S01E30: FEBRUARY GIRL

June Holton, an attractive dark-haired woman wearing thick-lensed glasses, enters a building and walks up a flight of stairs leading to the apartment of a professional photographer named Michael Delak. (Who we later learn is also a womanizer; making this the second episode in a row with a gigolo type character.) Immediately after entering the apartment, Delak tries to kiss her passionately. He removes her glasses and tosses them to the side onto a desk. June struggles and manages to push him away. She then reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a gun and points it at him. June is furious because her sister, Barbara Holton, who was deeply in love with Delak, recently committed suicide after being rejected by him. Suddenly, the swinging door from the kitchen opens and a man points a gun at Delak and shoots him dead. The shooter and June look directly at each other for a few seconds, but he is a total blur to her without her glasses on. (However, the killer doesn’t know that.) The shooter ignores June and flees back into the kitchen and presumably out an exit from there. (The shooter had every opportunity to eliminate someone he should believe can identify him, but he didn’t.) June walks over to the desk and picks up her glasses. (She was able to see them?) She quickly leaves the apartment with Delak’s body lying dead on the floor.

Peter Gunn arrives at Mother’s and heads to Edie’s dressing room. Edie is desperately worried about her dear friend June Holton, who is also in the dressing room and needs Gunn’s help. June explains to Gunn that she was crossing the street in front of her apartment building and someone in a car deliberately tried to run her down and kill her. When Gunn asks if she knows of anyone with a motive to kill her, she answers vaguely, saying, “I don’t know who that could be.” Gunn becomes suspicious and picks up on June not being truthful. He presses her to tell him whatever it is she’s holding back. The club’s Jazz pianist, Emmett, opens the door and tells Edie she needs to do her next number on stage. Edie leaves, leaving Gunn and June alone.

June doesn’t want to continue talking and tells Gunn, “Forget it.” But when Gunn says “alright” and starts to leave, she changes her mind. June pulls a page from a calendar out of her bag and hands it to Gunn. It’s a page for the month of February where she was featured in a photo looking rather sexy. She says her picture was taken by a man named Michael Delak. She tells Gunn that Delak was killed and she witnessed the murder. When Gunn asks if she reported it to police, June says she didn’t because she had gone to Delak’s apartment to kill him herself. (But she didn’t, therefore she hadn’t committed any crime.) She says that Delak killed her sister, Barbara. (Her way of saying that Barbara committed suicide because of him.) June tells Gunn about the shooter at the kitchen door, but can’t identify him because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. June says the calendar in which she is the “February Girl” came out three days ago and that the man who killed Delak must have seen it and recognized her. (Meaning the killer had an afterthought after seeing a picture? Later realizing that this woman could cause his imprisonment, or possibly a death sentence. That thought never entered his mind back in Delak’s apartment?) When Gunn asks June if she knows of anyone with a motive for killing Delak, she mentions a trumpet player named Tiny Truex who was in love with Barbara, but doesn’t think Tiny could have done it. Gunn indicates he will be the judge of that and says he will pay Tiny a visit. Edie, who had just returned to the dressing room after completing her number, tells Gunn that Tiny works at the Checkered Cat bar.

(It wasn’t clear if Peter Gunn met with June Holton on the same night as the killing or if it was the next day, or days later.)

At the Checkered Cat, Tiny, who is actually a huge man, is playing his trumpet alongside a jazz combo doing an upbeat jazz tune. Peter Gunn enters and sits at a table at the rear of the club. After the combo completes their number, Gunn calls out to Tiny walking by. When Gunn says he wants to talk about a photographer named Michael Delak, Tiny says he’s already answered all questions to police. Gunn tells him he’s not a cop. Gunn indicates at being there as a friend of Barbara Holton’s sister, June. He wants to know if Tiny and Barbara broke up because of Delak, but Tiny doesn’t want to discuss it. When Gunn says police probably think he killed Delak, Tiny becomes furious and grabs Gunn by the lapels of his suit jacket, but quickly refrains himself and releases Gunn. He says he’d never met Delak because he would have broken the man’s neck. Tiny then loses his temper again and breaks a chair over the table, suggesting he doesn’t want any more questions from Gunn. Several men in the club, appearing as if bouncers, approach the table as a queue for Gunn to leave.

