A short, pudgy, mostly baldheaded
man, Henry Bowers, is fiddling with the inside of a hanging light bulb fixture
in the basement of his house. After he’s done he screws a light bulb back on,
but doesn’t turn it on; the basement remains dark. Bowers walks over to a washing
machine and tosses some clothing inside. He uses a flashlight to look at the
control knob and turns it to a certain setting. He then removes the drain hose
from a large sink and places it on the floor. Bowers places a rag over a floor
drain cover. (That will slow water from draining, but won’t fully prevent it.)
Bowers goes over to the fuse box and screws back in two different fuses.
(Apparently he didn’t know which one powers the light fixture he was working on?) He
then goes back to the washer and pushes the control knob to run it.
Immediately, water comes pouring out of the drain hose. (This appears to be a
big production goof-up here; the machine needs to first fill with water, cycle
a wash load, AND THEN it drains!) Bowers then leaves the area.
Mrs. Bowers comes down the
basement stairs in a panic when she sees the floor flooding. She takes off her
shoes and walks over to the hanging light bulb. She reaches up to grab the
metallic light fixture in one hand in order to turn the power knob on, but lets
out a horrific scream as she is electrocuted to death. (If she had reached up
and just turned the plastic knob, as most people would do, she would not have gotten
shocked by the rigged fixture. However, it’s possible that it was so dark in
the basement that she had to grab onto the fixture with one hand first and turn
the knob with the other hand.)
(Obviously, Mrs. Bowers was
electrocuted to death with a booby-trap set by her husband. Was forensics that
bad in 1959? The medical examiner should have determined the cause of death,
prompting investigators to check that light fixture. Did Bowers go back to the
basement and reset the wiring properly before calling for help? If so, what
explanation would investigators conclude about how she was electrocuted?)
Outside Mother’s, a car
appearing to be a 1913 Baker Electric (see notes below) pulls up to the curb
and two wealthy sisters, Wilma and Irma Goffney, get out along with their
lawyer, an older man named James Bond. Inside, Edie is on stage singing
“Straight to Baby”. Love struck Peter Gunn is seated at a table looking up at
her. The Goffney sisters and Mr. Bond enter and are approached by Mother. Wilma
asks for Gunn and Mother waves a “wait and stay quiet” hand gesture at her.
After Edie completes her number, Mother walks them over to Gunn’s table. Wilma
tells Gunn that their other sister, Maggie Goffney, who received a large
inheritance from their father, has married a man named Henry Bowers and she
believes he’s after her money. Irma Goffney suggests that Maggie will be killed
for it. They ask Peter Gunn to investigate Bowers and find out what he can
about him. They give Gunn a description and tell him that Bowers and Maggie are
honeymooning at the Park Towers Hotel.
At the Park Towers Hotel, a
violin and accordion player are serenading Henry Bowers and Maggie Goffney
beside their table with a romantic melody for a few moments before walking away
to another table while still playing. Bowers and Maggie are sipping Champaign.
Maggie puts her hand on Bower’s hand and tells him that she’s the happiest
woman in the world and that there is nothing her sisters can do to turn her
against him. While still looking directly into each other’s eyes, a bright
flash in their faces from a camera catches them by surprise. Appearing stunned,
they look over at a professional woman photographer (who happens to be gorgeous!)
with a large camera. She apologizes to Bowers and Maggie about the flash and
tells them she was taking a picture of that other gentleman (the production
camera pans over to Gunn seated at a table). Gunn holds his wine glass up at
the couple to greet them. (Obviously, Gunn had hired the photographer to get a
picture of Bowers).
Gunn arrives at the
apartment of one of his underground informants, Big Mug. He’s seated at a large
round table with four other men playing poker. Gunn shows Big Mug a photograph
of a wide-eyed stunned Bowers seated with Maggie at a table, both looking
directly at the camera that the picture was taken from (filming goof-up; see
notes below). The picture also shows Gunn at a table in the background. Gunn
asks Big Mug, “Know this guy?” He answers, “That’s you.” Gunn tells Big Mug not
him, the other guy in the picture, but Big Mug says he’s never seen him. The
picture gets passed around the table where one Mafioso-type character says he
doesn’t know the guy, but “the dame is Detroit Dotty.” However, someone corrects
him and says that’s not her. Gunn gets ready to leave when suddenly another
gambler at the table tells Gunn that the man in the photograph is Elmer Degan;
that he’d spent four years at Leavenworth Prison with him and thinks Degan was
in there for blackmail. Gunn thanks him and leaves.
