Hammer Time!

I finally received the Darren McGavin Mike Hammer series DVDs that I ordered from Amazon a couple weeks ago, on Saturday. I watched the first disc last night. The picture quality on the DVDs is excellent (much better than the M Squad transfers). A&E did a great job on these discs. 

The first three or four episodes were fairly pedestrian (though still entertaining), but then things really picked up with a handful of fairly tough stories from Evan "Ed McBain" Hunter (as "Curt Cannon") and pulpster Frank Kane. I always enjoyed Kane's "Johnny Liddell" private eye novels, and his Hammer scripts are a lot of fun.

I think I'll alternate episodes of Mike Hammer and M Squad for the next couple of weeks, possibly a with a few Peter Gunns tossed in for variety....