Could The Defenders Be Released on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Neil Brock]

I wonder if one of the extras might be the Studio One episode from the late-50s titled "The Defender". It seemed to be a precursor to the series, with Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner playing a father/son legal team. Clips from that show were later incorporated into an episode of Shatner's Boston Legal.

It will and lots more. Interviews, extended pilot and more!

 

[Darby67]

It will and lots more. Interviews, extended pilot and more!

That is great news, Neil. July 12th couldn't come soon enough!

I am trying to get the word out about the release to as many individuals, organizations, and media outlets as possible.

 

[Darby67]

I wonder if one of the extras might be the Studio One episode from the late-50s titled "The Defender". It seemed to be a precursor to the series, with Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner playing a father/son legal team. Clips from that show were later incorporated into an episode of Shatner's Boston Legal.

Any extras will be nice, but I'm just eager to dive into the actual episodes.

I've pre-ordered my copy on Amazon, and hopefully there will be enough interest to encourage Shout to continue releasing the remaining seasons after this. (I also hope they have reasonable expectations, considering this is a series that hasn't been rerun regularly over the years and won't have the same level of name recognition as a Perry Mason.)

Dave:

I purchased the the Studio One episode The Defender that was released on DVD by Video Service Corp on June 2, 2006 (http://www.amazon.com/Studio-One-De...26&sr=1-1&keywords=the+defender+steve+mcqueen) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm glad that Neil has confirmed that this will be an extra on the Season One release.

I, too, hope that Shout has reasonable sales expectations and that they are enough to warrant releasing seasons 2 through 4 within a reasonable time frame.

 

[Ron1973]

You can always throw in an episode of Hee Haw when you want hick values.

You might actually like most of the first season. The show was under pressure from James Aubrey to make it more like Perry Mason, i.e., bland, formulaic, mundane same old stories (murder stories, police riot, etc.) Not until around halfway to 2/3 of the way into the season does the show get really good. After that, practically every episode is great for the rest of the run.

Well, Hee Haw did go for 25 seasons, so apparently hick values were in vogue!

 

[LeoA]

Is the Syndication Bible dead? The Defenders, from what I gather around here, lacked existing usable transfers for most if not all of the run. Yet nothing is indicated there like we used to see when CBS had to go back to original elements to prepare fresh transfers.

Same with the upcoming season 1 release of The Beverly Hillbillies that hopefully will be utilizing newly prepared HD transfers for its source material to match the quality fans have gotten for seasons 2-4.

I'd rather go back to Hooterville or Bryant Park, but I'm glad to see this happening just the same.

 

[Flashgear]

Wow, Great News! And I have enjoyed the good natured repartee on both ends of the ideological spectrum...

I hope the sales for The Defenders encourage and justify Shout to release the entire run...and perhaps open the vault for Shout or other rights holders to give us The Nurses, Bus Stop, Ben Casey, New Breed, Follow the Sun, Slattery's People, East Side / West Side etc...too much to ask for, let alone expect...I continue to hope WAC gives us MR. NOVAK soon...

The release of urban contemporary shows from the late '50s to early '60s (my favourite tv era) would begin to balance out with the heavy representation of Westerns from that era on dvd...I Love Westerns, and have most of those thus far released, but really see the absence of these urban contemporary shows as a crying shame...let alone a big hole in my collection...I really only felt the weary weight of left liberal propaganda with the advent of the "relevance" era of the early '70s when such things went into overdrive and eventually, overkill...

I really want to express my gratitude and admiration for Shout... last year's The Rebel was brilliant...

 

[Pathfiner]

I've sent Shout an early 'thank you' re The Defenders on their 'contact us' page and said I hope the remaining seasons will follow in due course

great news !

 

[Flashgear]

I only have dim and hazy memories of watching The Defenders as an all too young child...seen only a few episodes since from beat up sources...

I've just watched the short promo video on the Shout web site...brief views of several guest stars and the opening title sequence...Shatner, Gorshin, Klugman, Duvall, Hackman, Sheen etc...and a very alluring towel clad Julie Newmar entering the shower...again, wow...

I see that JD Cannon and Ed Binns were recurring characters, Jack Klugman plays the same character in two episodes...old stalwarts like Chester Morris, Roland Winters, Frank McHugh and Mary Astor appear...in season two, Lillian Gish!

I see also from IMDB that Ossie Davis, Godfrey Cambridge, James Earl Jones and Roscoe Lee Browne also appear to have substantial roles in various civil rights themed episodes...

Ken Kercheval, Arthur Hill, Barry Morse, Martin Balsam, Eva Gabor, Richard Kiley, Nancy Marchand, Robert Loggia, Richard Thomas, Frank Sutton, Clu Gulagher, Edward Andrews, Sam Jaffe, Warren Stevens, Alfred Ryder, Joan Hackett, Gloria Dehaven, James Broderick...the director Leo Penn (father of Sean Penn) acting here... Shirl Conway of The Nurses...and a very young Gene Wilder...all in season one...

