Only 26 episodes of the Van Williams/Bruce Lee Green Hornet series were produced in its 1966-67 season. The brother show of the 20th Century Fox/Greenway hit Batman even had a cross over story, but the series failed to catch on, in part due to its underplaying of Lee. When Lee suddenly became a huge international movie star, two theatrical films were edited out of a few episodes of the show and issued theatrically. This first one was issued in 1974. Prism Leisure has issued the film in a letterboxed edition with extras.

Though the actual series is still not out yet, and the sad fiasco of The Weinsteins exiting Miramax put Kevin Smith’s theatrical film revival on hold, there is this DVD until then. That revival was even once at Universal with Mark Wahlberg and Jet Li attached, but all those delays has not stopped the cult following and skyrocketing value of memorabilia for this version.

Watching Lee’s fight sequences then, I cannot believe the producers were clueless in how to make this show work, especially with what they pulled off with Batman and having the services of the great Lorenzo Semple, Jr. at their dispose. Either way, this is still good TV in a time when people when color television was just making it to the masses. Needless to say the 35mm prints looked much better than the best analog television of the time.

As in the grossly underrated radio drama of the 1940s created by George W. Trendle, the deadly duo battles more insidious gangsters in the main storyline, but the second main science fiction storyline is less impressive. Eliminating the commercial breaks helps this move a bit better than on TV. Van Williams was well cast as Britt Reed, the powerful publisher who is secretly Hornet, but Lee was a phenomenon and it is the only time he worked under the circumstances of such a colorful, commercial production.

This is also a great moment of the 1960s deserving rediscovery.

The Green Hornet is bound to make a comeback soon and he keeps finding fans.