Search - Naked City - Spectre of the Rose Street Gang on DVD

Release the earliest episodes first!

Dave Cotter | Bedford, NY | 09/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm giving this DVD five stars because Naked City was one of the greatest shows to hit the air, and because this DVD is definitely worth buying and is better than 99% of what appears on TV (and about 70% of films) nowadays.

Unfortunately, this DVD happens to contain four of the weaker episodes from the third season, when Naked City moved to "softer," more character-driven shows. The first two seasons were much harder edged, and in my view much better.

Obviously they were selected because of the stars who appeared--Carroll O'Connor in two episodes, Jack Warden in one, James Coburn in one and the great Robert Duvall in two.

But the Coburn episode, while well-acted, is set in an upper-class milieu and the plot is claustrophobic and unappealing. The motivation of the Coburn character doesn't make sense.

The Rose Street Gang episode is hampered by weak acting (apart from O'Connor and Warden) and a cop-out ending.

The two Duvall episodes were OK--Duvall is always a pleasure to watch--but not as great as the early episode Hole in the City, which fortunately was released in an earlier DVD.

Jack Warden was in many Naked City episodes. Why hasn't the distributor released the famous "water tower" episode (I believe it is entitled the King of Venus), also with Jack Warden giving a superb performance, which was better than all these four combined?

There are literally dozens of much better episodes from the first two seasons that remain unreleased. By choosing weaker episodes because they have "stars," the distributors are shooting themselves in the foot.

But don't get me wrong. Note the five stars. This DVD is definitely worth buying. But I would suggest that a newcomer to the show go back to the first released DVDs. They contain such classics as "Hold for Gloria Christmas" with Burgess Meredith, which was really outstanding."