The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is from the 35mm reels, but they are unavoidably down a generation from the original materials from the episodes, common for such edited-together films. Usually, this was done for TV to have additional telefilm product, but since the original 1950s Superman with George Reeves went into production, filmed shows sometimes did this. Though by 1974 this was belated for a show like Green Hornet that was not a hit, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was so successful at it that a half-dozen or so films were cut from episodes and did fine business. Hornet was a half-hour show, so it took more shows to edit together an 84 minutes long feature film, but that’s just more storylines for your money.

The only problems here are that this is not anamorphically enhanced and these shows were usually framed for 1.33 x 1 narrow-vision TV. In this case, the only giveaway is trouble with headroom, but this looks good otherwise, helped by the fact that this is a PAL format DVD. Though this is from three episodes with three different directors, the cinematography is by Carl Guthrie, A.S.C., and looks good.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is about right for this kind of compilation film, with score by Billy May still roughly based on Flight Of The Bumblebee and theme by the great Al Hirt. Fox’s Lionel Newman was the conductor. It is ironic that sometimes the sound can actually be a bit better on these “films” than on the original episodes. For whatever reason, when Universal combined four episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker into two artificial telefilms, the audio was transferred very well. That is regardless of new dialogue and voice-overs by Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland. It will make for an interesting comparison when Fox finally issues the series on DVD.

Extras are the other big highlight outside of Lee in action, including text on the three leads, 43 stills, more stills in a montage set to music for about 3 minutes, a Black Beauty section with a choice of text, a montage of color images of the Corgi Black Beauty toy recently reissued and videotaped segment on the active, original car (thankfully surviving and thriving) that runs over 14 minutes. Additionally, there is text on the character’s history, text on The Bruce & Brandon Lee Association and a trailer for the amusing-looking film Black Samurai.

The Green Hornet is bound to make a comeback soon and he keeps finding fans. This is a fun DVD worth your time, available in two different covers.