Peter Gunn arrives at Stashek Konopka’s ballet dance studio. Stashek appears as an eccentric and domineering Russian dance instructor who is munching down food while calling out beat counts to a female student who has him frustrated at her inability to get the steps right. The student, who is seen in a mirror holding onto a bar attached to the wall while wearing a skimpy ballet outfit and transparent tights, complains to Stashek that she’s tired. He tells her she’s not. (The woman is a bit homely-looking, but has great legs.) When Gunn enters, Stashek shouts “Peter!” and dashes over to him. He grab’s Gunn’s head and kisses him on both cheeks. Stashek notices the student has stopped practicing and he exasperatingly calls out beat counts again. “And one, and two, and three, and four.” She continues her routine, but stops to complain that she’s cold. Stashek asks Gunn to excuse him. He walks over to the student and tells her she’s not cold. Stashek walks back over to Gunn and offers him dinner. Gunn declines and says he’s just there for some information. He asks Stashek if he knows a photographer named Michael Delak. Stashek says Delak had just one friend because “nobody wanted to be friends with him.” He refers to Delak as a “paskudnyak” (a Yiddish or Polish term meaning nasty or revolting). Stashek informs Gunn that a newspaper reporter named Rector is a close friend of Delak; he says that man is also an alcoholic and can always be found during the evening hours at the Scribes bar. After Gunn leaves, Stashek realizes the student has stopped her practice again. He calls out beat steps again and the student complains that she’s hungry. He replies, “Please, not while I’m eating.”

(What led Peter Gunn to Stashek Konopka for information about a professional photographer named Michael Delak? It would have made more sense for Gunn to have visited photography studios, magazine publishers, or modeling agencies. Or even bridal shops. But a ballet dance studio?)

Peter Gunn enters the Scribes bar and takes a seat next to Rector at the bar. He orders a ginger ale. (Yes, ginger ale is two words; the subtitles got it wrong.) Rector looks over at Gunn and asks if he’s sick. He appears to be intoxicated and cracks jokes about how great men have sat in the seat Gunn is in and they would have never ordered straight ginger ale. Gunn tells Rector he needs information about Michael Delak. Rector says he knew him well. Rector says Delak was friendly with all the young ladies that worked for him. His theory is that one of “his beauties” may have killed him. Gunn tells him that’s not possible because there is evidence the killer was a man. Rector becomes interested and says that could be a story for him (for the newspaper he works for). Gunn says he would need a suspect for Rector to get his story. Rector says Delak kept a little black book with all of his acquaintance’s names and police never found it; he knows this because he covered the case. Rector says when the bar closes, he can be found in his office. (He’s going to work while drunk?)

Gunn arrives at Michael Delak’s apartment, having walked up the same flight of stairs as June Holton at the start of episode. He finds the door unlocked. Gunn goes in and begins looking through drawers. He looks over and sees from the shadows in a corner of the room that someone is pointing a gun at him. Gunn ducks as a shot rings out. Gunn shoots back and an exchange of gunfire erupts. The man shooting tosses a chair at a window smashing it and then flees through it. Gunn runs to the window and watches as the man runs off. (It’s not clear if he recognized the shooter running away, but it appears he might have. There seems to be a filming goof-up here; Michael Delak’s apartment is on a higher floor, yet the gunman is seen running across a walkway outside the window. It doesn’t appear that he ever descended to street level, as Gunn is looking straight ahead at him and not downward.)

Gunn arrives back at Mother’s, now closed and dimly lit, where Edie and June Holton are still waiting for him. They are seated at a table. Emmett is at the bar not doing anything. Barney is sweeping the floor. Gunn takes a seat at the table with June and Edie and tells June he’s got a plan for both of them to trap Delak’s killer, but it’s a bit risky. Edie becomes worried about June getting killed. Gunn says he thinks he knows who killed Delak. As Gunn and June leave, he and Edie make plans to meet at his place later and Edie says she’ll have coffee ready.

