Honey West: The Complete Series (4pc) (Full B&W)

I hadn't seen Honey West before getting this DVD. The show is a predecessor of other shows I admit I like better, Alias, which I enjoyed more. Watching the actual Honey West episodes was fun, but never overly engaging. You do get every Honey West episode here though. All 30 half-hour episodes are spread across 4 DVDs. That might be enough to recommend the DVDs for fans of Honey West. But the extras make this a great addition to my personal DVD collection.

Besides the publicity stills shot for Honey West, each DVD is filled with vintage commercials. These were great fun. Every commercial is in black and white, just like the episodes. There are makeup ads, packaged foods ads, cigarettes ads, ads for other TV shows. Every disk has a new set of vintage commercials from the 60s. There's a cool cigar ad featuring George Burns on disk 3. I also really enjoyed the ad for a the local Dallas ABC affiliate on disk 4 starring Anne Francis, aka Honey West, promoting the entire evening line up. For me, a person who's worked in advertising my whole life, these are the real gems of this collection.

I love to watch old TV series on DVD, and I am a *huge* Perry Mason fan. I thought this might be kind of like Perry Mason. It's not. Honey West is a detective, but that's about all the resemblance to the Perry Mason TV series. While Honey West is entertaining and a fun look back at 1960s TV, the story lines didn't grab or engage me as much as Perry Mason. Nevertheless, it's worth watching if you're a fan of older TV shows.

Reading the other reviews it seems all's been said.
Sometimes in intense detail. So, just a few comments

Honey West, the pert, sexy-for-the-60's private-eye girl who was 'way ahead
of her time. Anne Francis was perfect for her character. You'll be surprised at
her athletic abilities and applaud how she manages to walk the line between the
60's TV vision of women and the judo-tossing tough-talking sports-car driving
LA PI. It's interesting seeing how far TV action/crime series have come, while recognizing how much today began back then.

The format's virtually the same for most all 30 episodes. The crime, the chase, the gruff cops, the humorous (maybe then but tame now) comments, the clues, the fights, the off-beat characters, finally revealing and trouncing the villains. Just like today's series, only in back & white, set against an LA very different from today. It's really 'cool' to see those classic cars rolling down nearly empty LA streets. And the super-sprayed hair styles. Pop art, leering men calling women girls, coy comments, hippies and some plots and dialogue to peg those naive yet emerging times.

A caveat: Don't do the marathon-watching thing, seeing episode after episode
straight through. You'll notice the the same sets with minor revisions with
plots and characters that are remarkably similar. Logic is regularly ignored,
editing often careless and acting, well... pretty stiff and corny. Many episodes
have men in gorilla, bear or robot suits, or there just to leer at the snugly-
leotarded Honey.

Each disk in the series offers 'vintage' TV commercials that are interesting on their
own. Hair sprays, cigarettes and cigars, laundry detergents and facial creams. Ads too have changed alot, while in some ways staying basically the same. Like, maybe, everything else.

As a long time fan of the spy type genre, I had high hopes for this 1960's series, which lasted for 30 episodes. My favorite show of all time is Get Smart, which was filmed around the same time in color (Honey West is in B&W). Anne Francis (Honey West) plays a Private Invesigator who along with her partner Sam Bolt (played by John Ericson) solve tha cases of missing treasures and mysterious identities. It is entertaining enough, but it isn't quite up to Get Smart's standards. There are plenty of fight scenes in high heels and sparkling jewelry and high speed car chases in classic cars. There are enough entertaining moments to keep you interested. If nothing else, it does open the door for other female spies and PI series such as Alias. So as a 60's series goes, it is enjoyable and worth watching especially if you are a fan of shows like Get Smart and Alias.

Fans of THE AVENGERS and spy-fi shows of the 60's will enjoy this as an example of "I can't believe that's making it to DVD." The gadgets are cool and the stories are pleasantly breezy. I'd always mention this to friends who claimed that empowered women came to TV at a later time, and now I have proof. And Anne Francis goes right up there with Raquel Welch and and Ann-Margaret as one of the most charming and gorgeous stars of the Sixties. If you're reading this review, you're probably well on your way to ordering it. I had a lot of fun reliving a golden age before I was even born.