Names like Superman, Batman, Iron
Man and Spider-Man may sound silly, but there’s something sillier still.
At least those heroes chose their melodramatic noms de guerre.
How much sillier is it when a hero just coincidentally
happens to have a melodramatic name that advertises his profession? You
know, like Doc Savage, Mike Hammer and Peter Gunn. The name of a later TV
private eye, Remington Steele, was conceived as a parody of the name “Peter
Gunn.”
Freudian implications aside, Gunn
was the polished and poised protagonist in a stylish private eye TV series
created by Blake Edwards that aired from 1958 to 1961. He was played by Craig
Stevens, an actor who might be better remembered today if his looks, sartorial
splendor and savoir faire had not so closely resembled Cary Grant’s.
One cool cat, Pete operated out of
a jazz club called Mother’s in some waterfront city. His girl — the equally
obviously named Edie Hart — was the lead singer at the club. Her smooth
elegance mirrored Gunn’s, only slightly smudged at moments by hints of her
frustration at Gunn’s matrimonial elusiveness.
Gunn was cool enough to make it
into a comic book, Dell’s Four Color
1087 (April-June 1960), giving artist Mike Sekowsky a rest from the
superhero-packed panels of DC’s Justice
League of America. Sekowsky got a chance to show what he might have done
with a realistically illustrated Rip Kirby-style newspaper strip.
The television series is
remembered today largely for the permanent link it forged between
action-adventure and jazz, thanks to composer Henry Mancini, who filled the
episodes with original music. His Peter
Gunn Theme remains iconic, and was the direct ancestor of The James Bond Theme. David Anthony
Kraft and I had the privilege of seeing Mancini’s orchestra perform the piece
at a university concert in 1973.
Few people know, however, that the
famous theme has lyrics. Here they are, in part (and they sound like Edie Hart
being heartfelt):
Every night your line is busy
All that buzzin’ makes me dizzy
Couldn’t count on all my fingers
All the dates you had with
swingers
Bye bye
Bye, baby
I'm gonna kiss you goodbye
And walk right through that
doorway
So long
I'm leaving
This is the last time we’ll meet
On the street going your way…
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