May 30, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES II & IV • Page 21 Classic TV Western succeeded through originality by Dennis Seuling During the late 1950s and early ‘60s, Westerns dominated American TV screens. “Maverick” was one of the best, primarily because it dared to be original. It featured brothers Bret (James Garner) and Bart (Jack Kelly) who encountered adventures in such frontier towns as Hounddog, Oblivion, and Apocalypse when they weren’t raking in cash at the poker table. The series was infused with humor, but could also be enjoyed as a traditional Western drama. Occasionally, it would parody such well known TV shows as “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” and even “Dragnet,” with Bret providing narration in deadpan Joe Friday style. Garner and Kelly alternated as leads and sometimes appeared together, though Garner clearly had the juicier role. “Maverick: The Complete First Season” (Warner Home Video) is a seven-disc DVD box set containing all 27 episodes of the ABC show’s premiere 1957-58 season. Guest stars include Mike Connors, Hans Conreid, Claude Akins, Gene Nelson, Dick Foran, Werner Klemperer, Patrick Knowles, and Edmund Lowe. During its five-year run, “Maverick” was nominated for four Emmys and won one. For much of that time, it gave CBS’s long-entrenched “Ed Sullivan Show” a run for its money on Sunday evenings. “The Universe: The Complete Season Six” (A&E) illustrates the birth of our solar system, shocked into existence by a nearby supernova and enduring 700 million years of brutal bombardment by asteroids and cataclysms that shaped the planets and transformed their climates forever. Startling new discoveries reveal a history of continuous devastation on Earth. The series takes viewers to the solar system’s fringes to explore the possibility that the sun has an evil twin -- a monstrous star named Nemesis suspected of causing every mass extinction in Earth’s history. Available in both Blu-ray and DVD formats, the set contains NASA footage and the opinions of leading astrophysicists to probe into the billion-years-old story of Earth. “Man on a Ledge” (Summit Entertainment) is a movie in which a man contemplates jumping to his death. Viewers are left wondering who he is, why this is his chosen method of suicide, and why is he so insistent on dealing with a particular police negotiator. The man is Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), an escaped, convicted diamond thief with an elaborate plan to clear his name. After checking into an upper-floor room at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel, he orders a hefty meal, then exits the window and positions himself on a ledge. People below notice him and call the police. When a cop attempts to talk him in, Nick demands a different negotiator: Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks). Much of the plot involves a convoluted scheme Nick has engineered that depends on split-second timing as he teeters 25 floors above the street -- the kind of plan that could work only in a screenwriter’s imagination. The mystery unfolds as the police, Nick’s family, a wealthy businessman (Ed Harris), dirty cops, and Nick converge in the denouement. As a thriller, “Man on a Ledge” works reasonably well, though there is a sense that the screenwriter has cobbled together scenes from previous movies. For a theatrical film, it has a decidedly TV-movie feel, although the crowd scenes and New York locations are impressive. Special features on the Blu-ray release include a making-of featurette and trailer with commentary by Banks. “The Demoniacs” (Kino Lorber), a Poe-inspired tale of guilt and revenge, is a 1974 horror film directed by Jean Gambler Bret Maverick (James Garner) has a confrontational moment at the poker table in ‘Maverick.’ Rollin. This movie departs from Rollin’s frequent subject matter -- vampires -- and the results are decidedly uneven. The plot concerns a quartet of “wreckers” who murder two young sisters, the survivors of a ship they have lured onto (continued on Crossword page)