Man with a Camera is an American 1950s television crime drama starring Charles Bronson. Throughout the 1950s, Bronson spent most of his early acting career performing in TV shows as well as small parts in films, until he landed the lead in this ABC series. This is the only series in which he played the lead role. After this show was cancelled he was usually cast either in supporting roles or as a guest star or recurring character in dozens of TV shows.
Plot
Bronson portrayed Mike Kovac, a former World War IIcombat photographer freelancing in New York City who specialized in getting the photographs that other lensmen could not. He usually assists newspapers, insurance companies, the police and private individuals, all of whom want a filmed record of an event. 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, though he frequently seeks advice from Anton Kovac, his immigrant father.
Man with a Camera was filmed on locations in Hollywood at Desilu Studios. The series had two abbreviated seasons in 1958-59 and 1959–60 and was aired on the ABC-TV network, Friday nights at 9:00 pm.
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.
