Review of Danger Man: Volume 1

Introduction

Danger Man was the original spy series, shown in 1960 and predating just about anything anywhere except for The Invisible Man (produced by the same person, Ralph Smart).

Taking it`s inspiration from both Hitchcock and Flemming`s James Bond novels (this predates the Dr No film) this was a new genre of television not seen on either side of the Atlantic.

The Danger Man himself, John Drake was played by Patrick McGoohan who ran around being both cerebral and energetic, setting the scene for such series as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the Bond films although he tended to concentrate on more realistic situations, no world destroying evil empires here! There were gadgets and girls, although he never kissed any of them (the girls that is, who knows about the gadgets!), believeing that it woudl lead to promiscuity in his target audience (those were the days) He also, almost never carried a gun, again as Patrick McGoohan was worried about the signals that would send to children watching the programme.

This original series, consisted of 39 half-hour episodes and was followed by a return in 1964 in a hour long format, designed somewhat for the American audience where the programme was known as Secret Agent (and gained the well known `Secret Agent Man` theme tune).

Video

Dating from 1960, this is naturally in both Black and White and boasts an exciting 4:3 aspect ratio. The transfer is actually rather good, they`ve managed to find some decent quality tapes and it looks like some work has gone into cleaning and removing scratches and stuff.

The DVD menu is simple, has some colour and works. Nothing exciting though.

Audio

Mono throughout as expected but then it was filmed that way so we aren`t losing anything but it`s not exceptional :)

Sound quality is what you`d expect from a 1960s era tv show, bit muddled, compressed and fuzzy, but you can hear everything well enough. Better than UK Gold.

Features

"Wow, what a lot of features", he said, the sarcasm evident in his voice.

There`s an original artwork (yes, just the one) and a 2 screen blurb about the series.

That is it.

Conclusion

It`s a dvd of a tv series from 1960 so you get what you;d expect, black and white and mono sound, so no surprises.

maybe they could have added some features but the disc is only about £9.99 so why complain.

If you like Danger Man or are a old spy fanatic, then you`ve nothing to complain about. If you are into new James Bond films and you thought Mission: Impossible was the best film ever, then you`ll be missing a lot of senses. This one only tests the immaginatiohn :)

Not bad if you liked the series originally.