S01/E24: THE UGLY FRAME

A young hood named Jimmy Blaine enters a local deli owned by a friendly and kindhearted old man, Eli Gans, who was about to lock up for the night, but allows the young man to place an order. Jimmy orders a hamburger and Eli asks if he wants everything on it. Jimmy nods yes. When Eli heads back into the kitchen, Jimmy quickly walks back to the door, pulls the blind down, and locks the door. He then pulls a gun from his waist and takes his seat again on the stool while placing a silencer on the gun. A smiling Eli asks if he’d like coffee and Jimmy accepts. Eli pours coffee into a cup and when he turns to serve it, the hood shoots him twice. Jimmy opens the cash register and takes some cash. He looks disappointed about the amount. He also grabs a small snack container of “Cheese Crisp” and then leaves.




Peter Gunn arrives at a cemetery where Lt. Jacoby is standing and watching the cemetery gravedigger shoveling dirt into the grave where Eli Gans is being buried. It appears to be late evening and it’s very foggy. (Why is it always raining or foggy in cemeteries?) Also, as Gunn arrives, people are seen leaving. (Possibly preferring to skip the morbid task of dirt being poured back into a grave?) Jacoby seems heartbroken. He tells Gunn about his fond memories of who everyone called “Uncle Eli” and how he’d hung around the delicatessen after school as a youngster. He says Eli had a lot of friends. (There were just a handful present for the burial.) Jacoby says he was killed for $14. When Gunn asks if he’s “got a line on anyone,” Jacoby says Eli was barely alive when he and police arrived and that Eli gave a description of someone that matches a hood named Jimmy Blaine.




At Mother’s, Edie is singing on stage. A mobster from “the other side of the river” named Mickey Quoit is seated beside a blonde bimbo girlfriend applying makeup on her face at the table. (A ridiculous sight.) Also at the table is Quoit’s strong-arm hood, a man named Hank Barlow, alongside another blonde bimbo. After Edie completes her number she walks past Quoit who grabs her arm and invites her to have champagne at his table. Edie declines and shrugs him off to take a seat at a table with Peter Gunn and Mother. Lt. Jacoby arrives and becomes angry at seeing Mickey Quoit there. He walks over to the bar and places his back against it. Jacoby reminds Quoit that he didn’t want to see him on this side of the river. (Can a law enforcement official legally prohibit someone from entering his town?) The band on stage stopped playing as soon as Jacoby began speaking. (Episode’s way of making a tense moment tenser.) Quoit hands Jacoby cash to pay for his bill and leaves with his group. Gunn walks over to Jacoby and asks about Quoit. Jacoby tells him that Quoit is planning to expand his operation to this side of the river and he’s not going to let that happen. He also tells Gunn that he’s still looking for Jimmy Blaine and Gunn offers to ask around. Jacoby then leaves.





Edie gets up from the table and walks over to Gunn at the bar. She is wearing a very sexy semi-see-though turtle-neck top exposing her white brassiere underneath. (This was allowed on television in 1959?!) She’s worried about Jacoby. Gunn explains how the detective is very upset about Eli Gans’ murder.


Outside Mother’s, Peter Gunn is seen leaving the club (possibly headed to his car) and yet another hood working for Quoit, Ed Mooney, is observed hiding in the shadows keeping an eye on him.

Peter Gunn arrives at a pool hall to meet with a regular informant, a dwarf pool hustler named Babby, who appears to be winning big with some trick shots at the pool table. Gunn walks over to Babby and asks about Jimmy Blaine. Babby tells Gunn that Blaine is in hiding. Meanwhile, Ed Mooney has come out of the shadows and followed Gunn into the pool hall where he stands by a payphone trying to listen in on Gunn and Babby’s conversation. Babby tells Gunn he’ll make a call to get a location for Jimmy Blaine. (We later learn that Babby is well acquainted with Ed Mooney and obtained information from him on Jimmy Blaine, however, Babby doesn’t acknowledge Mooney’s presence in the slightest in the pool hall. Why?)



Ed Mooney calls Mickey Quoit to report that the plan is working; that Peter Gunn is asking questions. Quoit instructs Mooney to spread the word that Jimmy Blaine is “holed up” at the Morris Hotel. After hanging up, he instructs his strong-arm, Hank, seated in the living room, to go get Blaine from the room. Quoit then picks up the phone again and calls Jake, the Morris Hotel front desk clerk, to let him know that he’s sending Blaine over there with Hank and to wait “until the cop comes”. It’s fairly obvious at this point that Quoit is going to hand over the young hood Jimmy Blaine to police. (Why would he do that?) Quoit tells Jake that the cop (obviously speaking of Lt. Jacoby) must enter the room alone; that if he’s not alone to make them get a warrant. (Police wouldn’t need a warrant to enter a room where a suspected murderer is hiding). Jimmy Blaine comes out of the room and Quoit lies, telling him he’s got to be moved because the cops have been tipped off to his current location. Blaine says he killed a man for “fourteen lousy bucks” and hasn’t been given a reason why. Quoit quickly shuts him up and tells him he’ll be fine; that police won’t catch him if he does what he’s told.




At Peter Gunn’s apartment, Gunn receives a call from Babby telling him that Jimmy Blaine is holed up at the Hotel Morris.

Jacoby arrives alone at the Hotel Morris to apprehend a fugitive suspected of murder. (Not realistic; even in 1959, protocol would have called for several armed officers to arrive there.) The front desk clerk, Jake, is at the desk listening to jazz on the radio and reading a magazine (actually, mostly looking at its pictures). Jacoby forces the clerk to disclose the room number that Jimmy Blaine is in. Jacoby goes up the stairs and pulls out his revolver. He walks to the door marked “21” and turns the doorknob, then quickly enters. He finds Blaine dead on the bed with a wound to his head. Jacoby turns around and finds the hotel’s front desk clerk standing at the door. Jake accuses Jacoby of having just killed Jimmy Blaine and that he’s going to report him.



Gunn arrives at Mother’s where Jacoby is seated at a table with a cup of coffee and looking absolutely miserable. Edie tells Gunn that Jacoby has been at that table with his coffee for two hours. Gunn says there was a preliminary hearing today and it didn’t go well for Jacoby.



Gunn goes over to Jacoby and takes a seat at the table. Jacoby explains that he’s been relieved of duty until the final results of the hearing. Gunn says everyone should know that this is a frame. Mickey Quoit, Hank, and the two blonde bimbos enter the club. Quoit and Hank walk over to Jacoby and Gunn as the bimbos go stand by the bar. Quoit proceeds to humiliate Jacoby for losing his badge, referring to him as “Mr. Jacoby”. Quoit knows that Jacoby can’t do anything to them now that he doesn’t have authority. They head over to a table in the club. Jacoby then storms out the door. Peter Gunn goes after him. He catches up to Jacoby outside Mother’s and offers to find out how Jacoby got framed.



Gunn arrives back at the pool hall that also happens to have a barber shop area at the rear wall. A barber is just done doing Babby’s hair and he tells the barber to leave when Gunn approaches. Babby tells Gunn, “That Hotel Morris tip was a setup.” When Gunn asks where he got the information, Babby says, “Pipeline,” and that he doesn’t understand it, because he does business with the most reliable stool pigeons. Babby is worried about his reputation and has a plan to get back at whoever caused Jacoby to get framed for murder.



Babby gets in Peter Gunn’s car and they arrive at a brown-stone apartment building (on a block with other brown-stones and looking very much like New York City) where Babby knocks on the door to Ed Mooney’s apartment. After Mooney opens the door, Gunn grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and tells him they’re going over to the river where it’s nice and quiet.



After arriving at a dock on the river, Gunn shoves Mooney toward the rails and asks if he knows how to swim. Gunn presses Mooney for information about who killed Jimmy Blaine and who sent the word that Blaine was holed up at the Hotel Morris. Mooney is terrified about getting dumped in the river, but denies knowing anything. Gunn holds Mooney over the rail and Mooney yells he can’t swim. Finally, he breaks and tells Gunn that Mickey Quoit put him up to it.

