The Streets of San Francisco

The headline says all I think about "The Streets of San Francisco". Great scene, great screenplays, great actors, great atmosphere. Michael Douglas shouldn't have left 1976... I would have loved to see two or three more seasons with the Stone/Keller team. SIMPLY THE BEST in any way! There have been only few "great" TV crime shows during the past 30 years; I would place Streets of San Francisco on top, followed by (in no particular order) Cannon, Petrocelli, Vega$, Magnum, Miami Vice, Jack and The Fatman, and Nash Bridges. These make watching TV a real pleasure.

San Francisco was still like THIS! Karl Malden dispensing wisdom, Michael Douglas dispensing testosterone, new Fords as far as the eye can see, and only a hint of the depravity that the city exudes. Good stories, well directed, thoughtful in short doses. Worth your time until Douglas exits, then it fades to black.

It was not only that Karl Malden and Michael Douglas had good chemistry for four out of five seasons, they did. But it was a friendly generational rivalry in looks and style.

Back in the 40s and 50s on the big screen and small detectives all looked like Karl Malden with the button down shirts and the obligatory fedora. But in 1972 when The Streets Of San Francisco made its debut Malden was dinosaur from another era. So without one big of dialog set you had a generation gap the second Michael Douglas in a hip outfit for the Seventies or as hip as a police force allows you to be.

But there was no conflict, an occasional disagreement as the older cop taught the younger one. But it wasn't that Malden was always right. Occasionally Douglas taught Malden a thing or two about reaching the younger generation when it was necessary to solve a case.

Douglas left the show in 1976 and Richard Hatch became Malden's new partner. But they never quite got it together as a team the way Malden did with Douglas.

I liked the show, I liked the stories. But most of all Malden and Douglas were a joy to watch.

The 119 hour-long episodes of this police drama were originally broadcast on ABC from 1972 to 1977. This DVD contains 12 episodes (570 minutes) of the 23 episodes from the second season. All the second season episode titles and their original air-dates are detailed below.

Quinn Martin ("The Fugitive" and "The F.B.I.") stayed with his favorite genre and enhanced it by using the city made famous for its crime by "Bullet" and "Dirty Harry". The production is classy but the stories are not particularly interesting or original.

The show's real claim to fame is as the best ever pairing of a veteran cop with a young hunk rookie. While this is an overused concept it works particularly well in this series because the actors (Karl Malden as Mike Stone and Michael Douglas as Steve Keller) shared much the same career dynamic as their on-screen characters. Veteran actor Malden ("On the Waterfront" etc.) plays a blue-collar 23-year veteran of the force and acting novice Douglas a college-educated newcomer interested in new methods of crime solving.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This was definitely a good show and it really fed off the dynamic of the older cop (Malden) and the younger cop (Douglas). The chemistry between the two was what made the show great and it would eventually be the springboard to the later success that Michael Douglas would have in later years. Also, this show is definitely overlooked when it comes to classic police dramas. Too bad it had to come out in an era when the super cop shows dominated the television landscape.