Man with a Camera
| Man with a Camera | |
|---|---|
| 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 | Leon Klatzin |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | Two |
| No. of episodes | 29 |
| Production | |
| Producers | Jason H. Bernie Buck Houghton Walter Daniels Argyle Nelson Lloyd Richards |
| Production locations | Hollywood, California at Desilu Studios, doubling for New York City |
| Cinematography | Paul Ivano Robert B. Hauser Black-and-White |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | Oct. 10, 1958 – Feb. 8, 1960 |
Plot
Throughout the 1950s, Charles Bronson spent most of his early acting career in TV-shows as well as small parts in films, until he landed the lead in the ABC series The Man with a Camera.
In the series 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 assisted newspapers, insurance companies, the police and private individuals, all of whom wanted a filmed record of an event.
By often acting as a private eye, Kovac gets himself into plenty of troubles involving criminals of every kind, helping with cases the police could not handle. Besides an array of cameras for normal use, for surreptitious work he employed cameras hidden in a radio, cigarette lighter and even his necktie. He also had a phone in his car, and a portable darkroom in the trunk where he could develop his negatives in the spot.
Kovac's police liaison was Lieutenant Donovan (James Flavin), though he frequently came for advice from Anton Kovac (Ludwig Stössel), his immigrant father.
Main cast
| * Charles Bronson |
| * Ludwig Stössel |
| * James Flavin |
Selected guest stars
- Rachel Ames
- Arthur Batanides
- Steve Brodie
- Sebastian Cabot
- Anthony Caruso
- Booth Colman
- Yvonne Craig
- Norma Crane
- Audrey Dalton
- Angie Dickinson
- Dolores Donlon
- Don Durant
- Robert Ellenstein
- Bill Erwin
- Frank Faylen
- Virginia Field
- Don Gordon
- Berry Kroeger
- Tom Laughlin
- Ruta Lee
- Gavin MacLeod
- Howard McNear
- Jimmy Lydon
- Theodore Marcuse
- Dennis Patrick
- Phillip Pine
- Bert Remsen
- Lee Roberts
- Doris Singleton
- Harry Dean Stanton
- Ludwig Stössel
- Lawrence Tierney
- Dick Wessel
- Jesse White
- Grant Williams
List of episodes
Season 1
| # | Title | Original Airdate |
| 01 | Second Avenue Assassin | October 10, 1958 |
| 02 | The Warning | October 17, 1958 |
| 03 | Profile of a Killer | October 17, 1958 |
| 04 | Turntable | November 7, 1958 |
| 05 | Closeup on Violence | November 14, 1958 |
| 06 | Double Negative | November 21, 1958 |
| 07 | Another Barrier | November 28, 1958 |
| 08 | Blind Spot | December 5, 1958 |
| 09 | Two Strings of Pearls | December 12, 1958 |
| 10 | Six Faces of Satan | December 19, 1958 |
| 11 | Lady on the Loose | December 26, 1958 |
| 12 | The Last Portrait | January 2, 1959 |
| 13 | The Face of Murder | January 9, 1959 |
| 14 | Mute Evidence | January 16, 1959 |
| 15 | The Big Squeeze | January 23, 1959 |
Season 2
| # | 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 |
| 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 |
Production
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 serial 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.