Last, but certainly not least...the on location filming in NYC...

The yet to be announced bonus features...Again, wow... let's get behind Shout and buy this!

 

[Bert Greene]

I only have dim and hazy memories of watching The Defenders as an all too young child...seen only a few episodes since from beat up sources...

I've just watched the short promo video on the Shout web site...brief views of several guest stars and the opening title sequence...Shatner, Gorshin, Klugman, Duvall, Hackman, Sheen etc...and a very alluring towel clad Julie Newmar entering the shower...again, wow...

I see that JD Cannon and Ed Binns were recurring characters, Jack Klugman plays the same character in two episodes...old stalwarts like Chester Morris, Roland Winters, Frank McHugh and Mary Astor appear...in season two, Lillian Gish!

I see also from IMDB that Ossie Davis, Godfrey Cambridge, James Earl Jones and Roscoe Lee Browne also appear to have substantial roles in various civil rights themed episodes...

Ken Kercheval, Arthur Hill, Barry Morse, Martin Balsam, Eva Gabor, Richard Kiley, Nancy Marchand, Robert Loggia, Richard Thomas, Frank Sutton, Clu Gulagher, Edward Andrews, Sam Jaffe, Warren Stevens, Alfred Ryder, Joan Hackett, Gloria Dehaven, James Broderick...the director Leo Penn (father of Sean Penn) acting here... Shirl Conway of The Nurses...and a very young Gene Wilder...all in season one...

Last, but certainly not least...the on location filming in NYC...

The yet to be announced bonus features...Again, wow... let's get behind Shout and buy this!

Don't forget Glenda Farrell. She's in a 1st-seasoner, it appears. Always liked her. And Conrad Nagel, who also went way back in early Hollywood, apparently in the same episode. I think they were both NYC residents at the time. Also, there's a 2nd-season episode that features comedian Bert Wheeler in a small role. Probably his last filmed appearance.

 

[Darby67]

I've sent Shout an early 'thank you' re The Defenders on their 'contact us' page and said I hope the remaining seasons will follow in due course

great news !

Jeff:

As per your example, I sent Shout! Factory the following message today via the contacts page on their website:

"I have been a longtime and very satisfied consumer of Shout! Factory products including collecting the entire series of the Adventures of Tintin, The Rebel, The Saint, and Tales of the Gold Monkey on DVD. Your company does an outstanding job preserving the legacy of many classic television series. The audio and video quality is always exceptional, the episodes are always uncut, and I have never encountered any technical glitches with your discs.

I want to express my sincerest gratitude for your upcoming DVD release of The Defenders: Season One on July 12, 2016. I have long been an advocate for a home media release of this groundbreaking and Emmy Award-winning legal drama that ran on CBS for 4 seasons from 1961-1965. This was such a historically important television series and I so grateful that not only fans of when it was originally broadcast but new generations of viewers will finally have access to this thought-provoking and socially relevant television series. I sincerely hope that sales for season one are sufficiently strong enough for Shout! Factory to release the remaining three seasons.

Thank you again for your efforts to preserve and promote great television shows."

Within two hours, I got the following reply:

"Hi Sean,

I’ve been campaigning for this title since I started at Shout. Very excited to have it coming out.

Now I just have to convince someone that SLATTERY’S PEOPLE, EAST SIDE/WEST SIDE, and FOR THE PEOPLE would be worth it…"

Although it was not signed with a specific employee name (just Customer Service), it looks like we have an advocate within the company!

I followed up with the following message:

"That is awesome and I am very thankful to hear of your strong advocacy for The Defenders from inside the company. The fact that The Defenders is getting any sort of release is nothing short of miraculous and I'm grateful for it. I really hope the remaining three seasons get released as well.

I would love to see Slattery's People, East Side/West, and For the People released as well; you and I sound like we are certainly cut from the same cloth in terms of our tastes in classic television.

Once again, I cannot thank Shout! Factory enough for releasing The Defenders: Season One."

Folks, if you want to send Shout some love for their release of The Defenders: Season One, here is their contacts page: https://www.shoutfactory.com/contact

Sean

 

[Susan Nunes_329977]

Well we seem to have an answer:

https://www.shoutfactory.com/tv/drama/the-defenders-season-one

 

[ljgranberry]

I pre-ordered mine already and urge every fan of classic TV to do the same - let's get all the seasons released!

 

[Darby67]

In addition to Todd VanDerWerff's great article on The Defenders on the A.V. Club website from July 30, 2012 at http://www.avclub.com/article/ithe-defendersi-was-ithei-great-drama-of-the-60s-b-83042, Howard Rosenberg’s Los Angeles Times article from September 1, 1997 also discusses the original series in the context of the telefilms that the Showtime network broadcast in the late 1990s at http://articles.latimes.com/1997/sep/01/entertainment/ca-27817.

