Man with a Camera

Not to be confused with Man with a Movie Camera.

Man with a Camera is an American television crime drama starring Charles Bronson as a war veteran turned photographer and investigator.^[1] It was broadcast on ABC from October 10, 1958, to February 29, 1960.^[2]

Man with a Camera
Original title card
Genre	Crime / Drama
Written by	James Edmiston Paul David Wilton Schiller
Directed by	Paul Landres Gerald Mayer
Starring	Charles Bronson
Theme music composer	Herschel Burke Gilbert
Composer	Leon Klatzin
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	29
Production
Producers	Don W. Sharpe Warren Lewis For MWC Productions, Inc.
Production locations	Hollywood, California at Desilu Studios, doubling for New York City
Cinematography	Paul Ivano Robert B. Hauser Black-and-White
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	October 10, 1958 (1958-10-10) – February 8, 1960 (1960-02-08)

This is the only TV series in which Bronson played the lead role.

Plot

Bronson portrayed Mike Kovac, a former World War II combat photographer. He usually assists "newspapers, insurance companies, the police, private individuals, and anyone else who wanted a filmed record of an event.^[1]

By often acting as a private eye, Kovac gets himself into plenty of trouble involving criminals of every kind, helping with cases the police could not handle.

Besides an array of cameras for normal use, for surreptitious work Kovac employs cameras hidden in a radio, cigarette lighter and even his necktie. He also has a phone in his car, and a portable darkroom in the trunk where he could develop his negatives on the spot.

Kovac's police liaison is Lieutenant Donovan (James Flavin),^[1] though he frequently seeks advice from and is aided by Anton Kovac (Ludwig Stössel), his father.^[1] They are of ambiguous Eastern European ancestry, in one episode Mike and his father serve kapusta to another character.

Main cast

• Charles Bronson as Mike Kovac
• James Flavin as Lieutenant Donovan
• Ludwig Stössel as Anton Kovac

Selected guest stars

Charles Bronson (left) and Walter Maslow (right) in Man with a Camera, 1959

Casey Walters in Man with a Camera, 1959

Bronson as Mike Kovac

• Mario Alcalde
• Rachel Ames
• Roscoe Ates
• Phyllis Avery
• Baynes Barron
• Arthur Batanides
• Nesdon Booth
• Steve Brodie
• Sebastian Cabot
• King Calder
• Anthony Caruso
• John Cliff
• Marian Collier
• Booth Colman
• Russ Conway
• Yvonne Craig
• Norma Crane
• Audrey Dalton
• Alan Dexter
• Angie Dickinson
• Dolores Donlon
• Don Durant
• Robert Ellenstein
• Bill Erwin
• Frank Faylen
• Virginia Field
• Don Gordon
• Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.
• I. Stanford Jolley
• William Kendis
• Don Kennedy
• Jess Kirkpatrick
• Berry Kroeger
• Fred Krone
• Ethan Laidlaw
• Tom Laughlin
• Nolan Leary
• Norman Leavitt
• Ruta Lee
• Karl Lukas
• Gavin MacLeod
• Howard McNear
• Eve McVeagh
• Theodore Marcuse
• Walter Maslow
• Dennis Patrick
• John M. Pickard
• Phillip Pine
• Joe Ploski
• Bert Remsen
• Lee Roberts
• Penny Santon
• Simon Scott
• Johnny Seven
• Doris Singleton
• Harry Dean Stanton
• Ludwig Stössel
• Lawrence Tierney
• Peter Walker
• Casey Walters
• Dick Wessel
• Jesse White
• Grant Williams

Episodes

Baynes Barron in Man with a Camera, 1959

Season 1: 1958–59

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	1	"Second Avenue Assassin"	Gerald Mayer	William Fay	October 10, 1958 (1958-10-10)
2	2	"The Warning"	Gerald Mayer	Richard M. Bluel	October 17, 1958 (1958-10-17)
3	3	"Profile of a Killer"	Gerald Mayer	Story by : Richard M. Bluel Teleplay by : James Edmiston	October 24, 1958 (1958-10-24)
4	4	"Turntable"	Gerald Mayer	Lowell Barrington	November 7, 1958 (1958-11-07)
5	5	"Closeup on Violence"	William Castle	Jack Laird & Wilton Schiller	November 14, 1958 (1958-11-14)
6	6	"Double Negative"	Gerald Mayer	Story by : Ken Pettus Teleplay by : James Edmiston	November 21, 1958 (1958-11-21)
7	7	"Another Barrier"	Gerald Mayer	Stanley Niss	November 28, 1958 (1958-11-28)
8	8	"Blind Spot"	Gerald Mayer	Donn Mullally	December 5, 1958 (1958-12-05)
9	9	"Two Strings of Pearls"	Gerald Mayer	Robert J. Shaw	December 12, 1958 (1958-12-12)
10	10	"Six Faces of Satan"	Boris Sagal	David P. Harmon	December 19, 1958 (1958-12-19)
11	11	"Lady on the Loose"	Gerald Mayer	Oliver Crawford	December 26, 1958 (1958-12-26)
12	12	"The Last Portrait"	Gerald Mayer	Wilton Schiller & Jack Laird	January 2, 1959 (1959-01-02)
13	13	"The Face of Murder"	Gerald Mayer	Berne Giler	January 9, 1959 (1959-01-09)
14	14	"Mute Evidence"	Paul Landres	Dallas Gaultois & James Edmiston	January 16, 1959 (1959-01-16)
15	15	"The Big Squeeze"	Harold Schuster	David P. Harmon	January 23, 1959 (1959-01-23)

Season 2: 1959–60

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
16	1	"The Killer"	Paul Landres	E. Jack Neuman	October 19, 1959 (1959-10-19)
17	2	"Eyewitness"	Gene Fowler Jr.	Paul David	October 26, 1959 (1959-10-26)
18	3	"The Man Below"	Gene Fowler Jr.	David P. Harmon	November 2, 1959 (1959-11-02)
19	4	"Black Light"	Paul Landres	Wilton Schiller	November 9, 1959 (1959-11-09)
20	5	"The Positive Negative"	Paul Landres	Oliver Crawford	November 16, 1959 (1959-11-16)
21	6	"Missing"	Gene Fowler, Jr.	Story by : Hal Evarts Teleplay by : Robert E. Thompson & Lee Loeb	November 23, 1959 (1959-11-23)
22	7	"Live Target"	Paul Landres	Barry Trivers	December 7, 1959 (1959-12-07)
23	8	"Girl in the Dark"	Gilbert Kay	Barry Trivers	December 14, 1959 (1959-12-14)
24	9	"The Bride"	Paul Landres	Paul David	December 21, 1959 (1959-12-21)
25	10	"The Picture War"	Paul Landres	David P. Harmon	January 4, 1960 (1960-01-04)
26	11	"Touch Off"	Paul Landres	Oliver Crawford	January 11, 1960 (1960-01-11)
27	12	"Hot Ice Cream"	Paul Landres	Story by : Howard Koppelman Teleplay by : Howard Koppelman & Paul David	January 25, 1960 (1960-01-25)
28	13	"Fragment of a Murder"	Wilton Schiller	Gilbert Kay	February 1, 1960 (1960-02-01)
29	14	"Kangaroo Court"	Gilbert Kay	Wilton Schiller	February 8, 1960 (1960-02-08)

Production

Man with a Camera was filmed in Culver City, California, at Desilu Studios.^[3] From October 1958 to March 1959 it was broadcast on Fridays from 9 to 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time. From October 1959 to February 1960 it was broadcast on Mondays from 10:30 to 11 p.m. E.T.^[1] General Electric's Lamp Division sponsored the 1959-1960 episodes.^[4] Warren Lewis was the executive producer for Sharpe & Lewis Productions. A. E Houghton was the producer, and Gerald Mayer was a director.^[3]

Home media

The entire run of the series' 29 episodes was released in 2007 by the Infinity Entertainment Group, in collaboration with the Falcon Picture Group and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, from which the source prints were obtained.

Alpha Video has released three individual volumes on DVD, each containing four episodes from the series. A fourth volume was released on February 25, 2014. On October 17, 2017, Mill Creek Entertainment released the complete series on DVD + Digital. Entire Series can be seen on Tubi streaming.