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Dennis Weaver starred in McCloud
as Sam McCloud, a tough cowboy cop from New Mexico who was transferred
to the mean streets of New York. If this sounds familiar, it is because
it was a clever re-working of Clint Eastwood’s 1968 Coogan’s Bluff theatrical movie.
McCloud's
persistent application of following clues, together with a dash of the
"fish out of water" concept that often works well in cinema and TV
storylines, proved popular and resulted in a successful run of over
seven years.
McCloud
had actually started its screen life in 1970 as six one-hour episodes.
It is these six episodes that are included in this Complete First
Season DVD package. Apparently, this Australian DVD release is the only
DVD boxset that includes these episodes in the one-hour format as the
US and the UK versions have used re-cut TV movie versions (see Special
Features below).
As with Banacek, good scripts, on-location footage and an impressive list of guest stars helps make McCloud a typical snapshot of 1970s television.
Carl Betz (from The Donna Reed Show)
guest starred in the fairly routine first episode which re-used some of
the footage from the pilot. “Horse Stealing on 5th Avenue” benefited
from being written by renowned TV producer Glen A Larson but resorted
to using Universal Studio backlot sets instead of authentic New York
scenery.
Nancy Malone (from Long Hot Summer)
had a guest role in “The Concrete Corral”, a cowboy-oriented murder
story, which also has an unbilled cameo by Doug McClure. “The
Stage is all the World” included a rare acting role for Christina
Sinatra and an amusing scene where McCloud analyses his pay deductions.
The
"fish out of water" concept was further explored in “Walk in the Dark”
when McCloud is assigned to an all-women squad alongside Susan Saint
James (from McMillan and Wife) and Ann Prentiss.
The
last episode (“Our Man in Paris”) was filmed on Universal Studio’s
backlot version of Paris with its cobble-stoned streets and every
French actor in Hollywood!
Like the Banacek and McMillan and Wife DVD boxsets, McCloud has been impressively packaged by Madman and is a great example of early 1970s US television drama. DVD Special FeaturesThis
boxset has great special features, especially the 94-minute pilot
“Portrait of a Dead Girl”. It sets up the series by showing McCloud’s
first arrival in New York and features a favourite TV actor of mine,
Mark Richman, as McCloud’s superior officer.
Unfortunately,
Richman was replaced when the show began its regular series run. The
pilot has a theatrical movie quality with some impressive editing and
filming techniques.
Because McCloud
ultimately became of part of the feature-length NBC Mystery Movie
series, the six one-hour episodes were later re-edited (with additional
voice-overs) to form three extended TV movie versions. They are
not two episodes simply joined together in the middle but have footage
from both episodes cleverly interspersed to form one cohesive
storyline.
These three TV movies are presented as part of the special features and are certainly worth a viewing.
A
very useful 16-page Viewing Notes booklet is also included in the
boxset. These notes are written by my favourite TV series researcher
and writer Grant Taylor who has done an excellent job providing all the
background you will ever need on McCloud.
Finally, there is a very short Photo Gallery of publicity shots in a slideshow format. Conclusion: Episodes 90% Extras: 80%
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