Gunn arrives at the Goffney
home. His car is parked behind the old Baker Electric in the driveway. Everyone
is gathered in the living room, including all three Goffney sisters, with
Maggie standing beside Henry Bowers (Elmer Degan). The lawyer, James Bond, who
hasn’t spoken in this episode aside from stating his name to Gunn earlier at
Mother’s, is also there. Gunn produces paperwork to Wilma showing criminal
record details for Bowers. Henry Bowers explains that he was very young when
that happened and he’s already paid for it. Wilma tells Maggie she’s married “a
convict and a criminal”. Gunn attempts to intercede and tells Wilma a man
shouldn’t be punished forever. Wilma tells Gunn that this matter is no longer
his business. She then tells Maggie that they won’t see a penny of the
inheritance from their father if the marriage continues. Maggie says she loves
Henry and doesn’t care what he’s done. Bowers tells Maggie that they should
leave. After they depart, Gunn tells Wilma his fee for a night’s work is one
thousand dollars.
Sometime later, Wilma
Goffney gets in the rear seat of the Baker Electric car, behind the steering
tiller (that’s how this car is driven!) and drives away from the house. (It’s
not clear where she was headed.) Wilma drives the car slowly out of the
driveway and onto a road. Suddenly, the front wheel begins wobbling and the
brakes are not working when Wilma steps on the pedal. Irma Goffney is watching
from a window in the house. (Why?) There’s a horrific crashing sound as the car
flips over. (As shown in next scene, the vehicle never made contact with
anything; it’s simply shown flipped over to one side in the middle of the
road.) Irma screams, “Wilma!” several times from the window. (This means the
car couldn’t have traveled far, as Irma was still able to see it from the
house.)
A tow truck, several police
officers investigating, and bystanders are near the car wreck that killed
Wilma. (Death not likely here: see notes below.) Peter Gunn is also there
inspecting the underside of the car. He notices that the wheel’s axis bar and
brakes were tampered with. He then sees Henry Bowers and Maggie Goffney, who is
distraught and sobbing, coming out of the house a short distance away. He walks
over to them and asks Bowers where he was this morning after he left the house,
suspecting him of tampering with the car. Bowers tells Gunn that this is not
the time or place to discuss it. Gunn tells Bowers to meet with him at Mother’s
at 10PM, unless he’d rather be questioned at police headquarters. Bowers agrees
to be at Mother’s at ten.
Gunn arrives in his car with
the convertible top down outside Mother’s and stops beside a fire
hydrant. (A fire hydrant that was NEVER in that spot on the sidewalk prior to
this episode and won’t be seen again in any future episodes!) When Gunn
realizes that he parked too close to the hydrant, he reverses the car about ten
feet back. While he is in reverse, a Molotov cocktail bomb comes down from
above (from a rooftop across the street) and explodes into a huge ball of fire right
where Gunn’s body had been behind the steering wheel a second earlier. Gunn
jumps out of his car pointing his revolver. (Who is he going to shoot? Shoot at
the fire?) Edie, Mother, and patrons along with band members come rushing out
of Mother’s to look at the blaze raging in the road in front of Gunn’s car.
Barney uses a fire extinguisher to put it out. Moments later, Henry Bowers
arrives by taxi and gets out looking bewildered.
Gunn and Bowers are on the
rear deck outside Mother’s. Bowers admits he hated Wilma Goffney, but hadn’t
tampered with the car. He says he’d gone to Jack’s Barbershop on Tremain Street
in the morning and was planning on taking Maggie to the Starlight Room this
evening. Gunn says he’ll follow up with the barbershop. Bowers also tells Gunn
that he knows nothing about the Molotov cocktail that was thrown at him; that
he was picked up by a taxi at the Park Towers Hotel and Gunn can check that too
with the cab company. Bowers then leaves saying he must get back to Maggie.
