Peter Gunn

1958

Peter Gunn

8 | TV-PG | en | Drama

Peter Gunn is an American private eye television series. Filmed in a film noir atmosphere and featuring Henry Mancini music that could tell you the action with your eyes closed, Peter Gunn worked in style. Known as Pete to his friends and simply as Gunn to his enemies, he did his job in a calm cool way.

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Seasons & Episodes

EP38 Murder on the Line

Sep. 18,1961

Cesar Carlyle, a very rich man, hires Gunn to find certain documents which, if made public, could ruin him. Seems the papers were stolen and the theif wants a good deal of money for their return.

EP37 Down the Drain

Jun. 26,1961

A man named Paul Condon calls the police and tells them where a cache of stolen jewels can be found. But before any more information can be passed on - Condon is shot down.

EP36 Voodoo

Jun. 19,1961

Abel Gunther a small-time Haitian sugar-cane grower, blames the death of his wife on the spirit world. He has a more praticial explanation for another of his worries - his cane fields have been leveled by fire.

EP35 Deadly Intrusion

Jun. 12,1961

Golf instructor Gil Manson is accused by the police of being a hit and run driver. Manson insists he was giving a golf lesson at the time of the accident, but his pupil has mysteriously disappeared.

EP34 Death Is a Four Letter Word

Jun. 05,1961

Lisa Randolph's well-groomed appearance belies the turmoil of her emotions - as Gunn discovers when he is asked to prevent her from committing suicide.

EP33 A Bullet for the Boy

May. 29,1961

Gambling man Paul Mitchell and the son of an American diplomat in Acapulco, is show and wounded while leaving his home.

EP32 A Matter of Policy

May. 22,1961

Gunman Frank Dineen never objected to killing people for money. This time, however he's going to do a job for himself.

EP31 Last Resort

May. 15,1961

Clinton Hobart, former movie great, is trying to make a comeback. But hard-driving young producer Les Murdock isn't making matters any easier for the old fellow.

EP30 Till Death Do Us Part

May. 08,1961

Edward Candell is scheduled to die for the murder of his wife Leona. Tommy McDonald is surprised to hear the verdict - he just saw Leona.

EP29 The Most Deadly Angel

May. 01,1961

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EP28 The Murder Bond

Apr. 24,1961

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EP27 Short Motive

Apr. 10,1961

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EP26 A Penny Saved

Apr. 03,1961

Ballet dancer Nico Belurin escapes from a home for the mentally ill.

EP25 Cry Love, Cry Murder

Mar. 27,1961

The gun used in a murder of a gangster is found in the possesion of a teenager.

EP24 Come Dance with Me and Die

Mar. 20,1961

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EP23 Portrait in Leather

Mar. 13,1961

While ex-heavyweight champ Billy Cochrane is training for a comeback, an attempt is made on his life.

EP22 The Deep End

Mar. 06,1961

Susan Neilson swims out to the deep end of her pool and drowns. Her swimming instructor, Phil Matterson, left her alone, poured himself a drink and ignored her cries for help.

EP21 Than a Serpent's Tooth

Feb. 27,1961

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EP20 A Kill and a Half

Feb. 20,1961

It's ""trick or treat"" night, and Arthur Merrill answers the door to a big surprise.

EP19 I Know It's Murder

Feb. 13,1961

Kevin Daniels asks Gunn to prevent the murder of his mother.

EP18 Death Is a Sore Loser

Jan. 30,1961

A janitor and his wife see Police Sergeant Lee Davis enter their building and minutes later they hear two shots. They rush to the scene to find Sergeant Davis holding a gun over the body of a dead derelict.

EP17 Blind Item

Jan. 23,1961

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EP16 Jacoby's Vacation

Jan. 16,1961

Jacoby tells Gunn that he's going on vacation to some nice quiet place. Gunn tells Jacoby he's got just the place.

EP15 Bullet in Escrow

Jan. 09,1961

Ed Stone is released from prison, met by a friend who gives him a gun and makes a call to Peter Gunn.

EP14 Royal Roust

Jan. 02,1961

A royal visitor, King Felix, is visiting the city and it's Jacoby's job to escort him through the city jail.

EP13 A Tender Touch

Dec. 26,1960

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EP12 Sepi

Dec. 19,1960

A young boy tells Gunn that he saw his father beaten up during the night. But when Gunn calls the police, Sepi disappears.

EP11 Big Dream, Deadly Dream

Dec. 12,1960

Detective Eddie Sellers comes clost to solving a two-million dollar robbery and pays with his life. His brother Cal, also a detective, is afraid he's next.

EP10 Take Five for Murder

Dec. 05,1960

Gunn is hired by the manager of teen idol Bobby Jeeter to payoff a blackmailer and find out who is doing the blackmailing.

EP9 The Long Green Kill

Nov. 28,1960

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EP8 Tramp Steamer

Nov. 21,1960

The Rico brothers' testimony was responsible for Matt Poliska's deportation, and when Dave Rico is shot, his dying word is Poliska. But Poliska's not supposted to be in the country.

EP7 Death Across the Board

Nov. 14,1960

Wealthy Sportsman Harley Bernard would like to know who murdered his stable manager. At first Gunn suspects Frank Rousseau, a gangster who once tried to get Wally to fix a race. The next suspect is a seven-foot giant who tries to strangle Gunn. After being rescued by Lt. Jacoby, Gunn visits TV exercise personality Jack LaLanne who identifies the tall man as the ""Great Gorza.""

EP6 The Death Frame

Nov. 07,1960

Eddie Carson, a small time thug, is sure he's going to be bumped off. He tries to get Gunn to help him but the sleuth is unmoved until it's too late.

