S01/E10: THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

A young man, Roy Davidson, and young woman named Liz Hatton are kissing intensely on the couch in Liz’s apartment. A big man with a huge scar on the side of his face, Julio Fezzano, suddenly bursts into the apartment raging with jealousy. Roy takes a swing at the man, but is quickly knocked to the floor. Julio Fezzano then attacks Liz, yelling, “I told you to stay away from him!” While choking Liz to death, she yells out at Roy to get the gun out of the desk drawer (a desk which coincidentally happens to be right beside him. Also, the desk has 9 drawers and he opens the one with the gun on the first try. Really?). Roy grabs the gun and shoots the big man dead. Roy and Liz panic. Roy wants to call for help, but Liz tells him to leave, that she has friends and will take care of it. She tells Roy to think of his father, who can’t be involved in such a scandal. Immediately after Roy leaves, Liz calmly drinks from a glass and looks over at Julio, who sits up from the floor and smiles at her. (Obviously, the gun that was used had blanks in it and they wanted Roy to believe he’d killed a man).

Gunn meets with District Attorney Ralph Davidson (Roy’s father). Ralph Davidson explains to Gunn that he’s got a solid case against mobster and racketeer Yale Lubin and that the trial is in two days. However, he is being blackmailed. He received a telephone call the night before that if he doesn’t drop the case against Yale Lubin, his son Roy Davidson will be charged with murder. Roy had told his father of the events at Liz’s home. Peter Gunn tells Ralph that it could be “a frame” and the District Attorney agrees, but that he can’t take any chances and that’s why he is hiring Gunn. Gunn wants a description of the girl (not a name?) and of the man that Roy shot. Ralph Davidson said that according to his son, the woman is “beautiful, dark haired, in her mid-20s.” (Did his son Roy, who was making out with her on the couch, not know her name?!) Peter Gunn then asks what’s the girl's name. (Finally. Did producers realize later that this needed to be included?). Ralph Davidson responds “Liz Smith.” (Her real last name, Hatton, was unknown to his son Roy—and us viewers until later in the episode).

Peter Gunn arrives at Mother’s where a jazz combo is playing on stage. He asks Mother if she knows of a Liz Smith or a man with a scar. She doesn’t, but said she’ll make some calls. Gunn then heads into Edie’s dressing room where they engage in heavy smooching. (Edie’s hair color appears a bit darker in this episode; has more of a brownish tint in it).

Gunn then arrives at a pool hall where he asks one of his underworld informants, a pool-hustling dwarf named Babby, if he knows of a Liz Smith or a man with a scar. When Gunn mentions that they are connected to mob boss Yale Lubin, Babby says he knows of a Liz, but it’s not Smith. Gunn says he’d suspected it wasn’t her real last name. Babby says the last name is Hatton. Gunn asks for more information from Babby, who drags a box by a rope over to the phone on the wall. He gets up on the box to reach the phone and makes a call. Babby returns to Gunn and tells him he can get him the help he needs, a signal for Gunn to reach into his pocket and hand Babby some money. (The wad of currency Gunn removes from his pocket appears to be fake and the one he hands to Babby has a “100” in large numbers at the center of the bill). Babby tells Gunn to see a man named Ulysses at Humphrey’s Bar & Grill.

At Humphrey’s, Gunn finds Ulysses playing the pinball machine (they appear to already know each other). Gunn says he’s looking for a woman named Liz Hatton and a man with a scarred face. Ulysses doesn’t know about the man, saying he must be new in town, but he does know Liz. However, he won’t disclose any information until Gunn reaches into his pocket again. He asks for 2000 nickels; a funny way of asking for $100. (Was that really the going rate in 1958 for paying off informants? One hundred dollars in 1958 is equivalent in value to about $887 today, in 2020). Ulysses tells Gunn she’s Yale Lubin’s girlfriend and he’s got her hiding out in a place on the West Side. He gives Gunn the exact address and apartment number.

Gunn arrives at the apartment building and there’s a mobster bodyguard standing watch outside the door to Liz Hatton’s apartment. (Who is Yale Lubin protecting her from?) Gunn coldcocks him with one punch and then knocks on the door, holding up the unconscious hood in front of the peephole. When Liz looks through the peephole and sees that it’s the bodyguard, she opens the door. Gunn tosses the man’s body onto the apartment floor and walks in and right up to Liz. Liz asks Gunn, “What do you want?” Gunn replies, “The man with the scar.” Gunn lets Liz know that the gig is up; that she staged a fake murder to implicate the District Attorney’s son and she’s facing some serious jail time. Gunn bluffs and tells her that the threatening call made to the D.A. was traced back to her apartment and that’s how he got her address. She confesses that it was all Yale Lubin’s idea. Gunn implies that she can help herself if she takes him to the man with the scar and she agrees.

