Peter Gunn

I used to watch re-runs of the original Peter Gunn late at night with my father, and picked this one up as a nostalgia piece. I was pleasantly surprised at how well this reflected the 'look and feel' of the 1960's series.

The movie has a nice, period feel to it. The actors are pleasantly understated. The level of blood and gore is unbelievably low considering the amount of gun play that happens. Even the music is true to the original.

Definitely worth seeing.

Blake Edwards, creator of this particular franchise, risked going to the well once too often with the late entry Peter Gunn, but he damn near pulls it off. The hyper-cool L.A. private eye debuted on television in 1958 and lasted until the dawn of Camelot; he was revived in 1967 for a theatrical release and yet again for this pilot for another television series (which was not to be). The original series was noteworthy in preserving for the small screen some of the look and the sensibility of the dying noir cycle as well as for its memorably raucous jazz theme by Henry Mancini.

Craig Stevens portrayed Gunn in the first two outings, but by 1989 it was time for a change; Peter Strauss donned the tuxedo and the amused detachment. He takes surprisingly well to Edwards' blend of murky atmospherics, fast, brutal action, and quirky humor (if he could sling a British accent, he might have made a good Bond – the look is right).

Gunn finds himself hired by a mob boss (Charles Cioffi) to find out who killed the brother of a rival mob boss (Richard Portnow). Along the way he deals, wearily if competently, with the two women in his life: his ditzy new secretary (Jennifer Edwards) and his nightclub-singer girlfriend (Barbara Williams). The case puts him on loggerheads with his old partner police lieutenant (Peter Jurasik), even though it turns out the police may be implicated....

Though the movie looks good and holds together, it's scant surprise that the series wasn't picked up. The world had turned a few times too many to freshen Gunn's conventions. Edwards nudges the time-frame to the mid-1960s, but, except for the false eyelashes under bouffant hairdos, and the odd radio broadcast about Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, the era bears no relation to the plot. (And chanteuses in jazz boites were pretty passé by the time of the Beatles and Janis Joplin, anyway.)

The jazz boite's owner, however, was a minor if signature character, played by a royal line of grande-dames. The formidable Hope Emerson originated the part, to be replaced by Minerva Urecal when Emerson died; in 1967, Edwards enlisted the great American Wagnerian soprano Helen Traubel. This time around, it's Pearl Bailey. But by 1987, maybe even she was starting to look passé, at least a little around the edges.

Some actors own their TV cop roles. Jack Lord. Gene Barry. Mike Connors. Craig Stevens. A fine actor, Peter Strauss is a weak Gunn. I knew Blake Edwards loved the character but remaking and watering down a show that was noir heaven for many viewers (and producing a pallid movie version in 1966, at least with Stevens but suffered without Albright and Bernardi) was not a successful venture and fun to sit through.

Everything works here -- expect for the jerks at ABC who refused to pick this up as a weekly series. (This was the pilot.) One of the most stylish TV movies ever made, everyone is at their best: Peter Strauss & Barbara Williams(what a couple they would have made each week!), Jennifer Edwards as the beautifully cooky fill-in secretary, Jurasik as Pete's cop buddy, Mancini's music, and -- of course -- the writing and direction of Blake Edwards. Along with his great portrayal of Dick Diver in the Dennis Potter version of "Tender is the Night"(1985), this is Strauss's best work -- the role he was born to play: smart, stylish, cooly heroic. Looking back now from the era of "men" such as Ben Affleck, Guy Pearce, Ethan Hawke, ad nauseum -- Strauss is more and more the real thing. (As is Williams.) Terrific.

The best thing about this is the theme music if nothing else it lets you know the film has finally ended. The film looks to me like they are trying (to hard) to be funny and cool. The ex-cop, nightclub owner and gumshoe all rolled into one theme is badly represented here. Complete with mafia bosses sending the "muscle" to say lines like "Come on, let's take a ride".

This genre is great if it's done well - Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade for example - but here it's like pulling teeth. And at the same time listening to the poor jokes (if you can call them that) all the way through. This cost me 97p on DVD, it's the only reason I watched it all the way through, I want my 97p back, I'll pay the postage you can this for free.