EP5 The Judgment

Oct. 31,1960

On Halloween Arthur Merrill answers the door prepared to treat the youngsters - but one of them shoots him.

EP4 The Candidate

Oct. 24,1960

The candidate for Governor, Adrian Grimmett, runs on a no-taxes platform. Who could possibly want to assassinate him?

EP3 The Maitre D'

Oct. 17,1960

We don't have an overview of this episode, please check back later.

EP2 Mask of Murder

Oct. 10,1960

Gunn gets a frantic phone call from Norman Hartley and rushes to Hartley's home - only to find him dead.

EP1 The Passenger

Oct. 03,1960

We don't have an overview of this episode, please check back later.

8 | TV-PG | en | Drama , Crime | More Info

Released: 1958-09-22 | Released Producted By: Spartan Productions (III) , Country: United States of America Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:

Synopsis

Stream Online

The tv show is currently not available onine

Cast

Craig Stevens , Lola Albright , Herschel Bernardi

Director

Blake Edwards

Producted By

Spartan Productions (III) ,

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Trailers

Cast

Craig Stevens

as Peter Gunn

Condor The Elevator Killer Bees Gunn Buchanan Rides Alone Peter Gunn The Deadly Mantis The French Line Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Lola Albright

as Edie Hart

Terraces The Helicopter Spies The Money Jungle How I Spent My Summer Vacation The Way West Lord Love a Duck Joy House Kid Galahad Peter Gunn

Herschel Bernardi

as Lieutenant Jacoby

The Art of Being Nick I-Man Hail to the Chief The Front No Deposit, No Return The Story of Jacob and Joseph Journey Back to Oz Arnie But I Don't Want to Get Married!

Reviews

dougdoepke Think crime shows of the 50's and you probably think Dragnet (1951-1959). Certainly, it was the most influential, presenting the LAPD as complete police professionals. Of course, there were other lesser known cop shows like Racket Squad (1951-1953) or the Lineup (1954- 1960). However, in terms of private eye crime solvers, there were very few until the end of the decade. Most crime in that decade was of the Old West variety that sheriffs solved amidst the flood of Westerns that followed Gunsmoke (1955-1975). This remained pretty much the case until the big movie studios decided to get into the TV business. In 1958, Warner Bros. introduced the hip detective series 77 Sunset Strip (1958- 1964). Unlike its predecessors, Strip concentrated on good-looking people, hipster Edd Kookie Byrnes, and the glamorous surroundings along Hollywood's famed Sunset Strip. In short, it suggested that being a private eye doesn't have to be a grimy business, ala Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. The series' success was quickly followed by such clones as Bourbon Street Beat (1959-1960), and Hawaiian Eye (1959-1963), all making use of the same basic formula. In short, the rising prosperity of that post-war decade was beginning to be reflected on the living room screen.This background is worth outlining in order to provide a flavor of just how unique Blake Edwards's Peter Gunn was to the time and to the genre. Sure, 77 SS had a snappy musical lead-in, but Henry Mancini's driving jazz score signaled a new and more daring sensibility. But more significantly the jazzy motif framed both the characters and their setting as not just hip, but cool, urban cool, like in 'sophisticated'. And Edwards followed that up by wisely casting Craig Stevens as the immaculately sleek and unemotional private eye, the very essence of urban cool. Note how emotionally restrained his private eye is in most every situation.Also worth noting is how the series populated its urban landscape with not only unusual but sometimes grotesque characters, ones never seen on network TV in those days. Note also that Gunn is portrayed as non-judgmental toward these unconventional types. He simply accepts them as part of the human landscape.And, of course, there's also Edie (Albright) the sultry lounge singer. It's clear that her relationship with Gunn is both intimate and indifferent to the bonds of matrimony. To my knowledge, this is the first TV series to challenge that taboo even if only in implied style. Something should also be said about Mother, the proprietress of where Pete hangs out. It's clear that Mother, whether played by Emerson or Urecal, is not exactly Donna Reed. In fact she's closer to Mike Tyson, making it clear that producer Edwards is not afraid of a little gender bending, another challenge to convention of the day. In fact, the only conventional continuing character is Lt. Jacoby (Bernardi) as Gunn's cop buddy. This allows Gunn to be separate from law enforcement but not outside it—an important gesture to convention and likely TV's Standards and Practices.Gunn is also likely the most noirish of the shows of its day. The traditional approach was high-key lighting that cast few shadows. This was also true of the other crime shows. Most of Edwards' production, however, was filmed in low-key lighting, whether dimly lit lounges or darkened city streets. My guess is that as an independently produced series, budget was as important here as was aesthetics. Anyway, the low-key lent not only atmosphere but complemented the rest of the production as a whole.Put all these components together and Peter Gunn added up to an occasionally brilliant series even though the stories were often unexceptional. It was that overall exotic feel in contrast to those otherwise unadventurous TV years that carried the show, even down to today. All in all, Gunn was also the first series to foreshadow the coming cosmopolitan and liberalizing years of the Kennedy era. In that sense, it proved also something of a cultural milestone, and is thus worth commenting on.

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?

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.

smoothie-4 although i didn't get to see pete do his thing when the show originally aired from 1958-61 i have thoroughly enjoyed watching the released episodes on homevideo.peter gunn has the smoothest demeanor about the cases he works,but when he gets riled,look out.he can spar with the best of them.i'm sure it helps his image to be dating the pretty night club singer at the local scene called mothers.this way,it doesn't seem like he's just a hood bustin machine,but also a loverboy on the side.henry mancini does wonders for this show with its slick "crime jazz" that sets the tone at the beginning of each episode.i recommend anyone who is into police or detective stories to get into pete if they haven't already.