Mike Hammer – Private Eye (1997/Stacy Keach/Tango)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C-
Mickey
Spillane’s Mike Hammer is one of the great gumshoe detectives, but the Stacy Keach TV version is my least
favorite of them all, looking worse than ever in Tango Entertainment’s DVD box
set Mike Hammer – Private Eye (1997)
in which the unfortunate alchemy happened that tough detective fiction gets
turned into fuddy duddy TV.
It was
the end of the original cycle, fortunately, but boy, are these shows dumb. There are 26 disastrous shows in this set and
they have not aged well, Keach is the only reason anyone watched these
massacres of the original books. Four
double-sided DVDs are here in four slender cases. No, this is not great TV and especially not
great detective TV. See the 1955 classic
Kiss Me Deadly instead.
Oh, and
nobody has called this series a Film Noir yet!
Whew!
The 1.33
X 1 image is surprisingly soft from older analog transfers with detail issues,
motion blur and aliasing issues, though I never liked the way this was shot
either. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is barely
stereo and passable, with some forward-sounding voicing. Extras include a Keach interview and stills.
- Nicholas Sheffo
