Product Details

• Actors: Karl Malden, Michael Douglas
• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Full Screen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Dubbed: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Paramount
• DVD Release Date: April 10, 2007
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LV6VZQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,540 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "The Streets of San Francisco - Season One, Vol. 1" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

More career-making than groundbreaking TV, The Streets of San Francisco is an efficiently entertaining old-school cop show from Quinn Martin, master of the four-acts-and-an-epilogue hour drama (The Untouchables, The Fugitive). Old Hollywood meets new with the casting of Oscar-winning character actor Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront) and, in the role that put him on the map, future Oscar-winner Michael Douglas (Wall Street) as partners in San Francisco's Bureau of Inspectors. Malden is 23-year-veteran Lt. Mike Stone. Douglas is Inspector Steve Keller, whose "fancy degrees in criminology" don't impress Stone. The generational conflict is more pronounced in the pilot episode. When Keller questions whether a deceased woman found floating in the bay is a suicide, Stone derisively responds, "If you were born in this town, you'd know that the current under the bridge flows out to sea and not in." Though the t wo have their differences (Stone, a self-described "slob," wears the classic trench coat, while Keller is "the best dressed cop on poverty row"), Stone is a more patient mentor in the 1972 series' first 14 episodes (13 plus the pilot) that are contained in this set's four discs.

One of this series' retro-TV delights is the veteran/rookie casting dynamic that extends to the series' guest stars. The pilot episode features Robert Wagner as a slick and initially suspect lawyer, and a pre-Happy Days Tom Bosley as the victim's landlord. The future Starsky & Hutch show up, albeit in separate episodes. David Soul is a racist cop with a surprising genealogy in "Hall of Mirrors" and in "Bitter Wine," Paul Michael Glaser stars as a man who spent 12 years in San Quentin for his brother's crime. Other familiar faces from TV Land include Vic Tayback (Alice), Victor French (Little House on the Prairie), Edward Mulhare (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir), and Di ck Van Patten (Eight Is Enough). But perhaps this serie s' real star is San Francisco, an offbeat location for a cop show. Ghirardelli Square, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other landmarks are intriguing backdrops as the gruff but compassionate Stone and the more hotheaded Keller pursue criminals and killers, some of whom are as deeply twisted as Lombard Street. Throw in a vintage show-launch interview with Malden and Douglas conducted by former Hollywood columnist and Oscars red-carpet emcee Army Archerd, and you have a set that's a real San Francisco treat. --Donald Liebenson

Beyond The Streets of San Francisco

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Stills from The Streets of San Francisco: Season 1, Vol. 1 (click for larger image)

Product Description

Twenty year veteran Detective Lt. Mike Stone is partnered with young, college educated Inspector Steve Keller who has a lot to learn about being a police detective on the Streets of San Francisco.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 71 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars STREETS is here...at last! January 9, 2007

By Kert Conrad

Format:DVD

THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO was one of the best crime dramas of the 70's, featuring screen veteran Karl Malden as Lieutenant Mike Stone and rising star Michael Douglas as Inspector Steve Keller. The series was produced by Quinn Martin and filmed on location in the City By The Bay.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about STREETS, besides the solid scripts and beautiful location scenery, was its powerhouse roster of guest stars. The series featured performances by many top actors from both new and old Hollywood, including Martin Sheen, Joseph Cotten, James Woods, Ida Lupino, John Ritter, Leslie Nielsen, Patty Duke, Nick Nolte, Rick Nelson, Larry Hagman and even a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Michael Douglas left the series in 1976 to pursue a movie career. His final episode was the two-part fifth season premiere, "The Thrill Killers", about a radical organization that kidnaps an entire jury. The story was inspired by the Patricia Hearst kidnapping case, which was still making headlines at the time. Douglas was replaced by Richard Hatch for the final year.

The first season has quite a number of outstanding segments, and it's great to see it finally coming out on DVD. Praise should go to the artist who did the cover design -- it's one of the coolest DVD covers I've seen in quite some time. Yes, having the season split up into two separate volumes is questionable, but regardless of how it's released, THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO is definitely worth adding to anyone's classic TV collection.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars great series, but not all of season one! June 4, 2007

By matt

Format:DVD

Agreeing with nearly every reviewer here about the quality of the show and the greediness of Paramount to not have the whole first season on these discs for the price you'd normally pay for a complete season, I have to add alittle about the show's appeal to someone who wasn't aloive at the time of its airing. I grew up in the 80s, but the residual culture of the 70s was quite strong in my neighborhood and childhood television experience. Watching this show brings me right back to all that was well with the world of my youth with its fros, leisure suits, big cars, loud colors and cymbol tinking sound tracks when the cops sneek around at night. And i love how you can see the mics under the casts' shirts and the camera in the windows' reflections. Or how the dead can be seen breathing or blinking. So refreshing compared to the over-hyped and over-gross details of death, murder and sex that are soooooo pervasive today. And the camera work is great. No jumping aorund like Law and Order to give you a headache! Oh how I wish the 70s and early 80s were still here. Every age has it's own sense of innocence when thought back upon, and this show captures that for me. Sounds wierd, but maybe you understand too.

The plots of SoSF are pretty good, the pace relaxing and the acting/guest appearances are superb. Buy this set (used?) or get it like I did at the library. Good times indeed! Enjoy!

68 of 82 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars TV Series: 5 Stars; DVD 1:1 - 1 Star - Averages Out To 3 January 5, 2007

By G. H. Giroux

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

SOSF was one of the best cop shows on TV and exemplified the 70s. Many of us who lived through that era and enjoyed the shows were salivating over the eventual (and LONG OVERDUE) DVD release. When I read an IMDB blog that Amazon had it on pre-order, I rushed to the site.

I was thoroughly disappointed and disgusted that this DVD is PART ONE of Season One! Part One!!! And the price is what you'd expect to pay for a full season on most other TV series, except some like Wiseguy, whose distributors were clearly trying to bloodsuck money from the fans. Clearly, that is the case here, too: when a fan get the full Season One, he/she will pay double. I won't: I'll wait until an Amazon seller drops it down to half price and get it then.

SHAME!!