Thu 30 Apr 2020
A Private Eye TV Episode Review: 77 SUNSET STRIP “Girl on the Run†(1958).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[8] Comments
77 SUNSET STRIP “Girl on the Run†ABC, 10 October 1958 (Season 1, Episode 1). Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Stuart Bailey). Guest Cast: Erin O’Brien, Shepperd Strudwick, Edward Byrnes, Barton MacLane, Ray Teal. Screenplay by Marion Hargrove, based on a story by Roy Huggins. Director: Richard L. Bare.
There none of the trappings you usually think about whenever you think of 77 Sunset Strip, the series, in this the very first episode, the flashy sights of Hollywood, the joint practice of two or more PI’s working out of the same office, the car jockey who was always combing his hair and giving with the jive. It is generally accepted as fact that this, the pilot, was filmed and shown theatrically (somewhere in the Caribbean) before the series started with one nefarious purpose in mind. To swindle credit from writer Roy Huggins by claiming that the series was based on the film, not on any of his books or stories.
As a ploy, it worked. Roy Huggins lost his suit and left the series, and never worked for Warners again. (I’m not absolutely certain about that last statement; Hollywood in many ways is much like politics, or so I’m told.)
In any case, PI Stu Bailey is on his own in this one, with no connection with Hollywood, and Sunset Strip in particular. He’s hired by a client to find his missing fiancée, but what he doesn’t know, but we the viewer do, is that the girl in question is a witness to a shooting who went on the run when she quickly learns that as a police witness, her life is in immediate danger.
It doesn’t take Bailey long to learn that he’s been taken, but not before the killer (well, of course that’s who Bailey’s client is) has hired a gun man (Edd Byrnes) to follow him and kill the girl. It is up to Bailey to foil the plot, along with the help of both a friendly cop and and an equally helpful union leader.
Edd Byrnes proved so popular as the killer for hire that the producers wiped the first episode completely out of continuity and wrote Byrnes in as teen favorite “Kookie†Kookson, parking attendant and wannabe PI working next door to the office on the Strip that Bailey quickly found himself sharing with Jeff Spencer (Roger Smith) for most of the rest of the series.
Looking back today, based on this first episode, it is not easy to see what the fuss was all about, except for Byrnes’ eye catching performance. As PI stories go, there is nothing especially new about “Girl on the Run.†With Stu Bailey as a lone wolf PI who finds himself falling in love with the girl he is helping, he’s just one of hundreds just like him.
I can also only wish that as an established PI (note how impeccably dressed he always is), he’d have done his job right and checked a little more into the background of the guy who hired him. But of course if he had, there’d not have been much of a story at all, would there?
May 1st, 2020 at 12:44 am
There is actually a second (or maybe first) pilot called ANYTHING FOR MONEY based on one of Huggins novellas (reprinted in the Dell 77 SUNSET STRIP series tie in with the other Stu Bailey shorts from ESQUIRE and elsewhere). I don’t think it was ever shown as part of the series, but has Bailey (Zimbalist) taking on a case at sea. Like this there is no office across from Dinos and no Cookie or Jeff Spencer.
Of course the other screen Bailey is Franchot Tone in I LOVE TROUBLE.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:44 am
“Anything for Money” was an episode of CONFLICT, April 16 1957, but IMDb does not know much about it
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0545573/reference
There’s quite a bit more here:
http://www.squareone.org/stoddard/77b.html
May 1st, 2020 at 9:58 am
The only episode of this series that I remember much of was in the second season, “The Silent Caper,” an oddball entry that proves once and for all that dialogue isn’t really as essential as ham actors think it is:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0503530/
May 1st, 2020 at 11:29 am
I remember seeing that episode. It was interesting, but I found it took a lot of concentration to follow the story. But that’s just me. I don’t enjoy watching silent movies either.
May 1st, 2020 at 11:36 am
Yeah, I caught this on Sunday afternoon TV back in the late 1960s. Uninspired.
May 1st, 2020 at 2:35 pm
This was a very important series in the history of television. It originally began as a hardboiled PI series as this demo shows…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIF1eDi4bOc
During the first season Kookie character became popular and the show became one of the first series to exist due to young viewers.
It was a series that was copied by endless other shows – most done by Warners. It took chances such as the silent episode THE SILENT CAPER that starred and written by Roger Smith. I found it more interesting as a drama experiment than entertaining.
Less remembered is RESERVED FOR MR BAILEY that according to Wikipedia featured Zimbalist as Bailey the only actor in the episode set in a ghost town. This was one of the series episodes that was never syndicated until MeTV in 2017.
This series had a great deal of behind the scene drama between creator Roy Huggins and Warner Brothers (one of the worse studios in dealing with talent).
When Jack Webb took over the series he hired William Conrad to direct and they turned the fading teen show into a dark noir single story played over the entire season. Everyone but Zimbalist’s Bailey was fired and some of TV’s most unusual character actors such as Wally Cox and Peter Lorre made it a really strange attempt to be different and got Webb fired.
May 1st, 2020 at 2:53 pm
Michael
You are quite correct i saying that 77 SUNSET STRIP had a huge influence on TV drama not only at the time but for many years to come. I’ve never seen any of the shows they did in that last season, and I’m really looking forward to it.
In the meantime, I was going to watch “Lovely Lady” next Here’s a link to it:
https://www.solie.org/alibrary/77SunsetStip_102LovelyLadyPityMe.html
May 10th, 2020 at 8:05 pm
Just found a copy on YouTube of the theme for Jack Webb’s season (six) of 77 SUNSEY STRIP called 5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X7J8hzJq3Y