Peter Gunn - Season Three Episodes

Peter Gunn: Season Three Episodes


Copyright ©2011-2016 by Mike Quigley. No reproduction of any kind without permission.


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EPISODE 1: The Passenger

Written by Lewis Reed and Tony Barrett; directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Original Air Date - 3 October 1960

SYNOPSIS:

As accountant Edward Hines (Forrest Lewis) is on his way home on a late night bus, he witnesses a brutal murder in a hotel room. Hines goes to the police, but their investigation turns up nothing. Shortly after, Hines contacts Gunn because he is convinced the killer is following him with the intention of knocking him off. Gunn talks to a clerk at the hotel and also the owner of a small grocery across the street. The grocery owner produces a piece of paper which suggests that Hines was trying to locate the killer, who registered the room under the name of George Johnson. When Gunn goes to Hines' room, he finds him dead. Soon after, the female murder victim is also found dead in a junk yard by Elmo Barnes (Rhys Williams), an eloquent bum. Gunn manages to figure out Hines' "habit pattern," which he suspects Johnson also figured out, talking to the dispatcher (character actor Alfred Hopson) at the bus depot, who Johnson had spoken to earlier. Gunn and Jacoby plant information in the local media suggesting that Barnes saw the killer, then lay in wait for Johnson to show up, which he eventually does. Before he can do any damage to Barnes (whether Barnes is on this caper is not stated), he is wounded by Jacoby. The ending is kind of a letdown. Johnson (the menacing Ted de Corsia), whose real name is Curtis Brandt, confesses everything (no Miranda warning!), telling Jacoby that Hines was the one who originally tracked him down and tried to shake him down for $10,000. Brandt had no alternative but to silence Hines.

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EPISODE 2: Mask of Murder

Written by Tony Barrett and Lewis Reed; directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Original Air Date - 10 October 1960

SYNOPSIS:

Gunn gets a call from Norman Calvin Hartley (Robert Brubaker), saying "there is going to be a death in this house ... mine." When he arrives at the house about 20 minutes later, a shot is heard, and Hartley is found dead in his locked study with a gun in his hand, seemingly a suicide. Shortly after, Hartley's wife Dianne (Katherine Hartley) tries to contact Glenn Ellsworth (Morgan Jones), who is leaving town for Rio de Janeiro. Gunn gets a call from Mrs. Hartley, who wants to hire him to track Ellsworth down. She figures he had some connection to the death of her husband, who she describes as "a legend," since Ellsworth was an acquaintance of her husband who had a key to his study. Gunn arrives in Rio, just at the peak of Carnival, which gives composer Henry Mancini a good excuse to fill the soundtrack with Latin music. Despite the number of people in Rio, both residents and visitors for the festivities, Gunn has little trouble finding information about Ellsworth's whereabouts, including some tips from the very sexy Elena (Margarita Cordova), a flamenco dancer. When he goes to meet with Ellsworth, Gunn narrowly avoids getting stabbed to death. Returning to the cafe where Elena works, Gunn encounters Ellsworth, who is shot dead by Mrs. Hartley, who suddenly appears. It turns out that Ellsworth, her lover, took her to the cleaners and then abandoned her after murdering her husband, so she hired Gunn to track Ellsworth down. There are several loose ends in this episode, not the least of which is how did Mrs. Hartley manage to locate Ellsworth without a succession of contacts like Gunn had!

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EPISODE 3: Maitre d'

Teleplay by Arthur Ross; Story by Blake Edwards; directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Original Air Date - 17 October 1960

SYNOPSIS:

James Lanphier, who played villains in each of the two previous seasons, returns as Leslie, in the first of 13 appearances this season. He is a Cordon Bleu chef whose restaurant is blown up during a gang war and is the only witness who can identify the man who was responsible for the bombing. Also a lawyer and a brown belt in judo, Leslie tracks Jacoby down to Edie's new supper club where the lieutenant is being unsuccessful in trying to speed up the inspection process through some contacts at City Hall. In exchange for Gunn protecting him, Leslie manages to use his City Hall contact to come immediately so the club can open that evening. This place is a step up from Mother's, even to the extent of employing a French chef whom Leslie berates for his mediocre preparation of food. When the chef quits, Leslie takes over temporarily and also assumes the job of maitre d' in order to attract the attention of Garson (Alan Reed), one of the two gangsters involved in the bombing. There are two further bombing attempts on Leslie's life, one at a gourmet grocery store and the second at Edie's. Gunn throws the first bomb into a vacant lot across the street from the store, while the second one is a dud, designed to distract people so Garson and his goons can enter Edie's through the back door. The ending of the show, with both Gunn and Leslie taking on the hoods, is extremely violent with much of the just-opened club getting trashed.

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EPISODE 4: The Candidate

Written by Lewis Reed and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 24 October 1960

SYNOPSIS:

This show is dumb and totally wastes veteran character actor Lloyd Corrigan. He plays Adrian Grimmett, a former certified public accountant, now running for public office as the "economy candidate," whose platform is "representation without taxation." The show begins with a scene where Gunn is summoned to the house of Fenton R. Warwick (Raymond Greenleaf), a very rich man who gives him a very large check to be passed on to Grimmett's campaign. The check is duly delivered, but shortly after, Grimmett's campaign manager, Harold Canfield (Alexander Lockwood) is assassinated during a political rally where the candidate is making a speech to an enthusiastic crowd. Normally, a tragic event like this would have serious consequences, with the campaign probably being put on hold, but in the next scene Gunn and Jacoby are talking to Grimmett, who is carrying on, treating the murder in an almost frivolous fashion. Grimmett soon discovers that a suitcase full of funds for his campaign is empty, and Canfield, who received a threatening phone call earlier in the show, is a prime suspect for its disappearance. The next scene, where Gunn and Jacoby are playing double or nothing with Grimmett's campaign buttons, is insensitive. The two track down a suitcase similar to Grimmett's, full of cash, in a parcel depot where it is bound for San Francisco. Gunn breaks open the lock on the suitcase with his gun, seriously overriding proper police procedure (if he was a policeman!) of getting a warrant, following which Jacoby takes the money. Gunn then goes to a Japanese restaurant where some very hot blonde (Vikki Dougan) grabs on to his pant leg and makes sexually suggestive chit-chat. He finally gets down to business with Yuki (Yuki Shimoda), the manager of the restaurant, getting him to spread rumours that Gunn has the money. Of course, these rumours end up in the ears of the exact two hoods who were working with Canfield and wiped him out after he welched on their deal. When the thugs arrive at Gunn's place to pick up the cash, they are both shot dead by Gunn and Jacoby, who are waiting for them.

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EPISODE 5: The Judgement

Written by Tony Barrett and Lewis Reed; directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Original Air Date - 31 October 1960

SYNOPSIS:

Arthur Curtis (Joey Tata) appears in court where he is expected to get a relatively light sentence for his crime. Instead, Curtis pulls out a gun which was slipped to him by a jail trusty and brutally murders Judge Curlan (George Eldredge) in the courtroom, after which he is shot dead by two guards. Following this slip-up, Jacoby feels the heat from various people above. Gunn talks to jail stool pigeon Charlamagne (Cyril Delevanti), who says that two men visited Curtis recently, one of whom has a very raspy voice. From another informant, Joey (Davis Roberts), a boxing trainer who is black and blind, Gunn finds out this man is Cahane (Richard Benedict), who works in a bookstore which is a front. The man behind the bookstore is mobster Frank Garth (Mel Welles), who orders Gunn killed after he snoops around the store. When confronted by Garth and his hoods later at the boxing gym where they murdered Joey for tipping off Gunn, Gunn throws rosin in their faces and manages to escape. Back at Jacoby's office, Gunn finds out that the murdered judge was heading a citizens' committee getting evidence against Garth. Two of Garth's thugs eventually show up at Gunn's apartment where Gunn and Jacoby are waiting for them, and both of the hoods are shot dead in a violent finale.

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EPISODE 6: The Death Frame

Written by Lewis Reed and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 7 November 1960

SYNOPSIS:

The show has an very noirish opening as a man whose knuckles are so huge they look like eyeballs knocks out a hotel clerk, goes upstairs and waits for another man who he murders with a fatal karate blow. Shortly after, Gunn gets a call from Eddie Cason (Wesley Lau), a local gangster into larceny who Gunn detests. Cason figures that he will be knocked off next, since two of his top boys (one of whom was the guy at the hotel) have already been killed. Later, Gunn gets called by Cason from a motel where Cason is supposedly hiding, but it is a setup. After he arrives, Gunn finds himself knocked out by the karate man and awakes to the sounds of hallucinatory music by Mancini similar to that used in the film Arabesque some years later. Cason is dead beside him and Gunn has a revolver in his hand, suggesting that he knocked Cason off. From some oddball named Bones (Bobby Byles), who plays around with skeletons, Gunn finds out the man with the killer punch is Vic Crawley (Paul Baxley) who works for another hood, Cal Ward (Bob Bice), who wants to expand his operation in the area. Even though Gunn is a suspect in Cason's murder, Jacoby and Gunn go back to the motel to interview the desk clerk who was on duty when Gunn was knocked out. Gunn manages to track Crawley down, but is confronted by Ward and some other thug, and a violent fight and gun battle follows, with Crawley destroying most of his apartment. Jacoby shows up at the last minute and manages to kill all three of the bad guys.

