Danger Man first aired in 1960 as a half-hour spy program on British television. Phenomenally popular, it returned in England in 1964 as an hour-long series that CBS imported in 1965 for prime-time programming. Taking heed of the James Bond craze and the ratings success of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the show was renamed Secret Agent. This collection contains six vintage 1964 episodes. Patrick McGoohan stars as John Drake, who is dispatched around the globe to quell cold war intrigue. Danger Man was a gritty spy series, relying more on realistic stories of espionage than on the gadgets and beautiful women popularized by 007. The episode "Yesterday's Enemies" is particularly brutal and cynical, as an increasingly conflicted Drake travels to Beirut to uncover a traitorous former British spy's network of double agents. In "Fair Exchange," Drake races to stop a relentless fellow agent from killing the East German secret policeman who tortured her. In "No Marks for Servility," the often undisciplined Drake must pose as "the perfect English butler" to a ruthless blackmailer and extortionist. Also included in this collection are "The Battle of the Cameras," "A Room in the Basement," and "Fish on the Hook." --Donald Liebenson
