory at least.