Edie comes out onto the deck
where Gunn appears frustrated. (If Bower’s alibis are confirmed, Gunn will be confused
and he has no suspect.) Edie tries cheering him up, but not having any success.
Gunn says he’ll call Jacoby and ask him to wire Washington to see if the Feds
have anything on Bowers.
Gunn meets with Maggie
Goffney inside The Blue Funnel club (a locale last seen in Episode 4, “The
Blind Pianist”). They are seated at a table inside. (What happened to her
meeting with Bowers at the Starlight Room?) Gunn tells Maggie he’s received
information from Lieutenant Jacoby of the police. He says Henry Bowers has been
married five times previously and all his wives died from accidents under
mysterious circumstances, and that Bowers profited substantially in each case.
Maggie refuses to believe what Gunn is telling her. Gunn tells Maggie he thinks
Bowers caused her sister Wilma’s death and had thrown a Molotov cocktail at
him. Maggie doesn’t want to believe any of that either. He then says that
Bowers is likely planning an accident for her. She tells him that Henry
wouldn’t do that. When Gunn asks her where is Bowers now, she says he’s on his
way to Miami. At that moment a restaurant employee (probably the maître D’)
places a phone on her table and the receiver in her hand letting her know she’s
got a call. It’s the lawyer, James Bond, calling. Maggie becomes distraught and
puts the phone receiver down. Gunn takes it and speaks to Bond, who tells him
that Irma Goffney is dead.
At the Goffney home, Gunn
calls Lt. Jacoby to let him know there’s been another accident; the other
sister, this time. Gunn asks James Bond what happened. Bond (who we finally
hear speaking) tells Gunn he’d arrived at the house and smelled gas (natural
gas). He says he broke windows (why not just open them) and then ran upstairs
to find Irma dead while lying in her bed. Gunn tells Maggie that he’d already
checked and Bowers has not gone to Miami; that he must have been the one to
open gas lines into the house. Maggie breaks down crying and says she will get
a divorce from Bowers; and that she must “get away”. Gunn then leaves.
Gunn calls Lt. Jacoby and
tells him that he’s been following Maggie Goffney around town and suspects that
she’s trying to cover her tracks to meet up with Henry Bowers. (What was the
purpose of calling Jacoby to tell him that?)
Maggie arrives by taxi at a
small home that appears to be out in the country. She enters the house where
Bowers is waiting. Gunn is in his car, parked around the corner. Bowers asks
Maggie if she “got the money”. Maggie says she hasn’t got it yet, but she will,
and while smiling she says Wilma and Irma are both dead now. She appears happy
about that. Maggie looks around and loves the new place that Bowers got for
them. Then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Peter Gunn.
Maggie opens the door and
she’s not happy about having been followed. She asks, “What did you want, Mr.
Gunn?” He answers, “Just thought I’d drop by. Accident Prevention Week.” Maggie
tells him that he should leave them alone. Gunn tells Henry Bowers that the
police are also on their way to question him about the deaths of Wilma and
Irma. Maggie then pulls out a revolver, frustrated at Gunn’s meddling. She
tells Gunn that he’s just like her sisters, wanting to destroy the only time she’s
been happy in her life. Gunn then realizes he’s had it all wrong; he accuses
Maggie of having killed her sisters. Maggie says, “Yes,” and that she threw the
Molotov cocktail at him, but missed. However, she won’t miss now with her gun. Gunn speaks
to Bowers and says, “Henry, I’m the only man that knows you didn’t kill Wilma
and Irma.” Bowers panics and tries to convince Maggie to put down her weapon.
