"View from the Villa" (1960): Watch the Legendary Patrick McGoohan, as Agent John Drake, in the First of His Espionage TV Series, Danger Man (Later: Secret Agent, and then, The Prisoner), All Following the Adventures of the Same Spy!: Free, Complete, and Without Commercial Interruptions, at WEJB/NSU Classic TV! (Only 26 Minutes!)

[“The Saga of John Drake: The TV Theme Music, and Classic Song to a British Patrick McGoohan TV Series, and the Inspiration for a Second Series (music videos and background essay)”]

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Watch the Legendary Patrick McGoohan, as Agent John Drake, in the First of His Espionage TV Series, Danger Man (Later: Secret Agent, and then, The Prisoner), All Following the Adventures of the Same Spy!: Free, Complete, and Without Commercial Interruptions, at WEJB/NSU Classic TV! (Only 26 Minutes!)

I disagree with the original youtube poster. If anything, this episode shows that early TV writers were able to write excellent, and sometimes brilliant episodes in a mere 25 minutes (e.g., Have Gun, Will Travel, The Twilight Zone, Naked City, The Westerner). When shows expanded to 60 minutes, in order to sell more commercials, they padded out episodes.

The only shortcoming of this episode, is that it’s blurry. It needs to be restored, but that ain’t gonna happen.

In addition to McGoohan, as Agent John Drake, the actresses were wonderful: Barbara Shelley, as the Italian clothing designer, and Delphi Lawrence as the estranged, British wife of the initial suspect.


Danger Man 1x01 “View from the Villa” - Full Episode
@newjeffersonian6456 (comment from the second episode)
4 years ago

“There were a total of 39 half-hour episodes of Danger Man broadcast between September, 1960 and January, 1962. A second series of 22 episodes in hour-long broadcast format (49 minutes) were aired from October, 1964 through March, 1965 and a third series of 23 hour-long episodes from September, 1965 through April, 1966. Some episodes of the second series and all of the third series were re-titled Secret Agent and broadcast in the United States beginning during the summer of 1965. Going to an hour-long format greatly improved the quality of an already superb show. Many of the early half-hour programs suffered from having the sophisticated dialogue and well-crafted plots squeezed into a brief 25 minutes. This early episode is a prime example.”