Danger Man

The pedigree for "Danger Man" is a bit confusing. So, I'll try to make sense of it. The show was on for one season and each episode lasted about 23 minutes. Three years later, an hour-long series was created and was called "The Secret Agent"--with Patrick McGoohan once again playing an international 'fixer', John Drake. Then, after this series ended, McGoohan made "The Prisoner"--a show which MIGHT be a sequel to "The Secret Agent"...or it might not. This is because McGoohan's character is not referred to by name...he's just called Number 6. And, you aren't sure whether or not it's meant as a follow-up or not--and I can only assume that the television folks deliberately kept it vague.

"Danger Man" begins oddly. It explains that John Drake is a sort of international agent--a guy who goes on special assignments for many NATO nations. His nationality is a bit vague and this works reasonably well since McGoohan has an American/Irish/British background, though they seem to imply he's from New England (but the accent clearly ISN'T). Each episode is set in a different locale around the world and, amazingly, the show is wrapped up in about 23 minutes. The show is very well written and interesting--and McGoohan is excellent. The only serious complaint is that the shows sometimes were too hasty and many would have benefited from an hour-long format--something they would get with "The Secret Agent". Well worth seeing and a clever show. Even the sub-par episodes are good--making it at least more consistent than "The Prisoner".

A few final observations. The DVD copy is just fine but there really are no special features or captions. Also, as an American born and raised in the Washington, DC area, the introduction makes me laugh. That's because a HUGE office building is superimposed next to the US capitol building. There IS no building this size or that looks remotely like this in DC--now or then. Very strict building codes in the city prevent such monstrosities in the District.

A low key, but absorbing, TV series of half-hour episodes, it is the first of three putatively related series, the latter two being (a) Secret Agent Man (hour long episodes), and (c) The Prisoner.

In the series, our protagonist John Drake (played by Patrick McGoohan) is an English spy - elegant, skilled, sophisticated, and never at a loss. He breezes through his weekly problem, and we enjoy every second of the short ride!

In my opinion, the series was the undisputed master of its era, and I loved its whimsy, its thoughtfulness, and good plot lines, simply and starkly delivered. The later Harry Palmer movies (with Michael Caine - for example, The Ipcress File) was reminiscent of this same style - austere story line, strongly built around its main character, employing few cinematic effects, yet full of impact.

It has been years since I have seen this series, but it it is still one I remember very fondly.

There are so many things Ralph Smart got right in the earliest Danger Man, it's almost a pity he couldn't stick to the commercially problematic 30-minute format. The stories are taut, clever Cold War mystery-thrillers. Within the hurried time constraints it isn't all plot as Smart finds room for characterization and texture, even to interject some interesting ideas and questions. A lot of this is done by way of the mercurial Patrick McGoohan but Smart had no shortage of talented collaborators in directors and actors.

McGoohan's early performances are fluid yet quirky. While he projects a kind of reserved elan, he also draws on a trove of itchy, improvisational mannerisms that allow us into more than a few nooks--not all of them pleasant--of John Drake's anxious cynicism. (McGoohan is to the TV spook what the late Jeremy Brett was to Sherlock Holmes: a perturbable, high-strung exotic, haunted but smirking.) I prefer him here to the more celebrated Prisoner, in fact, where he's customarily arch and lacks the variety of situation and emotional register. His narration is another treat, delivered in one of the most delectably ironic voices in dramatic TV history.

The writing bests most on TV, then or now. The tone in the better scripts is wry, veering toward acid, with more than a hint of melancholy. This is not the Cold War as a stage for Kennedyesque moxie, and certainly not the idiotic glamorization found in Bond, but rather as in Le Carré, a stage for the peeling away of deceptions that are as likely to originate at home as in dens abroad. This is not to say it isn't above the occasional stereotype; see, for instance, the leering North Koreans in the episode The Honeymooners. But a mark of this generally very humane work is that it more typically treats nationalistic conceptions of the enemy with skepticism, and even pits Drake in frustration against his own morally ambiguous NATO bosses. Nor is the day always won, and some seeming victories prove Pyhrric. How refreshing this is to watch in 2007, for obvious reasons.

The production design, fairly cheapo and simplistic, never detracts (charmingly, old file inserts make do for exterior locations) and in fact the studio sets somehow hold surprise delights: here a gloomy early 60s facsimile of a Munich street recalling Carol Reed's chiaroscuro in The Third Man, there the lobby of an International Style hotel with its sexy mid-century modernism. That it's all in gorgeous high-contrast black and white only deepens the interest: shadow play for shadowy deeds.

A word too about the memorable score by Albert Elms, particularly his incidental music. The understated jazz is part and parcel of the sensibility here--aloof and insinuating. There is so much intelligence pulsing through Elms' music and the series as a whole that it seems vaguely unlikely; watching this work, I can't help but admire its virtues while ruing what's become of the medium.

Danger Man in this early incarnation is grown-up art on TV, the likes of which in the U.S., anyway, we rarely hope to find today outside of HBO, practically its last refuge. A treasure.

patrick mcgoohans's dicey 'new englander' accent notwithstanding, he's in fine form here. fast paced and inventive plots, exotic locales, and the extremely moral hero john drake all make the first series of danger man great television.

though he doesn't bed down with every girl he comes across, there's more than enough sexual tension to go around, as every female within a thirty-foot radius ends up throwing herself at johnny d. not keen on guns, drake's a master fighter and the resulting fight scenes are always fun to watch. his gadgets are realistic, much more believable than the ones used by bond or the man from wherever.

the very first episode, 'a view from the villa', takes us to portmeirion, PMG's inspiration for the village in 'the prisoner'. another one of the best television programs ever made.

you'll see a host of familiar faces in supporting roles here too. donald pleasance, barbara shelley--all kinds of great actors popped up on dm from time to time. by all means, if you're a fan of espionage shows, danger man should be high on your list of must-sees. it's got all the chewy goodness and none of the camp that marred so many spy programs in the sixties.

I think the "Danger Man" series I remember, with its distinctive racy theme tune, was the later hour-long remake series from 1964 onwards, which would fit in with my own youthful time-line I suppose. Hunting down the show on the web I came across the first episode from 1960 entitled "The View From The Villa", which I was interested to see was co-written by the great Brian Clemens of future "The Avengers" fame.

This episode contained a neat little mystery taking in a murder, the city of Rome, and an enigmatic femme fatale which Patrick McGoohan's John Drake solves with his eye for a painting, all in a brisk 25 minute time-frame. The show, unlike its successor, is pre-Bond so there are no gadgets and there's also an icy detachment from the glamorous and flirtatious ladies he encounters which 007 would never countenance.

No, Drake is there simply to get the job done, which he does with steely aplomb, dispensing what might have been an early catchphrase "Obliged" as he does so. He's handy with his dukes too, but again not in a flashy or contrived way.

McGoohan strolls through the part with laconic ease and as well as elements of the early Bond, you can also see the genesis of Roger Moore's Simon Templar character here, the latter of course with added humour, suavity and raised eyebrow.

I'll certainly make an effort to try to watch more of this entertaining series, confident it will retain the standard of this opening programme.