Man with a Camera

Man with a Camera

Original title card
Genre Crime / Drama
Written by James Edmiston
Paul David
Wilton Schiller
Directed by Paul Landres
Gerald Mayer
Starring Charles Bronson
Theme music composer Herschel Burke Gilbert
Composer(s) Leon Klatzin
Country of origin USA
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 2
No. of episodes 29
Production
Producer(s) Don W. Sharpe
Warren Lewis
For MWC Productions, Inc.
Location(s) Hollywood, California at Desilu Studios, doubling for New York City
Cinematography Paul Ivano
Robert B. Hauser
Black-and-White
Running time 30 minutes
Release
Original network ABC
Original release October 10, 1958 – February 8, 1960

Man with a Camera is an American 1950s television crime drama starring Charles Bronson.

Throughout the 1950s, Bronson spent most of his early acting career performing in TV shows as well as small parts in films, until he landed the lead in this ABC series. This is the only series in which he played the lead role. He would go on to have supporting roles either as a guest star or a recurring character in dozens of TV shows after this series was cancelled.

Plot

Bronson portrayed Mike Kovac, a former World War II combat photographer freelancing in New York City who specialized in getting the photographs that other lensmen could not. He usually assists newspapers, insurance companies, the police and private individuals, all of whom want a filmed record of an event.

By often acting as a private eye, Kovac gets himself into plenty of trouble involving criminals of every kind, helping with cases the police could not handle.

Besides an array of cameras for normal use, for surreptitious work Kovac employs cameras hidden in a radio, cigarette lighter and even his necktie. He also has a phone in his car, and a portable darkroom in the trunk where he could develop his negatives on the spot.

Kovac's police liaison is Lieutenant Donovan (James Flavin), though he frequently seeks advice from Anton Kovac (Ludwig Stössel), his immigrant father.

Main cast

Selected guest stars

List of episodes

1st season
# Title Original Airdate
01 Second Avenue Assassin     October 10, 1958 [1]
02 The Warning October 17, 1958 [2]
03 Profile of a Killer October 17, 1958
04 Turntable November 7, 1958
05 Closeup on Violence November 14, 1958 [3]
06 Double Negative November 21, 1958 [4]
07 Another Barrier November 28, 1958 [5]
08 Blind Spot December 5, 1958 [6]
09 Two Strings of Pearls December 12, 1958 [7]
10 Six Faces of Satan December 19, 1958 [8]
11 Lady on the Loose December 26, 1958 [9]
12 The Last Portrait January 2, 1959 [10]
13 The Face of Murder January 9, 1959
14 Mute Evidence January 16, 1959
15 The Big Squeeze January 23, 1959
2nd season
# Title Original Airdate
16 The Killer October 19, 1959
17 Eye Witness October 26, 1959
18 The Man Below November 2, 1959
19 Black Light November 9, 1959
20 The Positive Negative     November 16, 1959
21 Missing November 23, 1959 [11]
22 Live Target December 7, 1959
23 Girl on the Dark December 14, 1959
24 The Bride December 21, 1959
25 The Picture War January 4, 1960
26 Touch-Off January 11, 1960
27 Hot Ice Cream January 25, 1960
28 Fragment of a Murder February 1, 1960
29 Kangaroo Court February 8, 1960
Bronson as Mike Kovac.

Production and DVD Release

Man with a Camera was filmed on locations in Hollywood (doubling for New York City) at Desilu Studios. The series had two abbreviated seasons in 1958-59 and 1959–60 and was aired on the ABC-TV network, Friday nights at 9:00 pm. The entire run of the series' 29 episodes was released in 2007 by the Infinity Entertainment Group, in collaboration with the Falcon Picture Group and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, from which the source prints were obtained.

Alpha Video has released three individual volumes on DVD, each containing four episodes from the series.[12][13][14] A fourth volume is slated to release on February 25, 2014[15]

Sources

References

 All episodes online: http://mikekovac.blogspot.com/
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