DVD Tuesday: Treasury Men in Action; The Kent Chronicles

Every Tuesday I take a look at obscure and/or classic television programs, specials, miniseries or made-for-TV movies being released on DVD or Blu-ray. For the record I consider anything broadcast prior to 1980 to be classic or else there wouldn’t be much to discuss. The releases referred to in these posts are encoded for Region 1 use in the United States and Canada.

Out today from Film Chest Media Group is Federal Men – 3 Disc Collector’s Set, which contains 16 half-hour episodes of ABC’s Treasury Men in Action, which ran from 1950-1955 and was later syndicated under the title Federal Men. The live anthology series was based on actual case files of the United States Treasury Department. It was hosted by Walter Greaza, who assigned cases to various guest stars each week. Why this set is being released under the Federal Men title, and whether the episodes will feature that title on the opening credits, is unknown but it could be due to pesky copyright issues.

Also out today from Acorn Media is The Kent Chronicles, a 3-disc set collecting three miniseries from the late 1970s based on the first three books in John Jakes’ Kent Family Chronicles series (also known as the American Bicentennial Series). All three miniseries were broadcast in first-run syndication as part of Operation Prime Time, a venture launched in 1976 to provide network quality programming to independent stations. The three miniseries are: The Bastard (originally broadcast on May 22nd and May 23rd, 1978), The Rebels (originally broadcast May 14th and May 21st, 1979) and The Seekers (originally broadcast December 3rd and 4th, 1979).


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2 Replies to “DVD Tuesday: Treasury Men in Action; The Kent Chronicles”

  1. As I was saying before I was interrupted (!!)….the first four seasons of “TREASURY MEN IN ACTION” were produced live. In the fall of ’54, the series moved to ABC {for a new sponsor, Chevrolet}, and onto film, as the producers wanted to sell the series for off-network syndication. 39 episodes were produced that season, and the series ended in 1955. For syndication purposes, the 39 filmed episodes appeared on local stations as “FEDERAL MEN”- and no doubt those episodes are the ones featured on that DVD set.

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