One of the things that makes Jim a good detective is his ability to squirrel bits of information away and bring them out when he needs them. This also saves his bacon in more than one fight over the run of the show, but relevant to his job, it means that he’s good at spotting the thing that’s out of place because he noticed the details that make it out of place. He’s no genius; no one’s ever going to put Jim in the same level as Sherlock Holmes. But he’s good at his job, because he’s clever.
He’s been hired this week by a former countess (Susan Strasberg), who gave up her title after she was widowed to marry Mike (Art Lund). What Mike doesn’t know is that, before she was Deborah Ryder and before she was a countess, she was wooed into become a sex worker for the syndicate in Chicago. She skipped bail and ran off to Europe under an assumed name, where she met her count. Now, Carl Brego (Dick Gautier), who helped set her up for the life that got her busted, is in LA, knows who she is, and is blackmailing her. Jim is trying to get Brego off her back when he’s murdered.
Oh, the technology of this episode. Jim starts it recording a meeting between the countess and Brego, and his camera is a marvel of ’70s technology. It’s on tape—which is kind of impressive, because it means Jim managed to get his hands on a camera that records on tape—but it is enormous and blocky and, speaking as someone who’s operated a camera from the ’90s, probably quite heavy as well. Jim is renting his answering machine, we find out in another episode, because that is a thing that people did in those days.
Jim’s relationship with Lieutenant Diel (Tom Atkins) is familiar to anyone with basic knowledge of private detective fiction. However, while I’m sure Diel doesn’t like any PI, he especially doesn’t like Jim. He keeps harping on the fact that Jim has done time. The fact that Jim has a pardon doesn’t mean anything to him. Now, Jim’s open about the fact that everyone in prison is innocent, but how many of those innocent people actually get pardons? That doesn’t matter to Diel. Jim’s been convicted; Jim is guilty. That’s the math as he sees it, and nothing is going to change his mind.
Making his first screen appearance in today’s episode is future Oscar nominee James Cromwell as the countess’s tennis instructor. It’s a minor role, but it’s an early example of someone appearing on this show who would go on to greater and more interesting things. Sure, some of the guests on the show were has-beens, and definitely some of them were never-would-bes, but there are a handful of people who started here, or were here partway through their early career before their big break. James Cromwell gets us there.
Take Care of Rockford Files: Fistfight on a beach. High speed car chase in pursuit of a shooter. The mob puts a hit on Jim. Some minor fisticuffs during an attempted arrest. Another attempted shooting. The shooter actually says he’s going to “take care of Mr. Rockford.”
Tonight’s director is Russ Mayberry, whose career spanned from the Monkees to Matlock. He will direct several episodes here, including one of my faves, “The Oracle Wore a Cashmere Suit,” and several of Kojak that are also very good. And would go on to direct possibly the worst episode of TNG, “Code of Honor.”