Act One

William Conrad is literally bigger than ever in Cannon - Season Two, Volume One, an alternately frustrating and highly entertaining collection of 12 episodes from 1972, the first-half of Cannon's second season. This Quinn Martin production is made with that company's usual polish (by early '70s TV standards), has above average guest stars, and as before Conrad is the rock (enormous boulder?) that holds everything together. He's terrific throughout, underplaying most of the time, charming and convincingly professional.

On the other hand, what's a little bit annoying about the series so far is that it keeps threatening to be much better than it actually is. The basic ingredients are all there, and at times the show really comes to life, like a great pulp detective story. But, as my pal and respected TV historian Stephen Bowie points out, unlike earlier QM shows, with Cannon the company seemed perfectly content cranking out an ordinary detective series - the ambition to transcend the genre, at least in terms of the scripts and the visual style of the series, just isn't there.

Similarly, unlike its other classic library titles, CBS shows no interest in (or budget to go) hunting down original film elements and remastering the series. Like all of Season One, Cannon looks like it's been shot out of a cannon. The tape masters are old, murky, and completely unimpressive; there's even a bit of videotape wrinkling going on, a sure sign that some mighty old tapes have been sourced.

Act Two

As before, Frank Cannon is a very round, surprisingly short, balding private eye. (Isn't that black spray paint on his bald spot?) What he lacks in looks he makes up in hard-boiled professionalism and class. An ex-cop, Cannon quit the force after his wife and infant son were killed in an auto accident (in the TV-movie pilot), setting up shop in a ritzy high-rise apartment. A gourmand with a taste for life's finer things, he likes good food - lots of it - and knows his way around a wine bottle. (In one episode here, a leery but thirsty Cannon helps himself to can of beer out of an ex-con's refrigerator; his reaction to the brew, apparently the equivalent of Pabst or Miller-Lite, sends him reeling.) He tools around in a Lincoln Continental Mark IV, affectionately known to fans as the Cannonmobile, a sedan equipped with car phone, then a very exclusive and pricey accessory.

Unfortunately, most of Cannon's script are highly generic; you could scratch out all references to Cannon in the script, pencil in Dan August or Barnaby Jones (two other QM shows) or any number of other '70s TV detectives and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Making matters worse is the show's bland point-and-shoot visual non-style. 1950s serials and B-Westerns had more exciting mise en scène.

And yet Conrad all by himself is such a pleasure to watch; warm and sensitive like a big ol' teddy bear when his clients need him to be, intimidating and relentless when his suspects wish he weren't, Conrad may be an unlikely TV star, but star power he's got.

He's especially good at selling an air of verisimilitude; he's a private eye you can believe. Forget the gimmicky scenes of Cannon fussing over a mille-feuille or a 1959 bottle of Dom Pérignon - the show works best when Cannon is on the job, doing authentic (or at least authentic-looking) detection. His methods for tracking down missing persons, running a stake-out, finding lost records, etc., all seem real and believable, and Conrad has the air of a man whose been at it for years.

Act Three

This helps make the weaker shows tolerable, which unfortunately are the most common and which follow the same basic storyline. A client introduces the situation, and Cannon travels to where the trouble is, only all his poking around gets back to the main villain who sends his lackeys out to kill the prodigious P.I.

I wish more teleplays were like this set's "That Was No Lady," which pair Cannon with his client throughout the story, in this case a feisty defense attorney played by Jessica Walter. Shows like this give Cannon someone to discuss his methods with, to express doubts and frustrations, etc., plus it gives both the character and Conrad a chance to display their charm and humanity, which the more by-the-numbers scripts sorely lack.

Guest-starring in this set: Marj Dusay, Severn Darden, Larry Linville, Norman Foster, Richard Hatch, Ken Lynch, Lloyd Bochner, Mickey Dolenz (in a tiny part that doesn't warrant billing at the top of the show), Irene Tsu, Jesse Vint, Booth Coleman, Biff Elliot, Robert Webber (who seems to have spent the entire 1970s playing crooked politicians and wealthy businessmen on every crime show in production that decade), Mike Farrell, Max Gail, Frank Maxwell, Sherree North, Patrick O'Neal (same as Webber!), Ken Tobey, Phyllis Thaxter, Robert Pine, Pamela Franklin, Eddie Firestone (perennial weak-willed weasel and stool pigeon), Victor Millan, Dana Elcar, Sandy Kenyon, Tracy Reed, George Maharis, Stefanie Powers, Kathleen Freeman, Barney Phillips, Clu Gulager, Julie Adams, Warren J. Kemmerling, H.M. Wynant, Lois Nettleton, Bert Freed, Jared Martin, Kevin Dobson, William Daniels, Lynette Mettey, Andrew Duggan (a real QM regular), and Olan Soule.

Act Four

Cannon is a pretty muddy, murky looking DVD. The full frame transfers aren't terrible, but they should look much better than they do. The color is weak, there's no contrast, and there's a lot of video noise and tape wrinkles distort the picture slightly here and there. On smaller sets Cannon looks okay (just) but this release is far from CBS's usual standard. For what they're charging the consumer deserves better. Audio is mono English only with no subtitle options. The set is spread over four single-sided discs. At least the shows appear complete, not time-compressed, and retain their original underscoring.

The only supplement, are bland episodic promos on selected episodes that look worse than the episodes. They're not interesting. Just clips, with no narration, no excitement.

Cannon - Season Two, Volume One get the same mixed recommendation as before: mediocre transfers and, usually, scripts not up to the show's potential, but also a series with enough good stuff peeking through the cracks to make it worthwhile. Mildly Recommended.

　 Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's latest book, Japanese Cinema, is now on sale.