Burke's Law: Season 1 - Volume 1 (First 16 Episodes)

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $14.88

Customer Reviews:

Precursor of Classic Detective Shows [Posted on 2008-07-13]
In the early 1960s, television was just starting to get over the variety show genre' and began looking for new horizons due to competition from other networks. With the introduction of certain "Teen" idol "Surfside 6" and "Route 66" success, you could say that "Burke's Law" appealed to the young people of the Jet set.
It is highly unlikely that a millionaire would continue to work as a Captain in Homicide, given the hours and the constant requirement to answer to superiors. Yet, Gene Barry uses a small staff in conducting personal interviews and significant risk taking, dodging bullets here and there and having his young rookie constantly get hit over the head every other episode, to solve Hollywood crimes, usually among the more affluent members of Los Angeles society.
So very improbable, yet very successful. Each episode is loaded with Hollywood stars. Either they had the budget or they all owed something to Spelling and Co. or even Gene Barry to ensure the popularity of this series.
When you have stars like Anne Francis, The Gabor Sisters, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Don Rickles, etc. among them playing small roles in a larger plot that should tell you something.
Anyway, I had never seen the old series. I was familiar with a few episodes from the 94 revival and based this purchase on that experience.
It is certainly entertaining. A constant reminder of technological life of the 1960s, most of which have disappeared (typewriters, adding machines, slide rules) and the show has style and a decent theme music introduction.
No doubt it was meant to be "Hip".
Burke has an Asian driver and there are several actors who appear such as Sammy Davis Jr. among other minority actors here and there in small roles in what I would call an "advanced" show for showing minorities in so early a period.
This is one of the better efforts. Of course, you can't take the situations too seriously and I believe they were not meant to be that way and certain intentional humor and camp are evident.
I look forward to more episodes and clearly this is the progenitor of future 70s and 80s Golden age Detective Fiction shows that dominated the networks for nearly a quarter of a century to follow. Even Gene Barry himself, launched Columbo and as Mr. Howard in "the Name of the Game" helped to bring about this era. Worth watching!

Stylishly Cool 60's Crime Show with a Twist... [Posted on 2008-08-03]
"Burke's Law" may seem more than a bit implausible to today's jaded TV viewers (a swinging millionaire choosing to be a homicide cop is, honestly, a BIT of a stretch!), but for those of us who grew up in front of the TV in the 60s, the show was fabulous...and I am thrilled it is finally on DVD!

The series had (in it's heyday) a kind of Politically Incorrect, 'Rat Pack'-style chic, with star Gene Barry ("Amos Burke") sipping martinis, seducing nubile and oh-so-willing women (the opening theme song even featured a breathy, seductive female voice moaning, "It's Burke's Law!"), and arriving at crime scenes in a Rolls Royce (chauffeured by funny Leon Lontoc), often attired in a tuxedo. Once on duty, however, Burke was all business, offering sage advice (the actual "Burke's Laws") to young detective Gary Conway and veteran cop Regis Toomey.

What really set each episode (always entitled "Who Killed...?") apart were the quirky nature of each homicide, and the guest stars, virtually a "Who's Who" of the Golden Age of Hollywood, often in off-beat roles. It became great fun just to see who would appear in each episode! With effortless ease, Burke would sift through the suspects, and always prove the less-likely one was the culprit, much to the chagrin of his partners...then it would be back to the boudoir and more "ring-a-ding-ding"...

Until the series made the disastrous decision to capitalize on the spy craze (by revamping the format, completely), "Burke's Law" was one of the most stylish shows on TV, and certainly deserves to be on DVD. While I dislike splitting the seasons into 'volumes' (which is why I only give this collection 4 stars), it does also offer some terrific vintage commercials, as un-PC as the series, itself.

Great fun!

Enjoying Burke's Law [Posted on 2008-08-25]
Love Gene Barry...wonderful guest stars...great humor....all and all, an enjoyable show to watch. I only wish they would release the show in complete seasons rather than Volume 1 and Volume 2 per season. Releasing in volumes rather than complete seasons seems like just another way to get more money out of the fans.

Great show, Terrific Special Features - But....................... [Posted on 2008-08-31]
This is one of those cop shows that my mom DIDN'T tell me about, actually, my Dad got me hooked on this one, even at the tender age of nine, I watched this show with interest of "who killed......" this one and "who killed........." that one and I never got tired of it and my prayers were answered when I stumbled on this while accidently roaming through the DVD section one day on Amazon a few weeks back and instantly purchased it. The episodes still hold up very well and are still as entertaining today as they were back in the 60's and what's even better for me is I do not remember alot of the ones I just saw on this first set so I will be looking forward to the second set toward the end of the year I was told so..............

THE GOOD: The quality of the transfer is good, there were a hiccup here and there in the later episodes of this set that I noticed. Another terrific plus is the inclusion of the vintage commercials from that time period, I was laughing watching Arnold Palmer smoking while playing golf, it boggles the mind (nowadays anyway) how much they pushed smoking back in those days. There is also a special feature on the restoration process of the episodes.

THE BAD: VCI Entertainment dropped the ball on the Marketing strategy, not so much the fact that they decided to put the seasons out in Volumes but instead of putting 16 episodes on 4 discs in one DVD package, they put 4 Episodes on 1 DVD in 4 DVD packages so it is somewhat a bulky package and I think after they are done releasing Season 1, I am going to write to them ( I already did and thanked them for putting this series out, they told me they appreciated ANY feedback from customers ---HINT HINT ) and suggest they slim down the rest of the seasons because it takes up way too much space on my DVD rack and I'm running out of space as it is.

So in the end, do I reccomend this TV series?, Absolutely, it definitely holds up better than I thought it would.

Burke's Law stinks [Posted on 2008-09-15]
That was a crappy show. Why would anyone want to buy a DVD of it.

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