In the latest in a series of disappointments from CBS DVD, Cannon's transfers are a significant step down from such impressive-looking releases as Mission: Impossible, Perry Mason, and (for the most part) QM's The Invaders. For Cannon - Season One, Volume One it looks like CBS DVD turned to syndication masters perhaps 15-20 years old. The show's still watchable, but what should have looked great - something along the lines of CBS/Paramount's Streets of San Francisco or Hawaii Five-O - instead is blah and disappointing.

William Conrad had been kicking around Hollywood since the mid-'40s, making a memorable appearance as hitman Max in the classic noir The Killers (1946). His steely-blue eyes and intimidating presence typecast him in similar parts for the next few years until 1952, when CBS's radio division cast him as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. As the saying goes, he had a great face for radio. Of course, James Arness won the role for the 1955 TV version of Gunsmoke, but Conrad kept busy doing voice-over work, narrating shows like Rocky & Bullwinke, along with occasional movies like Battle of the Bulge.

One assumes it was Conrad's stint as the God-like narrator on Quinn Martin's The Fugitive that helped land him the role of Cannon. Of course, Cannon epitomized the '70s TV detective. Frequently they were played by not-quite-leading men character stars (Raymond Burr, Peter Falk, Buddy Ebsen, Dennis Weaver) and usually they were distinctive: Ironside was in a wheelchair, Barnaby Jones was old, Columbo was disheveled and lowbrow, McCloud was a cowboy in the Big City, and so on.

Rather than ignore Conrad's weight the writers played it up - too much so, really. Music cues featuring comical tuba riffs follow him everywhere, and practically everyone makes wisecracks about his weight. Even kids are shown to be enormously tactless: "How did you get to be so fat?" they'll ask. After a while you begin to wonder if anyone in American had any manners.

Although at times it's hard to swallow scenes like one where Conrad, shot in the knee no less, is on foot able to elude lithe bad guy Tom Skerritt, who even uses a truck in pursuit of the fat P.I. And yet, Conrad's weight works in favor of the show in some ways; if the villains can beat up big William Conrad, they really must be something. Indeed, rather comically, poor Cannon is shot in each of the first two episodes and set afire in the third. He is a pretty big target, after all.

Conversely, Cannon's a pretty resourceful guy. In "The Salinas Jackpot," unarmed he improvises a trap worthy of Home Alone, while in "Death Chain" Cannon uses a forklift to free himself from a burning industrial building.

The other gimmick, less important and more ordinary, is that Cannon is a retired police detective-turned-private eye, mixing high profile work (in the TV-movie pilot, we first see him returning from a big money job in Yokohama) with charity cases: solving the murder of old pals, helping poor clients with nowhere else to turn, etc.

As a show, the main thing in Cannon's favor is that it's very slightly more adult with darker, more complex characters than the usual detective series, and that Cannon's investigative techniques are logical and more believable than the run-of-the-mill detective show. Conrad seems to relish the opportunity to star in his own series 16 years after being shut out of Gunsmoke, though his later work on Jake and the Fatman was both more of an acting stretch and, peculiarly, more endearing, though that show was only slightly better. Some of the guest characters are interesting. In "Death Chain" William Windom plays a sympathetic, ultimately honest philanderer trying help Cannon catch the killer of his mistress even though it means his affair may be outted and ruin his life. In "The Salinas Jackpot," one of the main characters is a possessive mother whose husband was killed in Vietnam.

The 1971 TV movie pilot, included here, is better photographed (by John Alonzo) but otherwise is pretty typical of the show's strengths. Vera Miles guest stars as a motel owner (no, not the Bates Motel) whose husband, an old army buddy of Cannon's, has been murdered. Penned by longtime QM scribe Edward Hume, whose later credits include The Day After (1983), the show is a pretty solid mystery with good characters, including a police officer (J.D. Cannon, no relation) whose wife may be a two-timing murderess. (Typical of QM's shows, the guest cast here wouldn't be bad for a lower A-list movie: Lynda Day George, Barry Sullivan, Keenan Wynn, Murray Hamilton, Earl Holliman, and John Fiedler also appear.) Though unremarkable, it's in the best tradition of B-mysteries Hollywood cranked out in the 1930s and '40s. It's no masterpiece, but enjoyable, throwaway entertainment.

Guest stars in this set include Vincent Van Patten, Don Gordon, Charles Cioffi, Wayne Rogers, Joe Maross, Clu Gulager, Mark Hamill, David Huddleston, Ford Rainey, Joan Van Ark, Diane Varsi, Tim O'Connor, Jason Evers, Jean Allison, Whit Bissell, Radames Pera, Andrew Duggan, Max Gail, Ron Harper, L.Q. Jones, Vic Tayback, Kim Hunter, Andrew Prine, Barnard Hughes, John McLiam, R.G. Armstrong, Harold Gould, Rose Hobart, Carol Rossen, Paul Mantee, Arthur O'Connell, Roy Scheider, Richard Anderson, Lou Antonio, and Frank Ferguson. Series directors include George McGowan, Jerry Jameson, Allen Reisner, Don Medford, Don Taylor.

Video & Audio

Say it ain't so, Joe. CBS DVD, in partnership with Paramount Home Entertainment, until recently reliably produced the best classic TV releases around, but earlier this summer took a lot of well-deserved heat for replacing music tracks on The Fugitive's second season. Now, with Cannon, the label seems to be cutting back on its remastering of titles as well. Though shows run 51 minutes apiece and don't appear cut (nor did I notice any replaced music), they don't look all that much better than VHS tapes.

The image is soft and sometimes unsteady, colors (especially red) tend to bleed and mainly it's just damn unimpressive throughout. Maybe they figured better to get the entire run of the series out via second-rate transfers than spend a lot of money remastering one season then giving up on the show when sales don't meet expectations. Whatever the reason, this is something that'll look fine on a small set in one's guest room or maybe on a portable DVD player, but on big monitors it's a fairly murky soup. In another cost-cutting move, audio is mono English only with no subtitle options. The set is spread over single-sided discs, curiously including the pilot but only 11 of the first season's 24 shows.

Extra Features

The only supplement are bland episodic promos which are nothing more than clips with no narration or anything to distinguish them.

Parting Thoughts

Cannon - Season One, Volume One is a mixed bag. The transfers are a big disappointment, and the show is typical of QM's '70s product: not great but fairly entertaining. If you're a fan of classic detective series then Cannon is worth a look and faintly Recommended, despite the mediocre transfers; others will want to rent it and sample a few shows first.

　 Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's latest book, The Toho Studios Story, is on sale now.