I would also love to see the three telefilms starring E.G. Marshall, Beau Bridges, and Martha Plimpton that were broadcast on the Showtime network released on DVD: The Defenders: Payback aired 10/12/97, The Defenders: Choice of Evils aired 1/18/98, and The Defenders: Taking the First aired on 10/25/98; perhaps thy could show up as extras on Shout's season sets (and I hope "sets" does become a reality and not just wishful thinking).

 

[Flashgear]

Thank you Sean / Darby for sharing your correspondence from Shout with us...it's good to know that your contact is as big a fan as the rest of us...and, just like we do, discussing one great show immediately leads to the mention of several other great but neglected series...Slattery's People, East Side / West Side, etc...I would love those to happen, and now that they are perhaps working with Fox, I would love to see 12 O'Clock High and Bus Stop if that's possible...to dream...

I've never contacted them, but am impressed with your quick response and the obvious enthusiasm of this person...with Lou Grant and now The Defenders, it does appear that Shout is trying their best...especially when they go the extra step and produce new bonus features as well...too bad about Hitchcock Presents / Hour...I'm going with the Fabulous Films UK releases to complete my collection...

I've ordered season 1 of The Defenders from Shout's website...and will follow your suggestion to leave feedback thanking them for this, as well as Lou Grant, Blacksheep Squadron and Death Valley Days too!

 

[Neil Brock]

It is all going to come down to one thing: Sales! If the season one sets sell well and make a profit, then Shout will be encouraged to continue with the releases and perhaps investigate those other classic early 60s dramas. I can tell you that at one point a couple of years ago, there was a bit of interest in Bus Stop but a naysayer (I won't say who) put the kibosh on it, saying it wouldn't sell. So a good sales showing by The Defenders will go a long way towards sparking interest in other fine shows of that era, and not only just the "social issue" dramas. So, if those classic TV fans among us who pretty much object to most everything in the 20th century, want to see some of the other shows of that era, it would behoove them to get behind this release as well.

 

[Gary OS]

Thank you Sean / Darby for sharing your correspondence from Shout with us...it's good to know that your contact is as big a fan as the rest of us...

Let me add my thanks to you as well for having shared this, Sean. It just goes to prove, once again, that having an advocate either own or at least work in a company/studio is a big deal. While I personally would rather see this person push Shout for titles similar to Follow the Sun or Ben Casey as opposed to the more extreme series mentioned above, the point still stands: an advocate working on the inside can, and often does, make a world of difference.


Gary "once more, let me express my congratulations to you folks that have wanted this series for a long time" O.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

The episode of "Bus Stop" of Dec. 3, 1961, "A Lion Walks Among Us," created such an uproar at the time I can hardly describe it. All over the country newspapers and commentators were saying it was so horribly violent that it was a sign of the degradation of the times and they said if things like this were allowed, what would the future bring?

Brown & Williamson Tobacco, the same company that withdrew its sponsorship from the episode of "The Defenders" about abortion, withdrew its sponsorship from this show, too. It would be funny if it weren't so sad that a company that sold a product that killed people always took such a high moral stand.

The New York Times called it "an hour of dark and sordid ugliness - cheaper than anything yet seen on television."

This would be a great selling point for a "Bus Stop" release, except that I bet by today's (very low) standards, the show would seem very mild -- which suggests that the people who criticized it at the time had a very valid point!

 

[Frank Soyke]

You know I've often wondered if this show had made it, who would ended up being cast as Jed Clampett and if that single cast change would have preventing Hillbillies from being the huge success it was which in turn could have conceivably erased Petticoat Junction and Green Acres from TV history. We will never know for sure but what we do know for certain is the cancellation of Bus Stop greatly affected 60's TV to some degree moreso than your average cancelled series.

 

[jim_falconer]

I just am on pins and needles that this is coming out on DVD...thank you from the bottom of my heart Shout!

 

[Bert Greene]

That "Bus Stop" episode with Fabian really wasn't all that violent, especially compared to some of the things concurrently going on in "The Untouchables," "Naked City," Have Gun Will Travel," and such. But it was such a mix of unsavory, discomforting elements, I suppose I can see why it elicited a bit of a furor. From the young killer's penchant for gospel-type singing, to the bitter indictment of the legal profession and overall court system, to the episode's preying on the then-growing cultural unease about delinquency and crazed juvenile violence, it seemed to have a little something to leave every viewer with an unpleasant taste in their mouth.

Notwithstanding the excesses of this one episode, the "Bus Stop" series itself seems an otherwise very decent, very solid little semi-anthology series like so many others from back then.