On DVD: Check Out the Fight in 'The Family Affair'

A lot of "Peter Gunn" episodes feature or climax with a good fight scene, but the creme-de-la-creme in the current collection of "Season One" "Peter Gunns" can be seen in the final episode on "Volume Four":

"The Family Affair" from 1959.

This episode seemed to be going for a bit more Gothic atmosphere and whodunnit style than usual on "Gunn". Much of it was set in a rich old man's old mansion, with one key room filled with historic weapons of war: broadswords and spears and battle-axes and maces(ball and chains) and knives.

Comes the end, Gunn exposes and confronts the "hidden villain" of the piece, who decides that Gunn must die. And whaddya know, Gunn elects to expose the villain in "the War Room." All of the afore-mentioned weapons come into play as the two men duke it out to the death. Very little of the furniture survives. And neither does the villain.

Don't view it expecting a vicious mano-y-mano like Sean Connery vs. Robert Shaw in "From Russia With Love," or a Bruce Lee extravaganza. This one is entirely bloodless and stunt men do most of the hard work.

But its a Grade-A 50's television duke-er-oo, and it looks like the "Peter Gunn" producers put a little bit more in the budget for this one to make for a long, prop-filled knock-down drag-out. Was it a sweeps episode? Or a season finale? The director, Lamont Johnson, went on to a long career in TV and, as I recall, got to make a few movies.

Check it out.

P.S. As a bonus, this episode features Reggie Nalder, who played the scary-looking assassin in Hitchcock's remake of his own "Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956.)