When Maggie refuses, he calls her a “stupid clod”, infuriating Maggie. She
takes a shot at him, but misses. Gunn and Bowers quickly duck behind furniture,
but Gunn gets back up and starts walking toward Maggie with a hand stretched out, telling her to give him
the gun. (How does he know she won’t shoot him?) When Bowers tries running to
another side of the room, Maggie shoots at him again. Bowers then grabs a metallic
lamp on the television set to use it as a weapon, but gets electrocuted to
death and drops onto the floor. Gunn goes over to the body and notices a bright white screen lit on the television set. He shuts off the TV and then traces
wires from it that are connected to the lamp. He presses the power button to
shut off the TV. Gunn tells Maggie that’s the “accident” he had planned for
her. (So this man Bowers rigged the lamp on the TV and forgot about that when he went to grab it?!
That’s mind-boggling!) Gunn tells Maggie that she knew he meant to kill her
someday. The love-starved woman then nods her head and says she did, but had
hoped for a week or two of happiness before it happened. When she asks him what
will happen to her, Gunn says she will likely be sent to “some place like a
hospital”. (A delicate way of telling her she will be institutionalized for
being insane.) Gunn asks Maggie how she
knew how to dismantle parts of an automobile and make Molotov cocktails? Maggie
replies, “Mr. Gunn, I spent my whole life reading.” (That’s the best
explanation the producers of this show could come up with?! See notes below.)
QUOTES:
At Mother’s, where Peter
Gunn is seated at a table…
Wilma Goffney: “Do
you have an office, Mr. Gunn.”
Gunn: “This
is it.”
On the back deck outside
Mother’s, soon after Gunn narrowly escaped being struck by a gasoline bomb
(Molotov cocktail) when parking his car…
Edie: “What
are you looking so upset about?”
Gunn: “I
hate people throwing Molotov cocktails at me. Burns me up."
NOTES:
While Henry Bowers might not
fall under the definition of “gigolo”, this is the third episode in a row about
a man preying on multiple women.
Starting at 2:56, Henry
Mancini, who composed all the music for the Peter Gunn series, makes an
appearance in this episode! He can be seen sitting on the left at a table and
bobbing his head to the music as Lola Albright sings.
Lieutenant Jacoby didn’t
appear in the previous two episodes and makes very brief appearances twice in
this episode when he answered phone calls from Gunn, each scene lasting just a
few seconds. HOWEVER! He wasn’t actually filmed for this episode. The first
call he answered from Gunn was copied film footage from Episode 22, “Edie Finds
A Corpse” when he took a call at 5:45 of that episode. And the second call he
answered from Gunn in this episode was taken from Episode 13, “The Jockey” when
he took a call at 17.36 of that episode. (And he’s wearing a different tie and
suit jacket for each call. Why would he have changed his jacket and tie while
at work on the same night? See “Goof-ups” below.)
The car driven by Wilma
Goffney was either a Baker Electric or Detroit Electric made some time between
1910 and 1915. The driver operates the vehicle from one side of the back seat! It
is more likely to have been a Baker Electric, since those cars were known to
have had the reversible front seat, allowing that passenger to face forward or
face the rear (the lawyer, James Bond, who sat in front, was seen facing the
driver and passenger in rear). No information found on Detroit Electric cars
that had that type of front seat. Interestingly, the driver does not use a
steering wheel; instead, it’s something called a tiller (a long bar) to steer
the vehicle.
The top speed of an early 20th
century Baker Electric or Detroit Electric car was slightly over 20 miles per
hour. When the wheel began falling off (but never did) and the brakes failed
while Wilma Goffney was driving, the car didn’t crash into anything. It was
seen flipped over in the middle of the road. However, these cars are not likely
to simply flip to one side because a wheel was loose. Also, such an accident
might have caused some minor injury, at most. Certainly not death.
Is it coincidence that the
name James Bond was used for the Goffney family lawyer, or had producers
intentionally decided to have some fun with the name taken from British spy
novel author Ian Fleming? By the time this episode first aired on April 27,
1959, there were just seven James Bond titles published in books. No James Bond
movies had been made yet.