Babby then calls Mother’s where the bartender, Barney, answers the payphone. Barney walks over to Mickey Quoit’s table where he’s still seated with Hank and the two blonde bimbos and tells Quoit he’s got a call. Babby tells Quoit that Ed Mooney is going to meet with Gunn at Pier 16 and it looks like he’s going to spill everything he knows. Mickey Quoit goes back to the table and tells Hank to get rid of Mooney, who is about to double-cross them.

Hank arrives at the pier with a revolver and just as he’s about to shoot Mooney in the back, Gunn hand chops Hank’s arm causing the gun to drop. Babby picks up the gun and moves away. Gunn and Hank battle it out on the pier. Ed Mooney is staying out of it. (Maybe afraid that Babby will shoot him?) After Gunn punches Hank in the face a few times and gains control, he says, “Alright, we’re going to have a talk about Mickey Quoit.” (The scene ends there).



Gunn and Jacoby arrive back at Mother’s where Mickey Quoit and the two blondes are still at the table. Jacoby walks over to them. Quoit once again refers to Jacoby as “Mr. Jacoby”. Jacoby pulls out his badge and tells Quoit he is to be called “Lieutenant Jacoby,” and then tells Quoit to get on his feet; he’s being arrested for murder. Jacoby tells him that two of his guys just sang like a barber shop quartet. Jacoby leads him out of the club.



Mother then walks over to the table and hands the two blonde bimbos the bill. One says to the other, “He stuck us with the check.” Mother tells them that if they can’t afford to pay, she hopes their hands aren’t allergic to detergent, implying that they are going to have to wash dishes to cover the expense of their tab. (This notion about customers washing dishes when unable to pay their bill mostly comes from a silly recurring theme in old movies and is not known to ever truly occur in restaurants.)


 

QUOTES:

When Gunn calls Lt. Jacoby to let him know where Jimmy Blaine is hiding…

Gunn: “Try the Hotel Morris…Jimmy Blaine.”

Jacoby: “Where’d you get it?”

Gunn: “Now Lieutenant, you know better than that.”

 

NOTES:

Edie’s hair has been cut very short and appears much darker in this episode.

Mickey Quoit set a plan to frame Jacoby for murder by having the young hood Jimmy Blaine kill a kindly old man, and then had Jimmy Blaine killed and found by Lt. Jacoby, who gets blamed for the death. There are numerous scenarios that could have resulted in this plan failing. What if the deli owner, Eli Gans, had not still been alive for a few moments when police arrived for him to give a description of Jimmy Blaine. How would police have known who to look for? (Would Quoit have found a way to anonymously leak to police who the killer was?) What if there had been other police officers arriving at the Morris Hotel to capture Jimmy Blaine? What if Jacoby’s superiors had believed Jacoby when he’d said that he found Blaine dead upon his arrival at the hotel? What if Peter Gunn had decided to go on his own to confront Blaine instead of calling Jacoby? (In many other episodes he does just that in similar situations.)

Is it realistic to believe that Mickey Quoit would have successfully expanded his racketeering operations with just one man, Lt. Jacoby, out of the way? Had his plan worked (the frame), any replacement for Jacoby would not have been a problem?

 

Lola Albright sings “Oh! Look at Me Now”, a song from 1941 composed by Joe Bushkin with lyrics by John DeVries. It is yet another song sung by Lola Albright strongly associated with Frank Sinatra, appearing in his 1957 album, “A Swingin' Affair!”

 

See Lola Albright sing “Oh! Look at Me Now”

 

 

DECEASED: Young hood Jimmy Blaine shoots deli owner Eli Gans. A hood named Hank, working for Mickey Quoit, kills Jimmy Blaine with blunt force trauma to the head (not shown).

 

Total Gunn Kills: 0 - Series Total: 7

  

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NEXT BLOG: S01/E25: “THE LEDERER STORY”

 

 

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