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EPISODE 7: Death Across the Board

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Original Air Date - 14 November 1960

SYNOPSIS:

The story opens as a huge man known as the Great Gorza (Mickey Morton) brutally murders an old man, Wally Keel (George Selk), in a stable. Gorza is mentally challenged and the friend of Charley Deade (Darren Dublin), a former jockey who was crippled by one of the horses Keel was looking after. Gorza was actually trying to kill the horse, but Keel got in the way. So does the horse’s owner, Harley Bernard (Robert Warwick), after he hires Gunn to find out who murdered Keel. Gunn gets some tips from Scooter (Ned Glass), who takes bets on horse races where he has cooked the results. Scooter tells Gunn that the man most likely behind the killing was Frank Rousseau (Jimmy Lydon), who had problems with Keel when trying to fix a race. Gunn is kidnapped by a couple of Rousseau’s goons, but Rousseau offers Gunn money to catch the killer, since he figures he will soon get knocked off himself (Gunn does not take the cash). When Gunn returns to his apartment, he is attacked by Gorza, but the giant escapes after Jacoby shows up and kicks the door down. Fitness guru Jack Lalanne appears as himself, offering yet more tips to Gunn, identifying Gorza as the murderer. Acting on information from a doctor at the sanitarium where Deade was institutionalized with “depressive mania” after the horse attacked him, Gunn goes to Deade’s apartment where Gorza attacks Gunn again. Jacoby shows up and shoots Gorza dead as he lifts Gunn above his head. Then Gunn and Jacoby return to Bernard’s place where Deade is about to shoot the horse that attacked him. The horse rears up and strikes Deade with its hooves, killing him.

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EPISODE 8: Tramp Steamer

Teleplay by Jack McEdward; story by Blake Edwards; directed by Gene Reynolds
Original Air Date - 21 November 1960

SYNOPSIS:

Former racketeer Barney Rico (Gene Coogan) is murdered by a man hiding in the front seat of his car. Soon after, his brother Dave (Tony DeMario) calls Gunn, worried that he will be next, telling Gunn to meet him at his barber shop office. Gunn arrives too late, finding Dave seriously wounded. Dave expires, uttering the name "[Matt] Poliska (Bert Freed)," a crook who his brother helped get deported several years before. The next day, Gunn gets a close shave from one of Poliska's old gang who works at the barber shop, with a tip to check out the gangster's girl friend, Virginia Barret (Peggy Taylor), who sings at the Pirate's Den nightclub. Gunn listens to the attractive Virginia sing Too Close For Comfort, then tries to get information out of her. She leaves the club, and Gunn makes quick work of the bouncer, dispatching him with a judo-like chop. After tracking Virginia to her apartment at the Holly Arms, Gunn knocks on her door, but is surprised by Marco (Henry Corden), one of Poliska's hoods. As expected, Poliska is hanging out in Virginia's room. Gunn has a few choice words with Poliska, then kicks Marco down the stairs as he's being escorted out of the building to be "taken for a ride." When he returns to the apartment, both Virginia and Poliska have fled. Marco gets seriously grilled by Jacoby and Gunn back at police headquarters. Finally he cracks and gives enough information that Gunn and Jacoby can use to track down the gangster to a steamship which is departing the docks that evening. On board the ship, Gunn and Poliska have an extremely violent fight in the galley, after which Poliska is knocked out by a steel door that Jacoby opens.

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EPISODE 9: The Long Green Kill

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 28 November 1960

SYNOPSIS:

A man disguised as a conductor on a train knocks out a cop accompanying the handcuffed Frank Garrett (Roy Jenson), being taken to prison for his part in a $200,000 payroll robbery. Shortly after his escape, Garrett gives his wife Paula a call, threatening her. She is a hot, busty blonde, sitting around in her slip, played by Susan Cummings. Paula calls Gunn, saying that her name is "Alice Johnson," asking to meet him in a hotel lobby, because she is afraid her husband is going to kill her. When Gunn shows up, she is nowhere to be seen. Gunn finally talks to her later on the docks, where Paula tells him that Frank wants to knock her off because he thinks that she was the one who squealed to the cops after the robbery. She says that her husband might be at a mortuary which "he owns." At the mortuary, Gunn and Frank engage in the usual terrific fight, breaking lots of statues and things. Gunn is overpowered by Frank, but Jacoby shows up and Frank is shot dead -- then they find out the bullets in Frank's gun are all blanks. Gunn has his suspicions that Vic Bell (Paul Lambert), an old acquaintance of Garrett's, is involved, and he gets confirmation from Chips (Tudor Owen), an Irishman who used to be Garrett's driver and is working on a gizmo which will increase gas mileage of cars to 150 miles a gallon. Chips suggests that Paula and Bell, who is actually the guy who sprung Garrett from the train, were an item. Bell is picked up by the cops, and is the recipient of a serious third degree from both Gunn and Jacoby, for the second show in a row. When Bell fails to break, Gunn tells Jacoby to let him go, and they follow him to an apartment where Paula is holed up. Paula is just about to shoot Bell for doubting her loyalty when Jacoby and Gunn show up and take both of them into custody.

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EPISODE 10: Take Five for Murder

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Paul Stanley
Original Air Date - 5 December 1960

SYNOPSIS:

Gavin "Love Boat" MacLeod, who appeared in the very first episode of the show, returns in this episode as Mitch Borden, a wartime buddy of Gunn. When Gunn says there have been a "lot of years since Saipan," Mitch replies, "It's still a jungle out there." Mitch has a background in the recording industry, but recently has become the manager of rock singer Bobby Jeeter (David Howe), who sings two tunes, both of which seem to be created especially for the show. Mitch is being blackmailed to the tune of $25,000 by a guy named Cully because of some "youthful indiscretions" of his protégé and asks Gunn for help. When Gunn goes to meet Cully, he is knocked out. The show begins with some character who wears white shoes knocking off Doris Rainey (Millicent Deming). She is the hat check girl at the club where Bobby is currently performing. Later, after she is taken to the hospital for observation, Mr. White Shoes shows up again and smothers her with a pillow. It turns out that the blackmailer Cully is actually Mitch in disguise -- hard to believe considering the makeup job Mitch has to apply with a moustache, heavy eyebrows and a scar. When Gunn confronts Mitch at the dressing room at the club where he finds the blackmail money that Cully took, Mitch tells Gunn that Bobby was lip-synching to the sound of an electronic voice generated by some gizmo in his guitar which Mitch had invented. After Bobby fell in love with Doris, the hat check girl, he was going to spill the beans about this gizmo. Bobby shows up as Gunn is talking to Mitch, who manages to escape into the club, where the usual violent fight follows, with Mitch losing both his wig and most of his makeup. This dual personality of Mitch and the plot of this show in general is very hard to swallow.

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EPISODE 11: Dream Big, Dream Deadly

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 12 December 1960

SYNOPSIS:

Private detective Eddie Sellers (Harvey Perry) arrives at a church where he finds a tip on a piece of paper relating to a half million dollar payroll robbery that he and his brother Cal (also a P.I.) are investigating. As he leaves the church, Eddie has his neck broken by a muscular guy identified only as "Attacker" (Chuck Hicks), who then searches Eddie for the paper which he left in the church pew. Later, as Gunn is smooching with Edie at her club, he gets a call from Cal (Regis Toomey), who he knows from way back, to come to his and Eddie's office. When he shows up, Cal is paranoid that whoever killed Eddie is out to get him too, since his office was ransacked shortly after the murder. The 63-year-old Cal wonders if he will survive to be 64, wistfully wishing he could have had the high-living life style of Gunn. At Jacoby's office, the lieutenant tells Gunn his theory on who masterminded the payroll robbery -- a "top echelon hood" named Frank Kinnard (later played in the show by Byron Morrow). Unfortunately, Kinnard had an airtight alibi for the time the heist took place. Gunn hangs out at a bar where a couple of dames give him the eye. He talks to Flo (Madame Spivy), a newsstand operator who is the resident pinball wizard. She tells him that Eddie was seen at the bar in the company of "Joey" (Bob Ball) before he was killed. Gunn goes to Joey's apartment which is close by and tries to get information from him, but the Attacker shows up, knocks Gunn out and presumably does away with Joey. Gunn further investigates, talking to an English-accented tattoo artist named Needles (James Fairfax), a former friend of Kinnard, who says that Joey, whose real name is "Alex Joseph," used to be the gangster's bookkeeper. Gunn meets Cal at the church where Eddie was killed, and has a brainstorm that the information Eddie came to get is on a piece of paper, which is still somewhere inside. Predictably, Gunn finds the paper, which has an address of Morton's Fender and Body Works at 312 S. Claremont on it. He tells Cal to take the paper to Jacoby, then heads to this location. When Gunn gets there, he sees Kinnard and the Attacker taking the money out of one of the inspection pits in the garage. There is a gun battle, and both the Attacker and Kinnard are seemingly put out of action. Cal then shows up, and starts talking about how he wants to take some of the loot to make up for all the "crumbs" he had to take during his career. When Cal offers Gunn half of the money, Gunn tells him this is not a good idea, but Cal pulls a gun on him. The Attacker, who is not dead, picks up a gun from the floor and shoots Cal, who fires back, but is mortally wounded. Cal expires in Gunn's arms.

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EPISODE 12: Sepi

Teleplay by Tony Barrett; story by Lester Aaron Pine; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 19 December 1960

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Sepi Toreno (Eugene Martin), a young boy with a Spanish accent who lives in a comfortable, large house, is awakened by the sounds of his father Jose (Paul Fierro) being brutally beaten outside. Later at Edie's nightclub, Sepi wants to hire Gunn to find out who did this, after hearing his "uncle" and "aunt" discussing the detective. The kid runs away after Gunn phones the police to see if they have any reports of missing children. Gunn finds out where Sepi lives, and meets his relatives, who are totally American-looking. The aunt, Lisa Nye (June Vincent), is a rich sculptress, while her husband George (Kent Taylor) looks much older than her. Lisa tells Gunn that Sepi is her sister's child, and his parents are both currently in South America. They dismiss the boy's idea that someone was beating his father as the product of an overactive imagination. After Gunn leaves, George tells her they have "got to pay them anything they ask." Gunn gets Jacoby to check with the hospital to see if Sepi's father was admitted, and it turns out he was. Gunn goes to the hospital but when the father is interviewed, he says that his injuries are the result of falling down and he doesn't want to talk. As Gunn leaves the hospital, he is nearly the victim of a drive-by shooting with what sounds like a machine gun. After he gets patched up from his injuries, Gunn goes back to the Nyes' house, and sneaks into Sepi's room where the kid says that he just dreamt about his father getting beat up. After being discovered by George and Lisa, Lisa tells Gunn that they met Sepi and his father (who is now their handyman and groom) while on a trip to Central America. Not able to have any children, Mrs. Nye fell in love with the child and they paid some unscrupulous types money to smuggle the two of them back into the States. Now they are being blackmailed, with the threat of their scheme being exposed to the immigration department. After talking to Ed Keeler (John Craven), the owner of a private airport, to determine how the boy and his father managed to get into the country, Gunn meets again with the Nyes, who are preparing money for the blackmailers. Despite his protestations to not deal with them, Lisa delivers money to a phone booth in an out-of-the-way location. Gunn is hiding in the trunk of her car, and he waits outside the booth for several hours, but no one shows up. After he goes back to his apartment with the money, Gunn gets a visit from George, who pulls a gun on him. Turns out that George is the one behind the blackmail scheme, because of all the money which his wife had, and the fact that he was "too old for an allowance." He paid some thugs to rough up Sepi's father because Jose was thinking of going to the immigration department and confessing everything. Jacoby is hiding in the shadows at Gunn's place, and the two of them subdue George, who is taken into custody. The show ends with Lisa telling Gunn and Edie that she talked to the authorities, and Sepi and his father will be able to legally enter the States after a brief period back in their home country.

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EPISODE 13: A Tender Touch

Written by Lewis Reed and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 26 December 1960

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Howard McNear, who appeared in all three seasons of the show, plays another quirky character, Horatio Smeddler, assistant cashier and "custodian of the vault" at a bank for over 27 years. Smeddler is a real oddball -- he drives an antique car, has a cat named Charlemagne, and has a doorbell which plays "Beautiful Dreamer." He steals all the bank's money, then hires Gunn to be his "emissary" with the bank's board of directors and its president, R.W. Lockland (Howard Petrie). Gathering them together, Smeddler demands the bank institute a pension plan for the its employees. Lockland exclaims, "That's fascism!" Jonas Fuller (Frank Behrens), representative of an insurance company who wants to get the bank's money back, tells Lockland he is "the last of the stone-age bankers," and that the underdog Smeddler will become a folk hero for his efforts to fight big corporations. However, a couple of crooks, including the "creative heister" and "tough operator" Carl Braden (Lawrence Tierney) are also interested in the money, which Smeddler has hidden in "a safe place." Braden and his hoodlum associate (Fred Villani) kidnap Smeddler. Gunn figures out where Smeddler has been taken by consulting Booster (Joey Faye), a guy with an abnormal interest in birds, including one which sits on his shoulder and talks. Gunn goes to Braden's hideout and puts the gangster out of commission after the usual violent fight. Smeddler, not knowing his own strength, knocks out Braden's hoodlum friend, then flees the scene. Back at his house, when questioned by Gunn and Jacoby, Smeddler accidentally blabs the location where he hid the money -- in his geranium bed. The disgruntled bank employee finally has his day in court, which is full of his supporters. The judge has to sentence Smeddler to something so he gives him six months, likely to be soon reduced for good behavior. Smeddler is led away as his fans in the courtroom sing "For he's a jolly good fellow," joined in by Gunn and Jacoby.

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EPISODE 14: The Royal Roust

Written by Tony Barrett and Lewis Reed; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 2 January 1961

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The show opens with a gun battle between the cops and Bennett (Warren J. Kemmerling), one of three bank robbers who is holed up in a building close to the Hotel St. Edwards, where there is a sign welcoming King Felix (Leonard Strong). After Jacoby tells Bennett to surrender, a cop lobs tear gas into his room, and Bennett flees by the fire escape where he is wounded and captured after falling to the ground. At Jacoby's office, the lieutenant fills Gunn in on details of the case as he is watering his plants, telling him that there were two other robbers who got away, and the total amount of cash stolen was $200,000. Jacoby gets Gunn to give him some wardrobe advice, because his next job is acting as "royal consort" for the King, who will be shortly participating in a parade. Jacoby is soon freaking out because the King passed by the jail at the police station, and wants to see the inside, because there are no jails in his country (everyone there is on the "honor system"). While the King is talking to the prisoners, Bennett pretends to have a heart attack, and as he is being taken to the hospital later, he escapes from custody, leaping through a closed window. Jacoby asks Gunn for help from his "friends" to locate the robber, and Gunn talks to one of them, the bald-headed Thoreau (Milton Parsons), whose specialty is raising carnivorous plants (which supposedly can eat people). Of course, Thoreau knows where Bennett is hiding out -- a marine supplies store -- and Gunn gets there quickly, where he engages in a violent fight with Bennett and the other two crooks, disabling all three of them and leaving with the stolen money. Gunn drops by Jacoby's office, then returns to his apartment, where Bennett and his pals are waiting. They threaten to get rough with Gunn when he tells them he donated the cash to the Policeman's Benefit Fund, but Jacoby kicks the door open and shoots two of the robbers dead. Bennett flees to Gunn's terrace, climbs up a ladder to the roof, and then comes down another ladder to the Hotel St. Edwards, where he runs through the service tunnel under the building. Jacoby and Gunn pursue him, eventually catching him when he runs out of ammunition. As they are taking Bennett back to the cop shop, they run into the King in the hotel lobby, who compliments Jacoby on the humanitarian manner in which he is treating his prisoner.

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EPISODE 15: Bullet in Escrow

Written by Lewis Reed and Tony Barrett; directed by Paul Stanley
Original Air Date - 9 January 1961

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No sooner does Ed Stone (Leonard Stone) get out of prison after serving a five-year stretch than he calls Peter Gunn on the mobile phone in the car sent to pick him up. Stone tells Gunn that he's coming to pay back Gunn for sending him to jail. Jacoby tells Gunn that he should seriously consider a vacation in the Himalayas, but Gunn has other ideas. With the help of a florist named Aesop who is preparing a wreath for his pending funeral, Gunn locates Ernie Daggett (Bobby Hoy), a "playmate" of Stone's, at Ace Enterprises. Gunn forces Daggett at gunpoint to accompany him to the Downtown Athletic Club where Specs (Richard Collier), the attendant, offers to not only give Daggett a rubdown but a rubout by locking him in a steam cabinet until he perishes. Gunn holds Daggett captive in one of the club's rooms. Meanwhile, Jacoby manages to track down Gunn with the help of a sleazy cabbie (William O'Connell). At the club, Doggett manages to escape by hitting Gunn with the receiver from the phone as Gunn tries to make him set up a meeting with Stone. As he is running down the stairs, Doggett encounters Jacoby, and after a chase where Gunn's suit gets all messed up with the contents of a fire extinguisher, Doggett falls down the stairs, fatally breaking his neck. Gunn somehow manages to plant a story in the newspaper that he (Gunn) has been knocked off and that his funeral will be held within hours, hoping that Stone will show up. Stone doesn't appear at the graveyard, because he has been tipped off by the cabbie that the funeral is a scam. (The cabbie saw Gunn and Jacoby leave the athletic club together after the confrontation with Doggett.) Soon after, Gunn gets a call from Stone, telling him that he has kidnapped Edie, and he wants to meet back at the cemetery. In a very noirish finale with lots of fog and rain, Gunn and Stone engage in a cat-and-mouse shootout where Stone is killed and Edie is rescued.