Gunn and June arrive at Rector’s office. Rector no longer appears intoxicated. Gunn says he has the story for him by saying, “The killer thinks the girl can identify him, so he tried to kill her.” (That seems like a strange comment to make; he and Rector never spoke of a girl witness). Rector asks if the girl can identify the killer. Gunn says she can’t without her glasses; she can’t see well without them. (At this point, viewers of this episode must know that Gunn has concluded that Rector is the killer. However, if Rector remembers well, he should know that June wasn’t wearing her glasses in Michael Delak’s apartment, meaning he’s in the clear after hearing what Gunn just told him.) Gunn calls June over and introduces her to Rector as the February Girl. She’s not wearing glasses. Rector asks her, “What do you see?” (Why in the world did he ask that?!) June puts her glasses on and looks closely at Rector. She says, “The man who killed Michael Delak.” Gunn's "trap" must be to have her say that, even though she has no idea what the killer looks like. (Here’s where the very intelligent Rector should have asked, “Were you wearing your glasses when you saw the man who killed Delak,” but he does not!) Rector then sits back at his desk looking dejected and confesses. He tells Gunn that Delak was having an affair with his wife, resulting in the end of their marriage. Rector then tries to escape by grabbing a lamp from the desk and throwing it at Gunn, but misses. He hides low behind a wall, pulls out a gun, and takes several shots at Gunn, who shoots back once. Gunn tells Rector it won’t work. (What won’t work? An escape?) When Rector says he’s getting out, Gunn asks, “Where will you go?” Rector begins to give up and crouches onto the floor, laying his gun hand down. He tells Gunn how he’s glad he killed Delak; that his wife had meant everything to him. Gunn begins walking slowly toward Rector, realizing he might no longer be a threat, but keeps his gun pointed anyway. Gunn reaches out with his free hand and Rector puts his gun in it. Rector stands up and says that it looks like he’s solved his drinking problem. (Because he will be in prison a long time?)

Back at Gunn’s apartment, he’s sipping coffee as Edie approaches him in the living room. They get cozy in front of the fireplace and kiss.

 

QUOTES:

At Mother’s where Gunn plans to use June as bait to capture Michael Delak’s killer…

Edie: “Do you realize she could get herself killed?”

Gunn: “Do you realize I could get killed?”

Edie: “Yes, but you’re a man.”

Gunn: “Well that makes sense.”

 

At the Scribes bar … (Note: whoever wrote Rector’s dialogue for the script is amazing!)

Gunn (to the bartender): “Ginger ale.”

Rector: “You’re sick?"

Gunn: “Could be.”

Rector: “Straight ginger ale?”

Gunn: “Straight.”

Rector: “Sacrilege.”

Gunn: “That bad?”

Rector: “Great men have sat where you are sitting…Giants have slid off that very stool onto the floor in a 90 proof coma. Drink that and you’ll break the spell…a legion of gloriously alcoholic journalists will slowly and inexorably start turning over in their respective graves.”

Gunn: “You’re Rector, aren’t you?”

Rector: “I was when I came in. When I go out I shall be someone else. That is the magic of this poison. Drink the elixir and you become a colossus. Tonight I believe I shall go out of here as Paul Bunyan.

A bit later in the conversation…

Gunn: “Did Delak have any enemies you can remember?”

Rector: “All men have enemies. It’s your friends of whom you must be wary.”

A bit later in the conversation…

Gun: “Where do I get a hold of you?”

Rector: “Unfortunately, this emporium of libation closes shortly. I shall win my way back to the office.”

 

NOTES:

Actress Fintan Meyler, who played June Holton, was born in Ireland. She was the winner of a beauty pageant when she was a teenager and rewarded with a trip to New York. She then decided to remain in the United States. Fintan was born in 1929 and died of cancer in 2005 at age 75.

This is the second episode in a row with Lieutenant Jacoby not appearing.

The couple dancing beside Gunn at the Checkered Cat bar must have been professional dancers used for that scene. They were incredible!

Does anyone know the name of the tune played by the combo at the Checked Cat?

Ending credits show the name as Michael Delak, however, subtitles for the episode show the last name written as Delac. (Do the people whom create subtitles not read the credits?)

Gunn was able to conclude Rector as the killer either because he recognized him as the man fleeing Michael Delak’s apartment, or because he realized Rector had sent him to look for Delak’s “little black book” and nobody but Rector would have known that Gunn was going to be at Delak’s apartment. The episode doesn’t clarify which of the two scenarios resulted in Gunn’s conclusion.

Does it make sense that Rector, who was obviously intoxicated, could have rushed to Michael Delak’s apartment to wait for Gunn’s arrival before Gunn got there, get into a gunfight, and then escape out a window?)

 

DECEASED: Barbara Holton committed suicide after being rejected by Michael Delak, who she was in love with (occurring before start of episode). Rector shoots Michael Delak for having an affair with his wife, which resulted in Rector’s wife leaving him.

Peter Gunn Kills: 0 – Series Total: 7

 

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NEXT BLOG: S01/E31: “LOVE ME TO DEATH”

 

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