Tightrope

1959

Tightrope

8.2 | en | Drama

Tightrope is an American crime drama series that aired on CBS from September 1959 to September 1960, under the alternate sponsorship of the J.B. Williams Company, and American Tobacco. Produced by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in association with Screen Gems, the series stars Mike Connors as an undercover agent named "Nick" who was assigned to infiltrate criminal gangs. The show was to have originally been titled Undercover Man but it was changed before going to air.

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Seasons & Episodes

EP37 Bullets and Ballet

May. 31,1960

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EP36 A Matter of Money

May. 24,1960

Nick is assigned to break up a gang headed by Steve Taylor. This particularly unsavory gang uses threats and violence to force small shopkeepers to pay for protection.

EP35 Borderline

May. 17,1960

The undercover agent is assigned to smash a dope ring that sells to Americans from a base in Mexico.

EP34 The Hired Guns

May. 10,1960

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EP33 The Horse Runs High

May. 03,1960

The undercover agent is assigned to break up a gambling ring that bets heavily on certain horses--and then makes sure they win by doping them.

EP32 The Shark

Apr. 26,1960

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EP31 The Penthouse Story

Apr. 19,1960

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EP30 The Gangster's Daughter

Apr. 12,1960

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EP29 Achilles and His Heels

Apr. 05,1960

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EP28 The Chinese Pendant

Mar. 29,1960

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EP27 Big Business

Mar. 15,1960

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EP26 Park Avenue Story

Mar. 08,1960

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EP25 First Time Out

Mar. 01,1960

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EP24 The Brave Pigeon

Feb. 23,1960

Underworld leader Max Rommey wants Paul Anderson dead. To protect Anderson, the undercover agent becomes part of Rommey's gang.

EP23 The Long Odds

Feb. 16,1960

A detective assigned to investigate a phoney health club is killed by one of the club owners. An undercover agent follows up, convincing the gangsters that he's a gambler on the run.

EP22 The Model and the Mobster

Feb. 09,1960

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EP21 Three to Make Ready

Feb. 02,1960

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EP20 Appointment in Jericho (a.k.a. Assignment in Jericho)

Jan. 26,1960

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EP19 Cold Ice

Jan. 19,1960

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EP18 Broken Rope

Jan. 12,1960

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EP17 Night of the Gun

Jan. 05,1960

Dan Hawley and David Johnson, witnesses to a murder committed by gangster Jimmy Farrow, are a target for Larry Maddox, a hired killer. After Maddox kills Hawley, police take Johnson's wife and children into protective custody. Johnson, fearing for his life, goes into hiding. Nick is put on the case.

EP16 Two Private Eyes

Dec. 29,1959

Sam Keely and Jeff Stewart are a bit on the shady side. The undercover agent's strategy is to muscle in on their racket.

EP15 The Neon Wheel

Dec. 22,1959

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EP14 Cold Kill

Dec. 15,1959

An undercover agent assumes the identity of a killer hired to rub out a murder witness. But the intended victim is hiding, and the first task is to smoke him out.

EP13 The Lady

Dec. 08,1959

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EP12 The Perfect Circle

Dec. 01,1959

Barney MacCready puts his train-robbery plan into action. First he kidnaps a detective, then he has two of his henchmen board the train one posing as the missing detective the other as his prisoner.

EP11 Black Tie Kill

Nov. 24,1959

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EP10 The Money Fight

Nov. 17,1959

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EP9 The Patsy

Nov. 10,1959

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EP8 Man in the Middle

Nov. 03,1959

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EP7 Music and Mink

Oct. 20,1959

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EP6 Thousand Dollar Bill

Oct. 13,1959

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EP5 The Cracking Point

Oct. 06,1959

The undercover agent joins in on a robbery.

EP4 Stand on Velvet

Sep. 29,1959

The agent joins the gang of William Kane, their objective is to run the leader of the numbers racket out of town.

EP3 The Frame

Sep. 22,1959

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EP2 The Casino

Sep. 15,1959

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EP1 Getaway Day

Sep. 08,1959

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8.2 | en | Drama , Crime | More Info

Released: 1959-09-08 | Released Producted By: Screen Gems Television , Greene-Rouse Productions Country: United States of America Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:

Synopsis

Stream Online

The tv show is currently not available onine

Cast

Mike Connors

Director

Producted By

Screen Gems Television , Greene-Rouse Productions

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Cast

Mike Connors

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Reviews

A_Different_Drummer Don't forget, TV was a new medium. They needed to muck about to see what worked.. and what did not. In Ringo, the hero used a gun that shot 6 normal cartridges ... and also a shotgun load. Most if not all of the episodes ended with the bad guys walking up to Ringo, all smiles because he was out of ammo ... ka-pow -- no more bad guy. (Based on a real gun, made in France, BTW). In Have Gun Will Travel the hero had a derringer hidden in his belt. Time and again poor Palladin would be captured and forced to turn over his gunbelt .. only to palm the derringer. In Wyatt Earp, Hugh O'brien had a custom gun with an extra long barrel, designed by Ned Buntline. Episode after episode, the baddies would challenge him to a gunfight and he would distance himself from them so that, ultimately, only his gun had the proper range. (Same gimmick used effectively in several Lee Van Cleef films later on). In WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, McQueen could swivel aim and fire his weapon without the need to actually clear the holster, buying him precious seconds, and always winning the contest. And here in Tightrope, a series best remembered for launching Connors to Mannix fame, almost every single episode ended with the main character going for that pistol strapped to his back (a trick re-used decades later by no less than Bruce Willis in one of the Die-Hards). No disrespect to any of the earlier reviewers who loved the show -- IT WAS A FUN SHOW, and Mike was great -- but mainly it was about the gimmick.

