Takin’ It to the “Streets”

I’m a big fan of San Francisco, thanks in large part to four influences during my pubescent years: (1) Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, (2) Herbert Asbury’s delightful book about that California city’s criminal history, The Barbary Coast, and (3) a pair of American TV series, McMillan & Wife and The Streets of San Francisco. That latter show kicked off with a 1972 ABC-TV movie (based on Carolyn Weston’s 1972 novel, Poor, Poor Ophelia) starring Oscar winner Karl Malden as a tough but understanding San Francisco homicide detective and a young Michael Douglas as his bright but not-yet-street-savvy partner. “A Quinn Martin production,” Streets was a much better than average cop series, with a jazzy Pat Williams opening theme and good chemistry between the two leads. Filmed entirely on location in San Francisco, according to its closing credits, it functioned as a weekly familiarization tour of Herb Caen’s “Baghdad by the Bay,” leading viewers, like me, along Fisherman’s Wharf, through Chinatown and Golden Gate Park, down Market Street and over Nob Hill. Even as Malden and Douglas tackled murders arising from gang violence and terrorism, the show sold San Franciso as well as any promo campaign could have done.

Streets lasted for five seasons, until Douglas went off to do other things (such as producing the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), leaving Malden with a new partner in the form of Richard Hatch--the future Battlestar Galactica leading hunk, of course, not the tax evader from Survivor.

Given how much obnoxious old TV crap is now available on DVD (who’s bright idea was it, anyway, to inflict Sledge Hammer! on the world again?), I am surprised to discover that The Streets of San Francisco hasn’t made the transfer. But it apparently will soon. TV Squad reports that “Season 1, Volume 1” of the series is going to be released by Paramount on April 3 of next year. “It will be 10 episodes plus the pilot movie,” writes Bob Sassone. “No word on extras or commentaries yet.” We can hope for the best. Douglas might be too big a name these days to contribute, but it would be cool if Malden--who, at 94 years of age, is “the oldest living male Hollywood star,” according to Wikipedia--could be coaxed into reminiscing for the cameras about Streets. His last appearance was in an episode of The West Wing in 2000.