The show starred Alfred Lynch as Jimmy Porter, the RAF Squadron Leader. Peter Barkworth plays Vincent of the French Resistance and Cyd Hayman stars as Nina, an agent with important knowledge of the Resistance movement. Each nearly hour long episode has the team trying to avoid capture and survive while they work their way closer to the coast and eventually, hopefully, back to England. The persistence of SS Officer Lutzig (played by Philip Madoc) and Sgt. Gratz (Robert Hardy) make this a significant challenge. Not to mention all of the patrols, roadblocks, and spies.
The premise behind the show is certainly an exciting one, but the execution lacks a certain zeal, or punch, to keep it from being entertaining. In other words, most episodes look and feel very dry and I admit to falling asleep on more than one occasion. That isn’t to say the show is outright bad, but like a lot of British television, especially from the 70s and 80s, it just comes across as dry. The more I think about why that is, I wonder that it doesn’t have to do with the sets not being able to keep up with the
performances of the actors. In other words, the acting in Manhunt, like many British productions, is excellent. But the sets that these actors perform on are just underwhelming — they just look and sound very artificial, unlike most American television. It could also have something to do with the camera work, the lack of music, or heck, maybe even the accents (kidding) — regardless, there’s just something about Manhunt that makes it hard to find consistently interesting.
While the show may not be the greatest, it’s still nice to see it making its way to DVD. It comes packaged in thick plastic case that holds all 7 discs. The first six discs are held on plastic ‘page’ style disc holders, while the seventh disc is on the back flap. Each disc and the box itself is nicely labeled.
As for the presentation quality, keep in mind this was a British TV show from the 1970s. It’s a full screen presentation that looks good, not great, and is acceptable. A basic Dolby Digital audio track does well for itself, considering again this wasn’t a high end, tech-heavy production in the first place.
There are actually no extra features at all in this seven disc set. I can’t say I’m surprised given the age of the show and its brief run (just six months). For anyone familiar with the show, it’s honestly probably enough that it was released on DVD, despite the lack of extra features.
To the summary…