Martin Kane

The part of Martin Kane P. I. was played by a number of actors - William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Tracy, and Mark Stevens. With the exception of Mark Stevens, the actors playing Kane were in the twilight of their careers, and it was a feature of 50s TV that such actors could find a home on television when film roles were no longer readily available.

The mysteries were usually pretty good, with Kane working in parallel with the police and the police not squawking about this since Kane was the one to always solve the mystery.

An interesting and even humorous aspect of the show was common in early TV. There were no commercials per se. Instead, there was product placement in that Martin Kane smoked a pipe that he would load with Old Briar Tobacco at the beginning of the show (the sponsor was U. S. Tobacco). Also, at least one scene in the episode would be inside Happy McMann's tobacco store where he would talk up at least one sponsored tobacco product during the scene. Funny how Kane and the police would just happen to show up there at a key juncture to discuss evidence and the case in question.

Notice that there are lots of close ups so that there is no need to dress the sets, although the one set that is very well laid out is that of Happy's tobacco store with all kinds of signs advertising U. S. Tobacco company products.

Only kinescopes remain, so the images are murky but watchable, but it is worth spending some time with the show just for the TV history aspect of it all.