Get hip to Naked City – The Complete Seasons One and Two, now available exclusively download-to-own on iTunes and Amazon courtesy of Acorn Media International.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city…” this will be 71 of them. Yes, with Season One running a whopping 39 half-hour episodes from 1958 to 1959, and Season Two following hard on its heels with a further 32 hour-long episodes from 1960 to 1961, these great collections offer an exciting and unmissable look back in time to a place where the streets were hot and your blood ran cold.

Inspired by Jules Dassin’s 1948 movie The Naked City, these semi-documentary TV dramas, filmed both in the studio and on the gritty streets of New York, ran on the ABC network to great acclaim, enticing a host of unparalleled guest stars in these seasons including Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Dianne Ladd, Dennis Hopper, Jack Klugman, Vic Morrow, Rocky Graziano, Eli Wallach, Peter Falk, Al Lewis, Leslie Nielsen, Claude Rains, Telly Savalas, Walter Matthau, James Caan, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Ed Asner, Sylvia Miles, Roddy McDowall and many more.

But naked as the city was, it came clothed in a stylish soundtrack with theme music, Somewhere in the Night, written by Billy May (The Mod Squad, Batman, The Green Hornet).

It’s ‘not just another cop show’ said Time magazine and it stands as one of the most innovative police shows in television history, putting a human face on crime and delving deep into the complex personal dramas of both criminals and victims. No simple portrayal of good and evil here, Naked City isn’t just black and white, it’s very cool shades of grey.

Naked City – The Complete Seasons One and Two is available now to download on iTunes courtesy of RLJ Entertainment at the currently set price of £19.99 per season.

Here's a clip featuring a young Robert Redford – and I can't believe I'm typing this – as a murderous neo-Nazi: