Peter Gunn meets Diahann Carroll - "Sing a Song of Murder"

Peter Gunn (1958-1961) was a unique program, one would hope to say a forerunner in its genre, except that it was not a forerunner.  There has been nothing since to compare with it, it stands alone.

This is my entry in the 8^th Annual Favorite TV Show Blogathon at the A Shroud of Thoughts blog, see more bloggers here.

Gunn was a private eye.  Both the character and the show were vastly stylistically different from private eye programs then or since.  Played by tall, handsome Craig Stevens, Gunn was intelligent, witty, dressed with tailored, conservative, Madison Avenue-sans-a-belt chic, more Ivy-leaguer than back-alley gumshoe.  Not that Gunn didn’t find himself tailed into back alleys, and there was plenty of shooting and punching in what was generally a half-hour show filled with requisite violence in between commercials. 

But Peter Gunn was not the usual glum, hard-drinking private eye who trusted neither dames nor the police, who were usually rivals.  Gunn enjoyed a monogamous relationship with girlfriend Edie, played by Lola Albright.  She was a singer at Mother’s bar and jazz club.  Mother was played by Hope Emerson in the first season, and by Minerva Urecal the last two seasons.

Gunn didn’t have an office with his name on the door.  Mother’s was his “office” where they took phone messages for him.  Gunn was a connoisseur of “cool” jazz that was flying eastward from California in those days.  Henry Mancini wrote the Peter Gunn theme, a tune so unrelentingly cool and forever identifiable with Peter.

There was jazz in each episode, and the start of the show usually featured a short ripple of thumping bass to glide us into the action, before a burst of trumpet flashed the title of the show across the screen.

Peter was not bitter, hardened like other TV or movie PI’s, but he was serious and questioning.  But with that slight amused smirk whenever he spoke to suspects, criminals, stool pigeons or even Mother and Edie, he seemed to find life an enjoyable and entertaining puzzle that he watched like a fly on the wall.

Perhaps this studied air contributed to his appearance of aloofness, though he was also engaged with his work, his ladylove – with whom scenes of sultry passion occur at astonishing sudden moments of simple “helloes.”

Rather than an adversarial relationship with the local police, Gunn had a teasing, but ultimately mutually respectful relationship with Lt. Jacoby, played with sarcasm that was somehow self-deprecating by the wonderful Herschel Bernardi.  They jabbed each other with brotherly insults, but always came to each other’s rescue.

There were others in Gunn’s orbit and his relationships with them show a lot about Craig Stevens’ deftness at playing the role, and at creator/producer/sometimes writer and director Blake Edwards’ intelligent creativity.  Gunn always smoothly sat down when talking to informant Babby, played by Billy Barty.  One suspects this was not just because Mr. Stevens was tall and Mr. Barty was a “little person,” but rather because the director knew that sitting to make himself less towering over the little man was part of Gunn’s empathetic character and not just for the convenience of a camera shot.  Gunn never uttered "small” jokes, and if he smiled it was because Babby was a pool shark of no little bravado, who gave valuable information but expected to be well paid for it like the businessman he was.

Gunn was inevitably courtly to women, and indeed, treated “Mother” protectively, like his mother.  For an ultra-cool guy who liked jazz, had an upscale apartment with tasteful works of art, Gunn was a square, and daring to be so may have been his coolest moments.  He charged a high fee for his talents, but sometimes did pro bono work if his heart was touched.  He was a conundrum, and that was the most special quality about him.  You couldn’t figure him out, and you’d come back episode after episode to try to do just that.

The episode I chose for this blogathon, “Sing a Song of Murder,” could be seen as a landmark episode in the history of television, but was just another day in the life of Peter Gunn.  Diahann Carroll guest stars as a lovely singer in swank jazz club, whose life is in danger.  She is the focal point of the episode.  It aired March 7, 1960, marking a breezy new decade in which Peter Gunn seemed more at home than the 1950s.  

