Peter Gunn

Everything works here -- expect for the jerks at ABC who refused to pick this up as a weekly series. (This was the pilot.) One of the most stylish TV movies ever made, everyone is at their best: Peter Strauss & Barbara Williams(what a couple they would have made each week!), Jennifer Edwards as the beautifully cooky fill-in secretary, Jurasik as Pete's cop buddy, Mancini's music, and -- of course -- the writing and direction of Blake Edwards. Along with his great portrayal of Dick Diver in the Dennis Potter version of "Tender is the Night"(1985), this is Strauss's best work -- the role he was born to play: smart, stylish, cooly heroic. Looking back now from the era of "men" such as Ben Affleck, Guy Pearce, Ethan Hawke, ad nauseum -- Strauss is more and more the real thing. (As is Williams.) Terrific.