Filming/Editing
goof-up (aside from the washing machine drain hose flooding the
basement in episode’s opener from a washer that was empty of water): At the
Park Towers Hotel, the woman photographer in the restaurant hired by Gunn to
capture an image of Henry Bowers and pretend it was Gunn she was taking a
picture of, when she snapped the picture, Bowers and Maggie were looking at
each other, however, when Gunn showed the picture to the poker card players, Bowers
and Maggie were looking directly at the camera. Also, in the picture, a group
of people arriving are seen standing by the door appearing to be greeted by a restaurant
host, however, none of them were there when the photographer tells Bowers and
Maggie that she was taking a picture of Gunn — Lieutenant Jacoby is wearing a
different suit jacket and tie when he took the second phone call from Gunn a
short time after receiving the first call. — Should the one-episode fire
hydrant also be considered a goof-up? Did producers think no viewers of this
series would have noticed and found that to be utterly ridiculous?
The woman photographer in
the hotel’s restaurant is shown in ending credits as “Camera Girl”, played by
actress Brandy Bryan. Not much information can be found regarding this stunningly
beautiful actress. IMDB has the following:
“Brandy Bryan was born on
November 1, 1933. She was an actress, known for The Bob Cummings Show (1955),
The Angry Red Planet (1959) and Target (1958). She died on November 17, 2003 in
Sedona, Arizona, USA.” – Brandy Bryan
has 12 film credits to her name: 1957: Young and Dangerous (Juvenile Hall
Girl), 1958: The Bob Cummings Show "Bob and Schultzy at Sea" (Bathing
Suit Girl), 1958: The Sheepman (Miss Rafferty), 1958: Crash Landing (Chorus
Girl), 1958: How to Marry a Millionaire "Situation Wanted" (Blanche),
1958: Target "Retribution" (Role not described), 1958: Queen of Outer
Space (Venusian Guard), 1958: The Party Crashers (Girl in Motel), 1959: Perry
Mason "The Case of the Shattered Dream" (Doris), 1959: Peter Gunn
"Love Me to Death" (Camera Girl), 1959: The Angry Red Planet (Nurse
Hayes), 1961: Bachelor in Paradise (Waitress).
At 15:34 of the episode,
there is a scene showing the outside of The Blue Funnel club. Just as was done
with Lt. Jacboby answering phone calls, it is copied film footage with actor Ned
Glass exiting the club from Episode 4, “The Blind Pianist”, when he’d played
“Max” and had left the club to buy sandwiches for a rich woman named Laura Hope
Stanfield.
The explanation from Maggie
Goffney at end of episode about how she knew how to dismantle parts of a
vehicle and make Molotov cocktails seems almost too incredible to believe. It
appeared as if production writers struggled with how to let viewers know how an
older fragile-appearing woman was able to accomplish such feats, and finally
decided on the very lame decision that she had learned it from reading books.
It may have been more believable for her to have said that she’d hired
professionals. However, it’s not totally impossible for her to have spent time
in libraries meticulously studying such details about car parts and Molotov
cocktails and, with the right tools at her disposal, having been able to do
what she’d said she had done.
DECEASED: Henry
Bower’s five different wives: 1. Fell off platform at Niagara Falls. 2. Drowned
in bathtub. 3. Riding “accident” at hotel while on honeymoon (horse riding?) 4. Not disclosed. (These four deaths occurred prior to start of episode.) Wife
5. Mrs. Bowers electrocuted in basement when reaching for hanging light bulb
fixture rigged by Henry Bowers. – Wilma Goffney in car wreck caused by sister
Maggie Goffney tampering with wheel and brakes, causing them to fail. – Irma
Goffney from natural gas poisoning after sister Maggie Goffney released the gas
from lines into the house while Irma was asleep in bed. – Henry Bowers
electrocuted by metallic lamp he had rigged to kill Maggie, but forgot and
accidentally grabbed the lamp himself to throw at her when she was shooting a
gun at him.
Peter Gunn Kills: 0 – Series
Total: 7
Lola
Albright sings “Straight to Baby” in this episode. Song composed by Ray Evans
and Jay Livingston. From Lola Albright's 1959 album "Dreamsville"
with orchestra conducted by Henry Mancini.
Comment below your thoughts on this episode and this blog
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BLOG: S01/E32: “THE FAMILY AFFAIR”
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