THE MAN WITH THE OLDEN GUNN........,,A FEW SHOTS AT "GUNN".......

Gunn (1967)    Making an extra-violent technicolor film version of "Peter Gunn" the iconic noir-ish, black-and-white TV show?  A cool idea, no question.

                         ......if only the show's creator, Blake Edwards had done it in 1961, right after the show ended its run of 114 episodes......

                          But waiting 6 years, amid the social and cultural upheavals of the 60's and plopping it into the 1967 marketplace?  Smack in the middle of the Secret Agent craze?  Not quite cool.

                           Even with the TV show's signature, ultra dry witty dialogue, Henry Mancini's driving, jazzy theme and bursts of ferocious action, the film still comes off like a lost artifact from another era.......

                          Craig Stevens, as the too-hip-for-the-room private eye was pushing 50 and looked it........and the show's beloved 'Scooby' gang of Lola Albright, Herschel Bernardi and Hope Emerson were replaced by Laura Devon, Ed Asner and Helen Traubel.  (Of these three, only Asner could skillfully replicate the TV show's delicious verbal ping-pong between Gunn and his cop frenemy, Lt. Jacoby.)

                        Movie audiences glanced once at the poster, probably muttering 'Huh? Who?".....and ignored it. A shame, cause the film swiftly achieves a decent reboot of its source material.

                        Even in lurid color, Blake Edwards maintains the TV show's moody, noir vibe. There's a nifty mirrored-room shootout (a la "Lady From Shanghai") and Gunn's brutal intimidation at the hands of a gangster whose weapon of choice is.......raquetball.

                       While Blake Edwards' spent most of his career in the slapstick comedy of the "Pink Panther" series, for his forays into thrillers, he favored extra-creepy, near horrific villains. (Exhibit A: Ross Martin's wheezing, scary psychopath in "Experiment In Terror")

                       The villain here functions as the finale's Big Twist Reveal, and the film doles out some serious bloody punishment to this character.......(more than that, I dare not say. other than the murderer's bizarre nature stays in perfect synch with the original TV episodes...)

                      Not bad at all and blast-from-the-past fun that manages to straddle the 50's and 60's.
3 stars (***)...... how can you not love a film with this exchange.....when Lt. Jacoby worries that late 60's disco means the end of civilization, Gunn cracks, "You're just unhappy 'Mairzy Doats" didn't make the Hit Parade"......