In two years, Diahann Carroll would be the first Black actress to win Broadway’s Tony Award, and in eight more years, she would be the first female Black actress to star in her own television show in a non-stereotyped role:  Julia (1968-1971), but it had been only four years since Nat King Cole’s TV show debuted and was canceled, and opportunities for Black actresses mostly involved domestics.  It was no big deal having her on Peter Gunn; Pete took it for granted she belonged anywhere she wanted to be.

The show opens with a funeral graveside service breaking up, and Pete is left standing in the cold, gray cemetery, the leafless early spring trees and bare branches, the collar of his trench coat turned up.  It’s not a double-breasted trench coat like Bogie wore of another generation, it’s the lapel-less model of the modern man, and Pete does not wear a fedora.  Like JFK, the next President, Pete doesn’t wear hats.

The mournful sound of a clarinet draws him to a man seated by a monument.  He has contacted Gunn to meet him here at this funeral, the funeral of his wife.  He is a down-and-out musician.  He thinks his wife has been murdered and he wants Pete to find the killer.  He can’t pay much, but Pete gently says, “We’ll work it out.”  One can see by his expression he isn’t sure there’s really a case here, and it might just be that this poor slob, who feels guilty about being away from his wife for so long and not being able to support her because he’s been sick, just can’t accept that she died and it isn’t anyone’s fault.

Pete visits a couple of his sources, one a kooky hack musician, and the other a glum bartender, and both know something but tell him very reluctantly because they want to do the right thing but don’t know what the right thing is.  It’s a common malady in Pete’s world.

He is directed to visit a bar across the river.  Pete lives in a town that is always nameless and through which runs a working port river that is always shrouded in fog and full of dead bodies.  He pulls his flashy car up to the classy joint, and we see he is being followed.  Pete’s always being followed.

Inside, a gorgeous Diahann Carroll, triple-strand of pearls at her throat, sings the sad ballad “Don't Worry 'Bout Me.”  In this episode, Miss Carroll gets to sing two songs straight through, which is unusual because Pete’s girlfriend Edie usually only gets to sing clips of songs before the camera shifts to another dead body going in the river.

She is followed by a tight combo; the horn has a mute.  Pete, his superior knowledge of cool jazz, releases a slight, appreciative smile as he watches her.  When he tries to speak to her after her number, she tells him she must change and to wait at the bar. 

She never shows up.  Pete pumps the dour manager, who reluctantly gives him the address of her apartment, because he wants to help but doesn’t know what’s the right thing to do.

When Pete enters the apartment, she has bolted out the window and onto the fire escape, and when he catches her, they have a sad, breathy conversation, looking like Tony and Maria in each other’s arms on the fire escape, and we have her back story.

She’s the down-and-out clarinetist’s wife.  She faked her death.  He’s just gotten out of prison, a jealous monster who wants to kill her.  A shot rings out.  Pete has been followed here.  (But of course) and now the jealous husband knows where she is.

Since the show is only a half hour, it’s surprising how much happens in every episode.  We move from quick action scenes to quiet dialogue and exposition, from another body plunked into the river, to Lt. Jacoby’s office where we discover a few missing pieces of the story.  Ultimately, they set up a sting where Diahann Carroll will return to the jazz club and perform, and hopefully, draw out the would-be killer so they can catch him.  Edie’s worried about her, but Diahann faces facts that she’s never going to be able to get on with her life if she keeps running.

At the club that night, Pete teases Lt. Jacoby, who is wearing a false mustache and pretending to be a waiter.  There are other cops undercover here, too.  In an intriguing ceiling-to-floor shot, Diahann steps into the spotlight, and we see, from behind an unknown man’s shoulder, a pistol being loaded.  Is he a cop?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Diahann sings “I’m Through with Love” and after the song, the jealous husband shows himself, but Lt. Jacoby gets his man.  Miss Carroll stays around to sing another set.

It’s just another night in the life of Peter Gunn, but a landmark night in television.

For more great posts on classic TV, visit the 8^th Annual Favourite TV Show Blogathon at Terence Towles Canote's A Shroud of Thoughts blog here.

This one's for you, Paddy.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.