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EPISODE 16: Jacoby's Vacation

Teleplay by Tom Waldman; story by Blake Edwards; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 16 January 1961

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Jacoby is ready to go on a fishing vacation when Gunn gets a job offer to track down the brother of Arthur Holland (George Ives) who has gone missing while working at a mine in some Central American country. Gunn decides to take Jacoby along as his "assistant." After the two of them arrive and are on their way to the city of San Bora, they are menaced by bandits. Finally arriving at the mine, they are meet its owner, Louis Frober (Tom Palmer). Frober's wife Anna (Mary Munday) slips a note into Gunn's pocket, and the two of them get together later. Anna tells Gunn that Holland's brother William, who she met in La Paz when she and her husband were visiting there, was killed after he discovered that something fishy was going with her husband's mining operation. She says that William was her ticket out of the place, suggesting the two of them were a number. Gunn and Jacoby go and check out the mine, where Gunn discovers it is a front for smuggling guns to local revolutionaries. Gunn is almost wasted by Paul Yavacheck (Troy Melton), the same employee of the mine who knocked off William at the beginning of the show. There is a chase accompanied by Blue Steel-like music as Gunn and Jacoby head back to Frober's house to alert the local authorities. A gun battle, mostly in Frober's darkened house, takes place with the mine owner and one of the revolutionaries (Oscar Beregi) ending up dead.

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EPISODE 17: Blind Item

Teleplay by Jack McEdward; story by Blake Edwards; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 23 January 1961

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After local author Benton Ridgely is murdered, Gunn shows up as Jacoby is investigating. Gunn had been hired by Ridgely to figure out who was having an affair with his wife after he read some tidbit in a local gossip column authored by Forest Graham (Richard Ney). Gunn gets nowhere when he talks to Ridgely’s wife Madelon (Irene Hervey) and Graham himself. Babby (Billy Barty), “The Little Man,” gives Gunn a tip to check out Edward Bellasco (Mark Allen), later determined to be a private detective, who talks a mile a minute. Bellasco leads Gunn down another path to Keith Tucker (Lloyd Lindroth), who plays a harp in a nightclub. After Tucker is arrested by the cops on suspicion of murder, Bellasco calls Gunn in the middle of the night, saying he wants to meet in the warehouse district. When Gunn shows up, Bellasco is shot dead, but not before he tells Gunn that the real killer is John Craven, Mrs. Ridgely’s first husband. Gunn pursues Craven across the rooftops, wounding him. Arriving back at the Ridgely house, Madelon tells Gunn that she hasn’t seen or heard from Craven for 15 years, but Craven is hiding out at her place, and turns out to be Forest Graham, the columnist. He pulls a pistol on Gunn, but expires before he can do any damage.

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EPISODE 18: Death is a Sore Loser

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 30 January 1961

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The show has a noirish opening, as Sergeant Lee Davis (Morris Erby, his first appearance this season) arrives at an apartment building. He enters one of the rooms and a few minutes later, shots are heard. When some of the tenants open the door, they find Erby holding a smoking gun and a derelict known only to them as "John Smith" lying dead on the bed. All these eyewitnesses plus the testimony of Donna Carol (Barbara English), a busty blonde stripteaser who lives across the way who supposedly witnessed the shooting, add up to get Davis suspended from duty, with a homicide case against him pending. Jacoby meets with Gunn as rain pours on his car, describing Davis as "the best police officer I ever had," but tells Gunn that his hands are tied in terms of investigating the case. Gunn offers to help out, and talks to Davis, who figures that Julie, the brother of Artie Coyle, a hood that he helped put away for 10-20 years, was after him. The plot becomes more complicated as Gunn talks to Carol, the burlesque dancer, as well as Mr. Kalugian (Jack Bernardi), caretaker of the building where the murder took place. It turns out that Coyle and his brother had nothing to do with the killing. Eddie Wiley (Joe Di Reda), janitor at the police station, concocted an elaborate frame after he failed the police examination test twice, specifically the marksmanship part where Davis was the instructor. Gunn has a brainstorm when he recalls that Wiley was in the room when he and Jacoby were discussing the case. The two of them confront the janitor in the hallway, but Wiley escapes through the service tunnel in a maintenance closet into the warehouse-like building next door, leading to another chase similar to The Royal Roust. Wiley falls into what looks like a sewer, crying about how he wanted to be a cop rather than a janitor ("a nothing man") and confessing his scheme to Jacoby and Gunn as the show ends, with the suggestion that he will give himself up. Gunn comments: "Problem: man living in frustration and hate ... like living in a cell."

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EPISODE 19: I Know It's Murder

Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 13 February 1961

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As Helene and Mark Eustis (Jean Engstrom and Hayden Rorke) celebrate their marriage with several well-wishers, Helene's son Kevin (Tommy Rettig) appears briefly, then runs out of their house, where he changes the sign on the back of their car from "Just Married" to "Just Murdered." Helene is an old friend of Edie's, and Kevin comes to Gunn's apartment, where Edie and Jacoby are playing Scrabble with Gunn. Kevin has an uncanny sense of precognition, which he demonstrates for them by telling them written-down numbers and an event which happened at the police station. Kevin is convinced that Eustis, who is his mother's fifth husband, wants to do her harm, especially considering she is very rich. Gunn goes to visit Manassian (Mel Welles), a.k.a. The Young Turk, an import/export dealer who used to be Eustis's partner in a rug business in Australia. Manassian tells Gunn that Eustis's first wife, who was also wealthy, died in Australia, but later, before Gunn can find out the reason, the Turk is murdered. When he goes to visit Eustis and Helene, Gunn is told that Kevin has been sent to a rest home operated by Professor Jody (Ken Drake), a doctor with questionable qualifications. Jody tells Gunn that Kevin is a typical jealous only child who suffers from a "deep Oedipal fixation with paranoid delusions." Arriving at the rest home later to see Kevin, Gunn is attacked by a thug in Eustis' employ who has been shadowing him for much of the show. Gunn overpowers this guy and takes him back to the police station, where Jacoby tells Gunn that he has a record which involves kidnapping and extortion. Jacoby gets information from Australia about the death of Eustis's first wife, specifically that she died from inhaling carbon tetrachloride used for cleaning rugs after consuming a lot of alcohol. Back at the Eustis's mansion, Mark is proceeding to knock off Helene using exactly this method. Gunn shows up at the house, meeting Kevin who has escaped from the rest home. After Eustis leaves, Gunn gets the butler to summon him back home, where Gunn is waiting in Helene's bedroom (from which she has been removed). Gunn tries to get Eustis to ingest a bottle of brandy and suffer the same fate as his first wife, but Eustis escapes, grabbing Gunn's revolver from the floor where it has fallen. Trying to leave via the stairway into the living room of the house, Eustis is shot dead by Jacoby.

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EPISODE 20: A Kill and a Half

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 20 February 1961

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The show opens with a bunch of kids trick or treating on Hallowe'en at the home of Arthur Merrill (Joe Forte), a bookeeper who found that one of his clients was running dope behind a legitimate front and subsequently went to the cops. One of the kids, who is obviously not a kid, but a "little person," pulls a gun and drills Merrill, who drops dead. Following this, Gunn gets a call from Dora Carmichael (Virginia Vincent), wife of Danny Carmichael (Norman Fell), an old friend of Gunn's. Danny, who now manages a carnival, has gone missing, and the police are looking for him. A few hours before, he called his wife and said that something terrible had happened. Danny has a shady past, a connection with gangster Vic Kimbro (the slimy Bruce Gordon). Gunn talks to Babby, the "Little Man," who suggests Gunn should talk to "Billy J," but Billy is also dead when Gunn shows up at his place, a victim of the same gun which killed Merrill. Gunn pays a visit to Kimbro, who threatens him with a loaded rifle. Danny is waiting for Gunn outside, hiding in his car with a gun. The two of them return to the carnival, where Danny finds that one of his guns has been stolen. Danny tells Gunn that he figures Kimbro set him up as a patsy for the murder of Merrill. The two of them head to Kimbro's place, but the gangster is waiting for them, and takes them inside the house, threatening to execute them both. An extremely violent fight between Gunn, Danny, Kimbro and his thugs takes place, with Jacoby showing up as the crooks are overpowered. The ending has a big surprise. It looks like Kimbro had kidnapped Dora, Danny's wife, but it turns out that she was in cahoots with Kimbro, having sold him the gun that was used for the double murder. Dora tells Danny that she wanted to get away from the "crummy carnival" and Danny sinks to the floor, crushed.

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EPISODE 21: Than a Serpent's Tooth

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Byron Kane
Original Air Date - 27 February 1961

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Doctor Lawrence Herzog (Jean Paul King) enters his office at night, and is knocked out by Lonnie Sears (Ralph Gary), a thug who goes to work on his safe with an acetylene torch. Shortly after, Gunn arrives at a nightclub where singer Vicki Landell (Pamela Britton) is working. Gunn meets her stepdaughter Carol (Anne Whitfield) who wonders why Vicki wants to see him. Years before, Vicki went to trial because she killed her big time hoodlum husband Al Laidell. She was acquitted when it was determined to be an accident. Vicki has been seeing Dr. Herzog, who is a psychiatrist, and she got a call from some guy (later determined to be Sears) who got tapes of the sessions she had while in analysis, along with the doctor's consultation notes and other records. There is speculation that Marty, her former husband Al's brother, is the blackmailer. From Arkie (Joe Julian), a ex-con with geeky glasses who repairs TV sets, Gunn gets Lonnie Sears' name as a suspected safe man who is a "nitro specialist." Gunn finds out that Marty, brother of Vicki's husband, is "terrified," and when he goes to Sears' place, he finds him lying dead on the floor. Gunn returns home to find Vicki waiting for him at his apartment. Though Gunn tells her to level with him, Vicki tells Gunn she will pay any cost to get the tapes back. Gunn calls Jacoby, and the two of them head to Vicki's club. The blackmailer shows up, but it is none other than Carol, who is carrying a portable tape recorder. Carol hired Sears to get the tapes so she could exact revenge on her stepmother for her father's death, but Sears got greedy and wanted to sell the tapes himself, so Carol knocked him off. Referring to Vicki as "mother dear," then "stepmother dear," Carol plays one of the tapes for her, but gets a surprise when the true explanation for the murder years before is revealed: that Carol, then a very young child, had picked up one of her father's guns and was the one who fired the fatal shot by accident. Vicki had covered for her at the time. Vicki almost has a nervous breakdown as Jacoby and Gunn arrive and disarm Carol, who is taken away.

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EPISODE 22: The Deep End

Written by Bill A. McCormack; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 6 March 1961

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Swimming instructor Phil Matterson (William Bryant) is supervising one of his pupils, Susan Neilson (Yvonne White), an attractive fortyish woman, in her own pool. As she gets to the deep end, Matterson suddenly gets a peculiar look on his face and goes to the bar beside the pool to get a drink as Susan flails in the pool and drowns. At a coroner's inquest later, there is talk from the district attorney of charging Matterson with manslaughter and accusations of gross negligence. He meets Gunn at Edie's club to ask for his help to determine why he let Mrs. Neilson die. Gunn visits Neilson's husband Oliver, played by the geeky John Fiedler. He is a musician who is composing a modern-sounding piece on his piano, in a style like Prokofieff or Bartok, entitled "Funeral Waltz for a Dead Susan." Oliver seems curiously unmoved by his wife's passing. Gunn learns from Oliver that Matterson is an ex-alcoholic who was drinking while Susan was drowning. Gunn narrowly avoids getting shot by an arrow as he leaves Neilson's house. When he visits Matterson shortly after, Gunn learns that Oliver is essentially a deadbeat being supported by his rich wife and Matterson got the job teaching Susan swimming through his therapist, Professor Thurston (the quirky Josip Elic), who cured him of his alcoholism. Thurston was also Oliver's therapist and has an interest in archery. Gunn visits Thurston, who describes Matterson as an "absolute drunk" with no motivation and a liar to boot. Some of the facts regarding the time of Matterson's treatment do not add up. Later, at the police station, Jacoby reveals Thurston to be a confidence man. Gunn gets a few ideas from the police psychiatrist (Billy Bakewell) as to what people will and will not do while under hypnosis. Oliver visits Thurston, freaking out over Gunn's snooping and complaining that things are not going well after he paid Thurston to have his wife murdered by hypnotizing Matterson to do so in connection with his "treatment." When Thurston laughs at him, saying he enjoys having Gunn around for vicarious thrills, Oliver kills him with an arrow in his back. Later that evening, Oliver gives a concert of his waltzes at the local community centre in front of a huge audience. After the concert ends with the Waltz for Susan, Jacoby and Gunn are backstage to arrest Oliver, who blabs away everything about his plan to knock off his wife so he could collect on her half-million-dollar life insurance policy and live a comfortable existence composing his waltzes.

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EPISODE 23: Portrait in Leather

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 13 March 1961

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As the show begins, someone takes shots at Billy Cochrane (Stewart Taylor), a boxer on a career comeback, as he is jogging at his training camp. After the main titles, Gunn drops in to Edie's to engage in the usual romantic chit-chat, but Edie says it won't be long before he is leaving, giving him a message that a pickpocket named Sobey Webb (William Fawcett) wants to see him. Sobey has an interesting piece of paper that he lifted from some guy at the training camp which gives exact details of where the assassination attempt was going to take place. Sobey doesn't remember any details about the guy, except he had a scar on his hand. Gunn goes to the camp, where he meets Cochrane's trainer, Charlie Toomey (Tom Brown), who is an old friend. Gunn wants to ask Charlie some questions, but they are interrupted by the presence of Lee Durant (Herb Armstrong), a hood accompanied by an associate. Gunn and Charlie arrange to meet later, but when Gunn shows up at the appointed place, it isn't Charlie who appears but Joanna (Ann Robinson), Billy's ex-wife, who is still hanging around because of the potential for increasing her alimony. She puts the moves on Gunn, but they are interrupted by the sight of the assassin (the man with the scar on his hand, later identified as Frankie Soto) floating nearby in a creek. Gunn visits Joanna again later, and she tries to teach him the mambo. The plot thickens as Gunn investigates further. Otis Calder (Roy Glenn) says that something fishy is going on, because Charlie has instituted a "hands-off" approach to Cochrane's sparring, avoiding all punches to the head. Shortly after this, Gunn finds Joanna dead, and Cochrane is seen freaking out, yelling and screaming, and not necessarily because of his wife's demise. Charlie tells Gunn several things. First, Cochrane developed a kind of glaucoma which affected not only his eyes, but his brain, which is why Charlie was treating him with kid gloves. Second, Billy was seriously in debt due to his alimony payments to Joanna, bad investments and money that he owed to Durant because of his gambling habit. And third, Durant hired the assassin to fake the shooting to increase interest in the fighter and encourage more betting. Durant and his pal show up, overhearing much of this conversation, and there is a violent fight where Charlie is fatally wounded. As he expires, Charlie admits to killing Joanna!

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EPISODE 24: Come Dance With Me And Die

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 20 March 1961

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A woman, later determined to be Ruth Millard (Patti Saunders), is seen walking on a rain-soaked sidewalk at the beginning of the show. When two hoods try and force her into a car, taxi driver Eddie Webb (Harry Swoger) confronts them. The hoods speed away, and the woman is thrown against the side of a building. Outside Edie's club later, Eddie tells Gunn what happened, saying the woman uttered the words "Candy" and "Greaves" before she went into a state of shock. Jacoby tells Gunn that "Greaves" is likely Albert Greaves, former associate of "the town's top hood" Frank Benedict (Robert P. Lieb). Greaves, who was Benedict's alibi for the murder of a bookmaker, was gunned down when he was released from prison six months ago after serving a one-year stretch for bunco. Gunn goes to the Club Doyle, a dance hall where he finds Candy Lane (Barbara Stuart), who was Ruth's friend. When he asks her some questions about Ruth, she clams up, and it isn't until after someone takes a few shots at Gunn as he leaves the club that she tells him that Ruth is hiding out at her house. Candy tells Gunn that some "policeman" has been asking questions about Ruth recently at the dance hall. Jacoby traces the phone number for this cop that Candy gives Gunn, and determines that it is William Lundy (Jack Hogan), a private investigator who is masquerading as a policeman. Gunn goes to Lundy's office where he snoops in the filing cabinet, finding out that Lundy is working for Benedict, tracking down Ruth. Gunn is confronted by Lundy who is hiding in the shadows at the office, but after a short fight, Gunn strongarms Lundy to confess that Benedict wanted to kill Ruth because Ruth, who was a dental nurse in the prison, may have overheard Greaves blabbing when he was under the influence of sodium pentothal while having a tooth extracted about being Benedict's alibi. Gunn arranges for Benedict and his thugs to show up at the dance hall, pretending that Lundy (who fell down the stairs in his office building and broke his neck while escaping from Gunn) has managed to find Ruth. When Gunn and Jacoby show up at the club, there is the usual violent gunfight, with Benedict and his associates put out of action.

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EPISODE 25: Cry Love, Cry Murder

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 27 March 1961

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During a Spanish Christmas at the Casa Alvarez restaurant, a pinata is broken, revealing a .38 special. The cops trace this gun to the recent killing of Johnny Kinsella, a narcotics pusher, and arrest Pepe Alvarez (Joe Sonessa), the black sheep of the family, who had returned home for the celebration, and was the only member present who did not have an alibi for the time of Kinsella's murder. The boy's father, Manolo (Raoul DeLeon), is badly shaken up by this turn of events, and Gunn offers to look into things. At the cop shop, Pepe gives Jacoby a lot of mouth before he is taken away. Gunn talks to various people trying to find out what is going on: Father Macias (Paul Fierro), the family's priest; Basher (stuntman Dick Crockett), who teaches guys to fall down stairs for insurance claims; and talent agent "Chubby" Stone (Joe Besser of the Three Stooges). After he is badly beaten up after leaving Father Macias' church, Gunn confronts the muscle who was hired to do the job, a thug named Max Willard (Mickey Simpson). This leads to Maria Galvin (Margarita Cordova), singer at the Casa Alvarez, and girlfriend for 10 years of Vicente Alvarez (Eugene Iglesias), owner of the place and Pepe's brother. When Gunn grills Maria as to why she hired Willard to scare him off, Vicente tells Gunn that he knocked off Kinsella, because the pusher and his associate Frankie Cole were using the restaurant as a narcotics drop, and were threatening to kill Manolo. Gunn and Vicente receive word that Pepe has broken out of juvenile hall with a gun and they figure he is on his way to finish the job, killing Cole. At Cole's hangout, Vicente is in big trouble, getting punched out by Cole's hoods. Gunn, Jacoby and Vicente arrive on the scene, and there is a shootout where Vicente is fatally wounded.

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EPISODE 26: A Penny Saved

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 3 April 1961

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Dancer Lisa North (Joyce Vanderveen) contacts Gunn because her ex-boyfriend Nico Berlin (Oleg Tupine), another dancer who was confined to a sanitarium after he was injured in a car accident, has broken out of the place and is after her for revenge because her mother forced them to end their relationship months before. Lisa wants Gunn to find Nico before the police do. She is appearing in an upcoming musical show and the man backing the show and Lisa's boyfriend Frank Wallace (Paul Dubov), a local gangster, is equally concerned, because without her, the show cannot go on. The manager of the show, Boris Petrov (Abraham Sofaer), is an old friend of Gunn's. There are sequences in this episode where dancers rehearse to Mancini's music. During one of these, Jacoby is watching, commenting on the moves of the dancers. With the help of one of his acquaintances, a former ballet school owner named Jacque (Marcel Hillaire), Gunn manages to track down Nico, who has been pacing and acting catatonic in some flophouse for three days. As a result, when Wallace is found dead, it was obviously not because of Nico. Gunn and Jacoby put out word that Nico is going to show up at the rehearsal hall, waiting to see who arrives to knock him off. Turns out the killer of Wallace was Boris, who was cooking the books for the show, and Wallace found out about it. As Boris flees at the end of the show, he runs into a car, similar to Nico, except he dies from his injuries.

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EPISODE 27: Short a Motive

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 10 April 1961

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Paulie Walker (Jimmy Murphy), a Korean war veteran who is very short and who suffers from manic depression with psychotic tendencies, is out for revenge, knocking off people from his past including Les Coombs (George Robotham), a racketeer, and Leonard Willis (Chuck Hicks), his former sergeant in the Army who ridiculed him because of his height. Walker kills them by using a combination of judo and karate moves. At the beginning of the show, Gunn finds Edie not in a good mood, but, as usual, he is soon called away by Ellen Clay (Jo Helton), Walker's old girl friend and a waitress, who saw the news about Coombs' demise and connected it to a piece of paper Walker left in her restaurant with Coombs' name and those of three other men on it. Clay says that Walker has been in trouble with the law numerous times and has a vicious temper to boot. Walker's psychiatrist, Dr. Wrightman (John Dierkes) tells Gunn and Jacoby that Walker is movitated by a hatred for his stature, feeling inferior and antagonistic. But he doesn't understand why Walker not only killed Coombs, but robbed him of $40,000. Clay is not the only person wanting Gunn to find Walker and get him off the streets. Frank Clanton (Frank Gerstle), a local hood who employed Walker as a collector wants him caught because he figures that other people around town will assume that he ordered Walker to knock off Coombs. Chigger (Paul Brinegar), a former con who now works as a projectionist, directs Gunn to Walker's apartment, but when Jacoby and Gunn arrive, he is not there. The janitor tells them that Walker paid him to deliver a package to Theresa Rinaldi (Andrea Darvi), the mother of a young girl who Walker saved years before when the child was stuck underground in a pipe. After they arrive at Rinaldi's place, they find Walker reading the daughter a story. Walker tries to escape through the window, but has a heart seizure. Before he dies, he tells Gunn and Jacoby that he only had three months to live.

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EPISODE 28: The Murder Bond

Written by Tony Barrett and Lewis Reed; directed by Robert Altman
Original Air Date - 24 April 1961

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Joe Cully (Al Christy), "the biggest racket man in town," soon to be going on trial, arranges for a derelict to be blown up in his car, making people think he was knocked off. Cully's face is wrapped in bandages, suggesting that he wants to assume a new identity after having plastic surgery. Bail bondsman Ned Grant (Russell Collins), who has a $100,000 bond on Cully, contacts Gunn, an old friend, to look into the explosion, suspecting that Cully is still alive. When Gunn visits Cully's "widow" (Jean Willes), he gets an icy reception. Nibs (Owen Bush), an ex-con with an encyclopedic memory who used to work for Cully, wonders who would want to kill him, since he had virtually no competition. Grant's investigator Al Anders (Howard Caine) finds the room of the derelict who was blown up, which contains a $90,000 Irish sweepstakes ticket. Since no one has returned to the room to claim the ticket, Anders speculates that it was indeed not Cully who was vaporized. Gunn has a brainstorm, figuring out the sequence of events which has happened. Around this time, Grant is lured to a park by Regan (Roy Jenson), one of Christy's hoods pretending to be Gunn and shot dead after he arrives. But Gunn and Jacoby have a ruse of their own -- they get Anders to visit Cully's wife, making all sorts of comments that he knows what is really going on and that he wants $100,000 to keep his mouth shut. Shortly after, Anders is visited by Regan and another of Cully's thugs in his office. Jacoby and Gunn are hiding just outside the door, and after the usual violent gun battle, Regan spills the beans and accompanies Gunn and Jacoby back to Cully's place.

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EPISODE 29: The Most Deadly Angel

Written by Harry Steiner; directed by David Lowell Rich
Original Air Date - 1 May 1961

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Caroline Haskins (Mary Sinclair), a fortyish woman who is totally obsessed with Gunn, even to the extent of telling a photo of him "Tonight, my darling, I'll prove my love," tracks down Frank Yabocci (Tom Newman), recently released from prison after serving a three year stretch for armed robbery. Frank swore he would kill Gunn for putting him in jail when he got out. She shoots him dead, then goes after his brother Al (Bob Wiensko) and kills him in cold blood on the steps of his apartment building after he threatened Gunn. Next in line is the boys' father Joseph (Harold J. Stone). The old man thinks that Gunn is behind the murders until Gunn tells him otherwise; then Joseph tells Gunn to find the killer within twelve hours or else. Gunn gets information from Jacoby which leads him to Mary Smith (Treva Frazee), a middle-aged blonde who witnessed the killing of Al. Mary has hot pants for Gunn too. He is able to resist, but he gets information out of her by opening his wallet. Gunn also gets information from Oscar, a quirky artist who makes "mosaics." It turns out that Caroline visited Oscar's after Gunn talked to him, wanting to buy a portrait of Gunn that Oscar had painted. When Gunn arrives at Caroline's place, she is awestruck, but denies any involvement with the two killings. Then Gunn sees the photo of himself in her apartment and the jig is up. Caroline tells him that she had big plans for the two of them, and that she had proved her love for Gunn by eliminating the evil men who threatened him. The senior Yabocci shows up, and overhears the conversation. When he asks Caroline why she murdered his sons, she replies because "they existed." Gunn tries to keep Yabocci from shooting her, saying that she is "sick," but Caroline makes a grab for her own revolver, and the old man shoots her dead. As she expires, she whispers to Gunn, "Peter ... I tried..." Aside from its creepy contemporary relevance to stalking, this episode is interesting, because it consists of several small segments; at the end, the camera is up above the final scene, which then zooms in on Gunn's shattered picture on the floor beside Caroline's body.

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EPISODE 30: Till Death Do Us Part

Written by Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 8 May 1961

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While engaged in some particularly erotic smooching with Edie and listening to a 78 RPM record playing music by Mancini, Gunn is interrupted by a phone call from his tennis playing friend Tommy McDonald (Bill Lundmark). Tommy later arrives at Gunn's place and relates a tale of his recent trip to Acapulco, where he recognized Leona Candell (Anne Bellamy), wife of Edward (Robert Gibbons), who is on death row for her murder (her body was never found) and soon to be executed. Leona was seen talking to the skipper of a charter boat named Huerta, but when Tommy started asking questions, Huerta suddenly clammed up. Gunn flies to Acapulco to investigate in a story which mixes a lot of stock shots of the Mexican city with an unusually complicated plot. Acapulco must have been not a particularly large burg at the time, because when Gunn starts asking an old guy at the docks who can't understand English about Huerta, he is suddenly helped by Maria Rosales (Chana Eden), who knows his tennis playing pal, and was present when he phoned Gunn prior to returning to the States (small world!). Maria is a local "performer" of some kind, and she offers to hang out with Gunn after her show. Gunn is being tailed by some greasy looking guy named Toothpick (Shep Sanders) and also keeps running into an annoying tour guide named Carlos (Ernest Sarracino). In the evening, Gunn goes to Maria's dressing room at the El Paseo club, but she is not there. Instead, he finds a picture of Johnny Burnett (William Phipps), who Gunn knows as "a professional Lothario" who "works women," then "takes the money and runs" (again -- a small world). Around this time, Gunn gets a call supposedly from Captain Huerta, but this is a setup. When Gunn arrives at the specified location, he is attacked by some thug, and the usual brutal fight follows, with Gunn later waking up in the local cop shop where Lieutenant Vasquez (Peter Mamakos), who has been in touch with Jacoby, fills him in on missing pieces of the puzzle. Gunn, having had enough detective work for the moment, takes Maria up on her offer to tour the town. As they are leaving some joint, a bunch of shots riddle Gunn's rented car with Maria sitting in it. She is not harmed, but she recognizes Toothpick, who works for her boyfriend Burnett. She tells Gunn that she followed Burnett to a beach house one night where she discovered him with another woman ... who, of course, is Mrs. Candell. She tells Gunn where this place is located, and when he shows up there to confront Burnett, he finds Leona with a gun pointed at him. Leona tells Toothpick to take care of Gunn, but he manages to distract his killer, and in the ensuing melee, both Toothpick and Leona are shot dead. Carlos the guide suddenly shows up, revealing himself to be an undercover cop. Gunn makes his way to the nearest phone to call the prison to make sure that the execution of Leona's husband is not carried out.

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EPISODE 31: Last Resort

Written by Steffi and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Sparr
Original Air Date - 15 May 1961

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At the Acapulco airport on his way back to the States, Gunn is stopped and convinced to stick around by Nat Koenig (Ross Elliott), a talent agent for Clinton Hobart (silent screen star Francis X. Bushman). Hobart is being directed in a film by the young and tyrannical Les Murdock (Sherwood Price). Both Hobart's young-looking wife Doris (Randy Stuart) and assistant producer of the film Lou Warren (Milton Selzer) have their hands full after the veteran actor tries to commit suicide because of the pressure he is under. Gunn is hired to act like someone from the film's head office keeping tabs on the production. Murdock brutally harangues Hobart in a scene on location which is painful to watch. After this, Gunn is talking to Doris on her hotel balcony when they witness her husband being kidnapped below right in front of them. When Murdock tells Gunn and Lieutenant Vasquez (Peter Mamakos, returning from the previous episode) that Hobart arranged his own kidnapping, Gunn suggests that maybe Murdock engineered the abduction because he wanted to get the old man out of the way. Murdock takes a swing at Gunn, which is a bad idea, because he is immediately knocked to the floor. A $50,000 random demand is made for Hobart shortly after. Murdock comes up to Gunn in the hotel bar and tells him that he regrets pushing Hobart so hard. He attributes his tough attitude to fear of "falling on your face." Gunn and Warren drop the ransom money off, but Gunn slips out of the car, and overpowers the menacing Allen Jaffe (identified in the credits as "Henchman"). The hideout where Hobart is being held is quickly revealed, where the mastermind of the crime turns out to be Warren, who wanted to take the ransom money and escape from a world where he was just the "no-talent brother-in-law" of the film's producer and a "doormat." The ending of the film is disappointing, as everyone heads back to town with no resolution in the sense that someone is going to have to pay for the crime.

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EPISODE 32: A Matter of Policy

Written by Steffi and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 22 May 1961

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Gunn just can't get out of Acapulco! He is soon to leave, but is attacked in his hotel room by some thug who knocks him out, but not before Gunn gets off a shot at the guy. He wakes up in the company of Lieutenant Vasquez (Peter Mamakos) again who offers to drive him to the airport. Gunn is puzzled by why the intruder didn't either shoot him (since the guy had a gun) or just steal something from him. As they are on their way, Vasquez gets a call on the phone in his car informing him that the intruder has already been identified as Frank Dineen (Bert Remsen) after a doctor dug a bullet out of him. Dineen, who Gunn knows as "a killer," is still on the loose. Gunn suddenly has a brainstorm and checks his luggage in the car's trunk. He finds a bomb in it, which he quickly throws away and it violently explodes. Vasquez later tells Gunn that the bomb was actually scheduled to go off two hours later, while Gunn was on the plane home. Deciding to stick around to investigate this new case, Gunn is touch with Jacoby who is also looking for Dineen. Jacoby arrives in Acapulco shortly after. Despite the fact he is working, he has a lot of time to sit around on the beach working on his tan and sipping fruity drinks with Gunn. He tells Gunn that Johnny Cross, the "number one operator in the state" knocked someone off two weeks ago, which was witnessed by one James Bell. But Bell took a powder, is known to have left the country for Mexico, and Dineen, "Cross's top assassin for years," is on Bell's trail. Dineen is actually holed up in a nearby hotel, where he is sadistically beating Bell, who is his prisoner. Dineen's girlfriend Linda Salazar (Anna Navarro) is keeping tabs on Gunn and Jacoby, and when she expresses reservations to Dineen about his plans, he belts her in the mouth! Gunn has another brainstorm about why he was transporting the bomb to the plane and finds out that both he and Bell were booked on the same plane back to the States. Further investigation with the Belmonte Travel Agency reveals that there was a $150,000 insurance policy on Bell's life sold to him with his ticket, and the clerk was none other than Linda Salazar, Dineen's girl friend. In a further "amazing coincidence," the beneficiary for the insurance package was also Linda. Gunn figures that Dineen got greedy and decided to increase his fee for taking care of Bell. When Linda comes to the travel agency, the clerk, who is acting in cahoots with Gunn and Jacoby, tells her something that causes her to leave immediately. Gunn and Jacoby follow her to Dineen's hideout, where the thug is overpowered and captured and Bell is freed.

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EPISODE 33: A Bullet for the Boy

Written by Steffi and Tony Barrett; directed by David Lowell Rich
Original Air Date - 29 May 1961

SYNOPSIS:

Gunn is still in Acapulco, looking after Jacoby who got a brutal sunburn. After 22-year-old Paul Mitchell (Buzz Martin), the hell-raising son of an American diplomat is wounded by an assassin with a high-powered rifle, Lieutenant Vasquez asks Gunn to look into the case which he is not allowed to pursue because of the diplomatic angle. When Gunn meets with Paul, the kid tells him "All I bring is trouble." From the boy's parents Laura (Linda Watkins) and Victor (John Eldredge), Gunn gets a picture of a seriously dysfunctional family. The mother is in an invalid, resulting from a car crash where Paul was driving, which also killed the young daughter of a local fisherman. Gunn talks to Juan Mendoza (Michael Pate), the fisherman, but he says that Paul, who was paying him money on a regular basis, visited him recently and suggested that the money would soon stop coming. Gunn is also tailed by Delgado (Nacho Galindo), who asks Gunn to meet him at the bottom station of a local cable car. After their initial encounter, the two of them get into one of the cable cars and fight on the way back up to the top! Delgado is busted by Vasquez, but when he is released, Gunn follows him to the office of Louis Valdez (Steven Peck). Paul owes Peck over $6,000 for gambling debts, but Peck says that he didn't take a shot at Paul earlier. After Paul's father returns from Mexico City, tempers flare in the household and Paul runs away once again. Gunn follows him and tries to talk some sense into the kid, but Paul says that it is "too late." Another assassination attempt on Paul is narrowly averted by Gunn, but Paul is wounded. He reveals that he was responsible for hiring the gunmen -- that he bought his own killing because he didn't have the nerve to do it himself. This ending is kind of downbeat, and not helped by the silly conversation between Gunn and Jacoby in the final scenes.

