Peter Gunn: 24 ore per l'assassino

This 1967 film lacks the luster of the late 50's, early 60's TV show. Replacement of key roles of Edie, Mother and Lt. Jacoby by others takes away from the viewer familiarity with the "Peter Gunn" they loved on the TV show. The story is fine, the women are gorgeous and seeing it in color is also a plus for a feature film. The camera work is good, but lacks the "feel" the black and white show gave us. Peter Gunn didn't lose his charm with age. His attraction by the women in this film is understandable. I could also understand why this film didn't do well at the box office. Peter Gunn is jazz. This film came out at the height of the British Invasion of Rock & Roll. Younger people would relate this film to their parents likes not theirs. Like fine wine, this film looks pretty good now. The jazz is good. If you get the chance watch it. It could have been a "10" but for the reasons I outlined, I'll give it a solid "7"

A womanizing 1950's playboy in the late-1960's Sexual Revolution is like a millionaire winning the lottery, and in the case of the past-middle-age Craig Stevens returning into his PETER GUNN role for creator/director Blake Edwards' GUNN, it's also like a father romancing his college son's girlfriends...

But no matter what, it's what's expected and... even with original singer Lola Albright's Edie replaced by a far less natural (or attractive) Laura Devon... GUNN makes for a decent Bond Clone despite the TV-series proceeding 007 cinema...

But the popular spy franchise was most likely Edwards' reason to revisit this kind of fun-flowing investigation, now more twisty espionage and in color as opposed to the B&W series' noir... Meanwhile the jazzy nightclub's a slow-groove random backstop instead of an uptempo mainstay...

The action sequences are effective and suspenseful, creatively-shot yet far too sporadic with our resilient, often vulnerable anti-hero aged into a stone-faced Jack Webb monotone and, now backed by a grouchy Ed Asner, he's dealing with the mob who killed his friend, now after him...

But the token hot young girl adds the real heart in quirky and neurotic brunette Sherry Jackson: her zesty presence noticeably ages our hero, yet she could have been the sole GUNN girl who, with only a few scenes, seems far more into the movie than anyone else on board, including old Pete.

This film was inevitable as the late '60s -- following Paul Newman's hit "Harper" (1966) -- reinvented the '40s-'50s private eye yarn by adding more sex and violence. GUNN fits somewhere in the middle of this trend -- not as classy as "Harper" and "Deadlier Than the Male", not as cynical and gritty as Sinatra's "Tony Rome" films (1967-68). Craig Stevens, with his wry humor and effortless charm, rises above the material, much like James Garner in "Marlowe" (1969) -- a highly recommended film in this genre.

Old school "Peter Gunn" fans will lament the absence of Lola Albright and Hershell Bernardi (a cranky Ed Asner fills in), but this should be seen on its own terms as a stand-alone film. The opening credits, with psychedelic graphics and jazzed up theme music, suggest a 007 spy film influence, but the story is a standard whodunit with gangsters and frequent murders. Some of these killings (like the diver with the spear gun) and plot turns don't make much sense or are needlessly complicated, but the fast pacing and supporting cast distracts one from worrying about the details. The sex appeal quotient is ramped up considerably by gorgeous Sherry Jackson (sadly, stunning Carol Wayne only has a cameo at the end). Jackson even did a Playboy pictorial to promote the film. And, for an added plot twist, writer-director Blake Edwards indulges in his strange obsession with gender bending (Victor Victoria, Switch, et al,).

All in all, this is a slick, breezy, enjoyable detective yarn that moves along with strategically placed scenes of action, humor, and eye candy. It is very much a product of the late '60s. (Will someone please release this, along with "P.J." and "Rogue's Gallery", on disc already?) In the next decade this genre would get darker and more complex with The Long Goodbye (1973), Chinatown (1974), and Night Moves (1975).

A noble effort but a box office clunker. Secret agents were the name of the game in the mid-sixties. Not private eyes on rain slicked streets in black and white. Gunn lacks the film noir cinematography of the original TV show, the great jazz soundtrack, Herschel Bernardi and most of all, Lola Albright as Gunn's love. Singer Edie. Laura Devon is gorgeous as the new Edie but there's no chemistry between Craig Stevens and Devon. The best addition is Sherry Jackson, the underrated, underhired beauty who was mainly a TV actress. Several events are lifted from the series. The bombing of Mother's night club. The racquet ball playing mobster. A man killed by a speargun. See it if you can but if you liked the original you may be let down.

Blake Edwards in black & white during the early sixties was a class act. But this transfer of his classic TV series to the big screen in Technicolor with a psychedelic titles sequence, nastier violence, sprinkled with words like 'pervert' and 'hooker' and a proliferation of zooms and fussy compositions belongs more with Edwards' cheesier films of the seventies.

In the absence of Lola Albright (considered by the producers too old, although the same year she was a sleek & sexy T.H.R.U.S.H. woman in the 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' feature 'The Helicopter Spies') the cast largely recruited from television still manages to include a memorable female contingent including Laura Devon, Sherry Jackson, Jean Carson as a waitress and Marion Marshall (billed as 'M.T.Marshall') in her sole late sixties reappearance on the big screen after making an impression in a handful of supporting roles during the fifties. Here she makes an even greater impression as queen bee Daisy Jane. (I'm staggered that so few reviewers have mentioned the extraordinary conclusion.)