SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

pensman Great music, clipped noir dialogue right out of Dashiell Hammett, solid plots (mostly), black actors when no one was using any, and non PC police (shoot first)--the series deserves a modern audience to appreciate early quality TV. What's nice for me is seeing this show on a 65 inch TV and running the sound through a home theater sound system with top JBL speakers. Just sit back and enjoy that Mancini sound track. Yes the sets are minimal but some great actors getting started--James Coburn, Norman Fell, Ted Knight, Gavin MacLeod--just to name a few. Now thanks to Hulu you can stream Gunn right into your home.

jadedalex There are so many good things about "Peter Gunn". The classic theme by Mancini will stay in your head forever. Craig Stevens and Lola Albright may not be Bogey and Bacall, but both are attractive leads. Stevens has a Cary Grant debonair quality. Albright was never used correctly, a la Ann-Margret. She was a beautiful actress and a fine singer. Herschel Bernardi is quite likable as Lieutenant Jacobi.I think the main reason 'Peter Gunn' did not succeed, say, in the way that 'Perry Mason' succeeded are tired scripts, and the fact that the half hour show left little time for plots to develop. 'Perry Mason' could often be an exercise in tedium, as characters move in and out so quickly that it is often hard to follow the story. And forget about trying to figure out who the murderer is. Best to leave it up to Mason, or, worse yet, have the killer confess to everybody in court. (This seems to me to be a lazy writer's plot device; this rarely EVER happens in real life. It's hokey.)I just viewed one "Peter Gunn" episode where sure enough, the murderer gives it all up on the witness stand. See that once and it is silly...see it countless times and it's irritating and downright stupid.To be fair, I've seen episodes that contain some flashes of wit. One scene fills with a young punk with a gun in his hand. For a moment, you think it's part of the episode. But the camera pans out and reveals that it is Jacobi watching television in his office, and he vocally decries the violence he is seeing on the tube. That was a clever touch."Peter Gunn" had its share of violence, although I don't think it ever reached the gore that became 'The Untouchables'. The Desilu production may have been the first to lead to public outcries about television and violence.With better scripts, and an hour-long format, "Peter Gunn" may have become a mainstay on television, enjoying a longer run. Certainly there were the beginnings of a fine ensemble cast a la Mason, but at twenty five minutes an episode, there was little chance of doing much more than saying 'hello' and 'goodbye'.Which is a shame. Lola Albright, had she been born in the days of the studio system, could have become a major movie star. I feel the same about Julie Adams ('Creature From the Black Lagoon'). Both these women were gorgeous, but they came into fame during the television age. Their lovely faces seem out of place on the small screen of the tube, but both women turned in fine performances in just about everything they were handed.And so all of the parts, Edie Hart's face, her voice, Gunn's suaveness, and Mancini's jazz add up to more than what became known as "Peter Gunn".

GeoData Peter Gunn DVD sets 1 & 2 contain the first 32 episodes of this series. These are reproduced in good quality video and audio, with easy to use menus and good jacket art clearly listing episode titles.The series is a joy to watch. As other reviewers have already noted, this series displays a good example of early TV production values in an era without special effects. Stories are acted out by excellent interplay between performers. Sets were limited to just a few stock locations and outdoor scenes were nearly always back lot scenes, ..at night. Special scenes are often just talking heads of the actors, looking down, seen from the "corpse's eye view". All tricks of the trade by excellent directors presenting well written scripts, in a short time, on a shorter budget. And, it all works still as artful production.It would be nice to see the remaining episodes made available in the same high quality professional manner. The 82 remaining episodes would easily fit onto two (or three) additional multi-disc DVD sets.Anyone out there at A&E listening?

Ludwig-2 This was one of the most provocative series ever made for TV, inaugurating a whole new genre. In addition to having the best music (by Henry Mancini) ever written for TV, it was perhaps the first and only film noire series.