I haven’t done an Album Cover Art post since January or a Pulp Fiction post since right before my illness in February. I’m trying to make up for lost time with this hybrid post featuring soundtrack albums for hardboiled crime shows from the first two decades of American television.

I’ve only seen two out of the five shows, but I dig these covers. TV noir is better than no noir at all.

They’re arranged in random order as I’m feeling random these days. That concludes this random introduction.

Peter Gunn starred Craig Stevens in the title role. I’ve both seen the show and heard the soundtrack. For some reason, my parents owned this album. I’m not sure why. Was it the Mancini effect? Beats the hell outta me.

The full title of our second TV noir series was Johnny Staccato. It starred my countryman John Cassavetes in the title role. As you may recall, he along with Peter Falk was the subject of the Second Dumbest Argument I Ever Had. It had nothing to do with Elmer Bernstein’s music.

I wrote a post in Mike Hammer’s voice in my early days as a blogger and reposted it in 2022.

Richard Diamond was a New York private eye turned Hollywood shamus. The part was played by David Janssen who later ran his way to stardom in The Fugitive.

Finally, the big one. I saw every episode of The Untouchables in reruns. That was before I called Nelson Riddle, the Riddler, but I still dug the music.

The last word goes to Henry Mancini with the theme to Peter Gunn: