Danger Man Set 6 (1966)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Series Created by Ralph Smart
Starring Patrick McGoohan and Peter Madden

Features:

• McGoohan Biography/Filmography
  
• Original U.S. opening featuring Secret Agent Man sung by Johnny Rivers
  
• Photo Gallery
  

Released by: A&E
Rating: NR (some mild violence)
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format

My Advice: Rent it, but plan on renting the other sets (or the complete), too

John Drake (McGoohan) is a special operative for NATO who gets all the great assignments. What sets him apart from all of his other special agent buddies is that he does whatever is necessary to avoid violence. In fact, it is very rare thing to see him with any kind of weapon in his hands. Not only that, but he's not in his job to make off with every woman who happens to cross his path. However, he is infinitely charming and is very good at getting what he wants or needs to complete his mission.

This is a very good series and McGoohan was amazing as John Drake. It is no surprise that he was the producer's first choice to play James Bond in Dr. No when they were in the casting phase for that rather historic flick. Anyway, what's great about this series is that everyone involved takes it very seriously without allowing it to get cheesy. Every threat posed before Mr. Drake is considered to be a real threat and he deals with it in a very practical and realistic manner given his circumstances. All of the cast around him seem to understand that they are there to make him look as good as possible even if that means that they get to beat the crap out of him in the process. The writing is excellent mostly because they chose to avoid most of the cliches that had already been running rampant through the relatively young spy genre.

The DVD set is pretty good except for the fact that all three discs have the same special features on them. I scrounged to find the differences, but I couldn't see any. They all contain the same biography and filmography for McGoohan, the same U.S. Opening for Secret Agent, and a photo gallery. Now the photo gallery on each disc only contains shots from the episodes that appear on that disc, but it still seems a waste of disc space to put the same material three times in one set. To look at it another way, though, I guess it's good that you don't have to change discs out just to see the information about McGoohan, right?

The biography is good and the filmography is enlightening (I honestly didn't recognize him as the younger version of the man who played Edward the Longshanks in Braveheart). My only complaint is that, since McGoohan is still with us, why didn't get someone to visit him with a small camera crew to get an interview about his experiences on this show? After all, it was (and still is) a huge success. Or, if they couldn't get him to do that, why not dig through some archives and find some vintage interviews with the man? I would love to hear his take on the character and the writing of the show, not to mention the spy phenomenon that it caused around the world.

So, if you are a fan of the show, you've probably already got sets 1 through 5, so you might as well add this one to your collection as well. Everyone else will want to rent it.