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EPISODE 34: Death Is a Four Letter Word

Written by Steffi and Tony Barrett; directed by Tony Barrett
Original Air Date - 5 June 1961

SYNOPSIS:

Luther (J. Pat O'Malley in his third appearance on the show), one of Gunn's informers, calls Gunn who is giving Edie a ring, though not an engagement ring but some huge bauble which makes her ask "What are you trying to hide?" Luther wants Gunn to come immediately to the Green Cat bar ("a haven for stumblebums") where one of its patrons, a well-dressed woman, is acting weird. When Gunn shows up, the woman, Lisa Randolph (Virginia Grey) locks herself in the women's washroom and tries to commit suicide. She is saved by Gunn who breaks the door down, but disappears before he can bandage her up or ask her questions. Gunn gets the license number of the car she is driving as she speeds away, which leads him to local rich guy Virgil Considine (Patric Knowles). At first, Considine disclaims any knowledge of the woman, but eventually tells Gunn that she is an old acquaintance of his who used to be a top model. He was bankrolling her in a decorating business, which was not very successful. As a result, she has been very depressed. Gunn goes to Lisa's place, where she doesn't want to talk, and Gunn gets grazed by a bullet for his trouble. As he is recovering, Lisa tells him to go away, that "nobody can help." Jacoby suddenly shows up, because Vince Scott, a small time hood who served a couple of years for fraud recently disappeared and Lisa's picture was found on a dresser at his place. From Natie (Ned Glass), a former prison pal of Scott's, Gunn finds out that Scott was interested in dames, Lisa specifically, but that he was going to "kiss her off." Shortly after this, Scott is found dead and suspicion falls on Lisa as the killer. While in custody, Lisa goes into a trance-like state which the jail doctor says is a form of amnesia. Jacoby tells Gunn that Lisa has syncope, a condition where she is subject to having blackouts. With the help of Luther, Gunn sets up a scam with Considine, who they suspect is the real killer ... and of course he is! There is an extremely violent fight at the end, after which Considine confesses that he knocked off Scott and disposed of his body (which we saw in the teaser) because he was jealous of the crook's interest in his girl friend, referring to the two of them as "beauty and all the filth it attracts."

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EPISODE 35: Deadly Intrusion

Written by Steffi and Tony Barrett; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 12 June 1961

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Gunn's golf teacher friend Gil Manson (Britt Lomond) is being framed for a hit and run, and he wants Gunn to investigate before the cops charge him with murder. Gill is slated to marry the rich Laura Barclay (Erica Elliot), whose late father, a shipping magnate, didn't approve of their union. Laura tells Gunn that she is standing by her boyfriend. When he leaves her palatial estate, Gunn is attacked by Cal Weaver (George Barrows), the same thug who murdered garageman Janos Majeski (Joseph Mell) in the teaser after Majeski helped damage Gil's car so it looked like he was responsible for the accident -- which then had Majeski as its victim, thanks to Weaver. Corky (Nesdon Booth), an ex-con who is now the chef in a diner, who describes himself as a "short-order Benedict Arnold," gives Gunn an address where can find Weaver, but when Gunn shows up at Weaver's apartment, he finds him dead. Since Weaver had worked in the past for Johnny Wade (Francis de Sales), Gunn pays this "big time gambler" a visit. Under pressure, Wade tells Gunn that among his high-society clients is Laura's brother Mark (Bill Berger) who ran up $60,000 of debts which were covered by checks signed by Laura herself. Laura summons Jacoby and Gunn and tells them that she was the one who killed Majeski, giving them a phony tale of how she showed up at the club (How? Walking? With her own car?) and then took Gil's car out for a spin while she was waiting for him, and ran into the garageman. Jacoby sees through this story quickly, realizing that Laura is just trying to protect Gil. Gunn and Jacoby are running out of suspects, but on their way out of Laura's, Gunn runs into her brother Mark and realizes he is carrying a gun. Gunn tells Mark that they want to talk to him downtown, which causes Mark to freak out and attempt to flee. Caught by Gunn, Mark tells them that he didn't want the "nobody" Gil to marry Laura and become head of the family, because he would then be deprived of his gambling funds, among other things.

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EPISODE 36: Voodoo

Teleplay by Frank Waldman; Story by Blake Edwards; directed by Alan Crosland Jr.
Original Air Date - 19 June 1961

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This relatively disappointing episode has Gunn going to Haiti, in what seems like a prelude to Craig Stevens' UK TV series Man of the World (1962-1963). Its lead character, a world-renowned photographer, had assignments which took him to exotic locations like Iraq, Indochina, and Algeria. The show begins at Edie's, where Gunn is approached by Abel Gunther (Norbert Schiller), a German-accented white guy from Haiti, whose wife is under the spell of voodoo. Gunther thinks that other recent events are also voodoo-related, such as the destruction of his cane fields by fire and death of his cattle. He offers Gunn $68 cash and a return ticket to Haiti, and then promptly drops dead! Gunn flies to Haiti and, after arriving in Gunther's town, talks to police Inspector Georges (Al Ruscio) about local big shot Arthur Cotswold (Ronald Long), who Gunther said had tried to buy his farm for a very low price. The Inspector says that messing with Cotswold may be a bad idea, but Gunn goes to see him anyway. Gunn is brushed off by Cotswold and is knocked unconscious on the way out of his house and wakes up in a field. Jacoby phones Gunn to say that Gunther died of brucellosis or undulant fever, rather than anything voodoo-related. Gunn manages to convince the inspector to get a search warrant for Cotswold's house and then creates a diversion with Gunther's servant Chiva (Jean Durand) to get Cotswold and his associates away from the place. Gunn and the inspector search the house, and find something hidden inside a mask on the wall which Gunn describes as a "do-it yourself undulant fever kit." I have no idea what this is supposed to be! They are confronted by Cotswold, but he and his henchman Judson (John Day) are overpowered with the help of Chiva. The show ends back at Edie's Club.

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EPISODE 37: Down the Drain

Written by Blake Edwards; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 26 June 1961

SYNOPSIS:

Gunn is hired by an insurance company to prove that $500,000 worth of jewels were stolen from their European client in an episode that seems much more complicated than it really is. The story is confusing at the beginning because Paul Condon (Clayton Post), known to be a bookmaker, calls the cops to tell them where they can find the jewels. He is then shot at point-blank range, and in the next scene Conrad (James Waters), the insurance company representative, is talking about "Ed" being killed. Jacoby later tells Gunn that William Lee (Dale Van Sickel) was found murdered with his face shot away, and the jewels were found stuffed down the drain in a kitchen sink. There is some cool editing in the back-and-forth dialog between Gunn and Jacoby at the police station. Gunn gets some tips from Henri (Eugene Borden), an eccentric artist who makes abstract paintings, that lead him to a dock where more one-liners are traded with an old man played by veteran character actor Burt Mustin who tells him that Condon liked to rent a boat for short trips. Gunn then pays a visit to Lois Lee (torch singer Jane Morgan). She is a sultry middle-aged dame who slobbers over Gunn, especially his eyes. Gunn manages to resist her charms, but when he arrives back at his apartment he is punched out and falls down the stairs. After recovering, Gunn does some more snooping, and finds out that Mr. Lee returned recently from Europe, so he figures that Lee stole the jewels, then dumped them offshore where they were picked up by Condon. Condon got greedy, so Lee shot him in the face and then Mrs. Lee identified Condon as her husband. The two of them are planning to escape with the jewels which will be turned over to Mrs. Lee if no one else can identify them. When Gunn is visiting Mrs. Lee for the second time, he is knocked out (again) by her husband just as she is about to plant a smooch on his lips. The two of them attempt to flee, but they are nabbed dockside by Jacoby and his men after the usual violent fight on the boat the Lees are using to escape between Gunn and the husband.

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EPISODE 38: Murder on the Line

Written by Blake Edwards; directed by Robert Gist
Original Air Date - 18 September 1961

SYNOPSIS:

A disappointing final episode to the show, aired almost three months after the penultimate one. Gunn is preparing a salad with Edie at his apartment when he is interrupted by Arthur McCutchen (executive producer Gordon Oliver), who is the assistant to Cesar Carlyle (Robert Gist, director of this episode and many others), an eccentric billionaire who is "head of one of the world's largest industrial empires." Carlyle lives in a house on top of a mountain. McCutchen offers Gunn a lot of money ($4500) to find some documents which were stolen by Merrin Wood, Carlyle's young girl friend. She wants a million dollars to return them. Carlyle is "quite deaf," and when Gunn carries on a conversation with him, he has to do this by telephone, even though the two men are in the same room. McCutchen and Gunn go to a party where Merrin is expecting confirmation that she will be paid the money, but after some snooping, Gunn finds the woman dead. When Gunn returns to Carlyle's, the billionaire says he is only concerned about the return of the documents. Gunn suspects that McCutchen is involved in the plot somehow, but when he goes to the assistant's house, he is knocked out and when he awakens, finds McCutchen dead beside him and the place ransacked. Gunn returns to Carlyle's again, and confronts him. It turns out that McCutcheon was the one who stole the documents after he introduced Merrin to his boss, who subsequently told Carlyle about McCutcheon's plans, then suggested she wanted to keep the money for herself. Gunn is about to be shot by some of Carlyle's employees, but starts the usual violent fight, which ends with the Carlyle having his hands up and Gunn on the phone to Jacoby to come and pick him up.

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