Peter Gunn - DVD

Peter Gunn, Set 1

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Peter Gunn 3 out of 5 stars.
10 of 16 people found this review helpful.

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.

Peter Gunn, Set 2

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Gunn Gets Better 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 17 people found this review helpful.

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. While the first boxed set offered some great episodes, including "Lynn's Blues," which I feel is the best of the series, the second boxed set is actually more colorful.

While Mancini's West Coast jazz score and the noirish tone continued, the locations offered Gunn a chance to roam a bit, as the show got even better. 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.

Peter Gunn

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Editorial Review:

features original music by henry mancini

Peter Gunn (1987)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A worthy effort 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Peter Gunn represents the panache and cool of the late 50's and early 60's urban scene. I remember watching this show as a kid and still today that easily recognizable intro of the theme song by the late Henry Mancini is firmly implanted in my consciousness. This version starring Peter Strauss ( a brilliant actor) pays a laudable homage to the TV show. Peter Strauss could be Craig Stevens revisited, yet Strauss adds his own personal stamp on the role. The plot may be a little thin and contrived, but having Strauss and Ms. Pearl Bailey (in one of her last roles prior to leaving us) as "Mother" more than makes up for the film's shortcomings. While the other supporting characters are not quite the same as the originals, they do a credible and noteworthy job. I think Blake Edwards wanted to introduce a new generation to the "Gunn" private eye genre. While this film does have some flaws, I think it's a worthy effort and it's entertaining to watch.

Editorial Review:

This DVD Disc is formatted for all regions Peter Gunn a connoisseur og beautiful women andcool jazz, an ex-cop, turned private eye, is caught uo in the middle of a dangerous gang war. But to Gunn dealing with the heat is alot like jazz, it makes more sense when you play it cool in the fight against crime.....