Cheyenne-Bodie "Tightrope" (1959-60) was a terrific series about an undercover cop. Mike Connors played the role with great style and flash. He was a magnet for the many luscious women he encountered while pretending to be a smooth crook looking for action.Connors narrated each episode, and he was the only regular. He would worm his way into the confidence of criminals who were planning a big job. At the end of the episode, almost all the bad guys would be captured in a surprise police raid but"in the confusion, one man escaped-me". However, in one episode a cop who doesn't know Connors is undercover shoots him as he tries to escape.Connors carried a gun that was in a holster attached to his belt in the small of his back. When he was searched, no one thought to pat him down there. When the bad guys believed they had him covered, Connors would swivel and come up with the gun seemingly out of nowhere. It was a great gimmick that I never tired of.There were fine ending scenes of a lonely Connors walking the city streets at night narrating his thoughts. This gave the show a nice noir feel and made you feel close to the romantic existential hero.'Tightrope" was well paced, and the 30-minute episodes flew by.Guest stars included Kent Taylor, Richard Jaeckel, Gerald Mohr, Robert Lowery, Whitney Blake, Connie Hines, Paula Raymond, Jean Byron, Barbara Bain, Paul Burke, Karen Steele, Ed Nelson, Leslie Parrish, Mike Road, Ruta Lee and June Vincent. The producers were Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, who wrote the brilliant Edmond O'Brien thriller "DOA" and won an Oscar for "Pillow Talk". Rouse and Greene also did the fine Glenn Ford western "The Fastest Gun Alive" and the Stephen Boyd guilty pleasure "The Oscar". Rouse and Greene were masters of pulp melodrama.Writer Ben Maddow (the screenplay for "The Asphalt Jungle") was the creator of "Tightrope". The show was suggested by the experiences of a real cop, who appeared on "To Tell the Truth" the week before this show premiered. As I recall, the guy even looked a little like Connors.This was a great role for Mike Connors, sort of a combination of Richard Diamond and The Fugitive. He was superb.Two hour-long pilots were made in the early 60's in an attempt to revive the series. The first was "The New Tightrope" and the second was "The Expendables". Both starred Connors. "The Expendables" was aired in 1962, but the semi-documentary approach used took all the juice out of the concept. I turned it off after a few minutes, even though Dina Merrill and Zachary Scott were intriguing guest stars, and "Tightrope" had been my favorite show.One more ambitious attempt was made to bring back "Tightrope" in a 1972 movie pilot called "Man on a String". Christopher George ("The Rat Patrol", "The Immortal") played a dirty cop who is thrown into jail. Of course it is just an act so that George can go undercover. The director was the great Joseph Sargent ("Tribes", the "Longstreet" movie pilot, "The Marcus Nelson Murders") and the cast included Keith Carradine, Joel Grey and Jack Warden. Ben Maddow was the writer. They tried hard but no cigar."Tightrope" was done perfectly the first time, and the new pilots never recaptured the magic.

mike rice The show was fine. Mike 'Touch' Connors had been a B movie actor in the early fifties who couldn't get arrested in a decent film. Then he came along and did this immaculate TV series. I just went looking for this series and another with Frank Lovejoy, Meet McGraw, on Netflix, with no luck.In the early days of TV, the opening billboard sequences of TV shows were often better than the shows. But with 'Touch' Connors behind the voice, the ultimate film noir voice-over had been met and joined with the premiere of this show.I would die just to hear Connors do the opening sequence to the show, let alone get DVD copies.Connors played an undercover cop who wore his .38 stuffed in a holster in the small of his back. He wore a black suit in every episode, and was as cool as a TV detective can get. The series was as noir as TV could manage. The suit was always dark, so was Touch's hair, the rooms were dim and dingy, but the night was bright with dark promise.In that opening Billboard, Touch would recite the litany of the undercover man walking that tightrope, and my brother and I would be writhing with excitement from the effect, in our chairs. Then the show would come on and it would be something of a letdown. But Tightrope was a good show as fifties detective shows go.Later, Connors would get a bigger TV show called Mannix, which was not as good, and become famous for the sense of parody he brought to the voice-over. I'm not sure he intended that, but years later, after Mannix was ancient history, the effect was saluted in an episode of Murder She Wrote. Connors played a disembodied voice, whose recording was used to illustrate his own murder. A little like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, only trashier.It was great. Elizabeth Ashley played a down-at-the-heel waitress in the episode, and Connors' voice-overs were wittier than a dead man should be, and funny.But its the Tightrope Series that I long for. Could some of the others among you try to help start a drumbeat for this series to appear on DVD? Just write to Sony and beg them to produce a DVD series.TV and movies today are now so boring that the old stuff is bound to come back on DVD.Besides, someone has to try and bring this marvelous series back. Someone has to walk that tightrope and that someone is you!

skoyles A fine if formulaic series. The star's escape as the police closed in was the high point of suspense. He also wore his .38 in a distinctive position - behind his back. If "Tightrope" were to be issued on DVD I would buy it in an instant.