The pedigree for "Danger Man" is a bit confusing. So, I'll try to make sense of it.
British spies became all the rage in the 1960s, thanks largely to James Bond. However, the British television series "Danger Man" actually predated the James Bond movie series.
Long before I saw all these original half-hour episodes on the cable network "Z Living," I saw many of the one-hour, 2d iterations of Danger Man, which here in the States was called "Secret Agent." In the late 1960s, a local Chicago station ran episodes of the latter at 1:30 in the morning: Shows engaging enough to keep me up the last hour of babysitting assignments.
Danger Man bears more than a passing resemblance to "Dangerous Assignment," Brian Donlevy's radio program and brief syndicated TV adventure show from 1952, a program that pre-dated even Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. Donlevy's character galavanted all over the world beating people up on behalf of an obscure security agency, just as Drake does here.
I only wish that the original three season series would come out on DVD. I can remember everything stopped cold when this show came on T.
I think the "Danger Man" series I remember, with its distinctive racy theme tune, was the later hour-long remake series from 1964 onwards, which would fit in with my own youthful time-line I suppose. Hunting down the show on the web I came across the first episode from 1960 entitled "The View From The Villa", which I was interested to see was co-written by the great Brian Clemens of future "The Avengers" fame.
If you've never watched the "Spy TV" of the 60s you are in for a treat. Two of the ones I especially enjoyed were the American based 'I Spy' series, starring the inimitable Bill Cosby and the show's co-creator Robert Culp, and the British based 'Danger Man' series (known as 'Secret Agent' in the US) starring the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan.
I remember watching this series on TV back in the 1960s. I thought it was terrific then even if I can't recall many details.
In the "View from the Villa" agent John Drake pulls up in what looks like an Aston Martin DB4 or DB5, thus beating Sean Connery to the punch by several years. At least on the screen.