Gunn and Liz Hatton arrive at a restaurant in China Town. Gunn suspects he’s being led into a trap, but he had to find the man with the scar. The Chinese servers, loyal hands of Yale Lubin, keep a close eye on Gunn after taking a seat at a table with Liz. Lubin shows up and sits next to Liz, across from Gunn. When Gunn gets cocky with Lubin, a Chinese man pulls a gun and points it at Gunn while locking the front door. Gunn tells Lubin the D.A. is taking him to trial. Lubin says if the D.A. doesn’t drop the case, his son will be up for murder. Gunn reminds him that’s not possible without a body. The Chinese man with the gun is now beside the table and when he goes to shoot, Gunn shoots his gun first that he was holding under the table out of sight. The Chinese man drops to the ground and Lubin makes a run for it to the door, but Gunn gets up and slings a chair at him, knocking him down. Another Chinese man comes out of the kitchen and slings a butcher knife at Gunn, but misses and runs back into the kitchen. Then the man with the scar, Julio, appears with a gun at the top of some stairs. He takes a shot at Gunn, but misses and Gunn shoots back killing Julio, who tumbles down to the bottom of the staircase dead. Now he really is a corpse.

Back at Gunn’s apartment, he’s laid out on the couch reading a newspaper with a big bold headline: LUBIN CONVICTED. Edie comes out of the kitchen looking miserable and crouches on the floor beside Gunn telling him she ruined the omelets she was cooking.

QUOTES

At the pool hall where Gunn watches as Babby is about to make a shot. Gunn is narrating the episode…

Gunn: “When you’re looking for people, you have to keep looking for people who can tell you where to look. It’s a matter of contacts, like trying to contact the nine ball into the corner pocket.”

NOTES

The plot of this episode, written by Blake Edwards, is strikingly similar to the first episode of the “Richard Diamond, Private Detective” radio show called “THE BARTON CASE”, also written by Blake Edwards. That radio show aired in 1949. In the old radio show, private detective Richard Diamond is hired by Mr. Richard Barton who believes his son Roger is being framed for murder after his son shot a man with a large scar on his face, but no one has produced a corpse as proof that the scar-faced man is dead. Mr. Barton is Chairman of the prison's Parole Board. Some friends of a man in prison named John Alter are threatening to expose Roger (who had told his father he thinks he killed a man) if John Alter isn’t released in an upcoming parole hearing. Roger had met a girl named Leonore Brown, who is also a friend of imprisoned John Alter and she visits him often at Sing-Sing. Richard Barton explained that his son Roger arrived at Leonore’s apartment one evening and found her struggling with a man. She called out to Roger for help. He picked up a gun and shot the dark man with a scar. Richard Diamond ultimately solves the case after finding the scar-faced man in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.  The man with the scar appears at the top of a stairway landing and shoots at Richard Diamond, but misses. Diamond shoots back killing the man, who goes tumbling down the stairs.

The role of Roy Davidson was played by actor Roy Thinnes who appeared in television as Jeremiah Smith on The X-Files from 1996-2001 and also that year he was the governor in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." Roy Thinnes is still alive today (at the time of this writing); age 82. 

How could anyone in their right mind believe they can frame someone for murder without presenting a body? Was Yale Lubin planning to kill Julio Fezzano to provide a body? He threatened Gunn that he (Gunn) would be the corpse, but that wouldn't work either, since Roy knows he "shot" a man with a scar.

More sexual innuendo. Near the end of the episode, Edie and Gunn are cozy at the couch in his apartment when Edie tells Gunn that she ruined dinner in the kitchen when the omelets fell. She said she fixed “something else”. Edie says “it’s ready,” but Gunn apparently has other ideas (nothing other than sex can be interpreted here) and he asks, “Will it keep?” (In other words, will it not spoil, because we’re going to do something else now). Edie replies, “It’s cold cuts.” Gunn says, “It’ll keep,” and they continue smooching.

It appears Blake Edwards and series producers were keen on using characters with large prominent body scars. Many others will appears in future episodes. 

Yet another reference to the location of the series as New York City. In the scene with Yale Lubin seated across the table in a Chinese restaurant, Lubin describes his Chinese hood by saying, “He handles an automatic like he was born in Flatbush.” Flatbush is no doubt the neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY known traditionally for its many tough guy, gangster-type residents.

A bit of trivia: Throughout the entire 114 episodes of the Peter Gunn series, Peter Gunn says “I love you” to Edie only twice even though both maintain a very loving relationship. He says it once in the first Episode (S1E1: THE KILL) and in this episode. Edie also says it only twice. Interestingly, she says it once in the first episode and once in the final episode (S3E38: MURDER ON THE LINE).

DECEASED: Gunn shoots Chinese hood working for Yale Lubin. Gunn shoots Julio Fezzano (man with scar).

Total Gunn Kills: 2 - Series Total: 5 

Comment below your thoughts on this episode and this blog

NEXT BLOG: S01/E11: “DEATH HOUSE TESTAMENT”

*