Saturday, December 14, 2024

Cool, man

 

I've only seen a little of Peter Gunn. Seemed like a setup with potential, so I may check it out again. Just haven't gotten around to it.

Definitely can't fault the music. Blake Edwards had already found Henry Mancini, who would go on to do the Pink Panther music, of course. He was doing some really atmospheric stuff.

2 comments:

susan said...

I'm kind of surprised to see you haven't already been a fan of Peter Gunn. When our evening's entertainment proved too short to be satisfactory, we'd look forward to ending with an episode of Peter Gunn, Craig Stevens much cooler version of James Bond. Seeing the show again I've been amazed he never went on to be a leading man. It's interesting too that although you'd prefer the show had been given an hour to develop the stories told they were actually quite perfect as they were.

Blake Edwards gave us the first, and maybe the only, pure 'noir' tv show what with dark urban sets filmed at night and his home from home at Mother's where his beautiful girlfriend Edie sings in front of a jazz band. I think you'll find the series quite a treat.

Ben said...

Since writing this blog post I actually have gone back and watched more episodes and in fact have found them to my liking. There's an episode called "Streetcar Jones" where he's trying to clear a young jazz musician of murder on the request of an older jazz musician. The older guy was played by a black actor born like a decade after the Civil War ended, and he was very cool.

It's interesting that the convention of dramas being an hour long hadn't set yet. Some were a half hour, a few even shorter. The shorter running time did seem to serve The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents better.

Also interesting that they never actually tell you what city the action takes place in. I'm thinking maybe St. Louis?