The thing about Jim is that he’s a fairly ordinary guy. He’s not extra smart. He’s not extra tough. He’s certainly not extra well-off or extra classy. He’s particularly clever, and he’s a heck of a driver, and mostly he gets by on luck and charisma, not to mention connections. He doesn’t even have a great memory—he writes things down because he manages to forget a license plate number in the time it takes him to get inside and get to a piece of paper.
Jim’s been hired by Warner Jameson (Joseph Cotten) to investigate Mark Chalmers (Geoffrey Land). Chalmers is engaged to Warner’s daughter, Susan (Sharon Gless), and Warner doesn’t trust the guy as far as he can throw him. There are a lot of reasons for this, mostly clues that don’t add up. Jim goes to Newark for clues, which gets assorted organized crime types interested in him. Then Chalmers is murdered, and Jim is caught between organized crime, the feds, and Jameson.
Maybe it’s decades of media exposure to the idea; I’ve even read Henry Hill’s cookbook. (A terrible man, but one with a way with a pork cutlet.) But when the guy appears to have mob figures and feds interested in him and no one will tell Jim anything specific, that just cries out witness protection to me. Sure, the fully organized official program was relatively new at the time—the relevant laws were passed in 1970—but the idea existed in the US for about a century before then.
Once again, we’ve got a wealthy client who thinks of Jim as disposable muscle. He gets Jim deep enough into the investigation that everyone is after him, but after he gets what he wants out of it, he fires Jim and walks away. Further, he assumes that Jim will understand that it’s just how things are supposed to be. He’s not actually important to Jameson. He was paid to do a job, and if that means he’s got people going after him, well, that’s just a risk that he should’ve known he was taking.
Southern California for the Tourist: There are actually several airports in the Greater Los Angeles area, but when people say The Airport, generally they mean LAX. This was even true where I lived, closer to Burbank (now the Bob Hope International Airport). I will say, though, that I’m pretty sure that the mob boss planning to kill Jim (Fred Sadoff) is planning to throw Jim into the Arroyo Seco, in Pasadena. Not far from Orange Grove, actually; Pasadena comes up a lot on the show.
Take Care of Rockford Files: We actually start with a car chase, where Jim cleverly frees himself using Severe Tire Damage spikes (and a carefully timed explosive which unfortunately can be seen). He gets punched in his trailer and taken off to see a crime boss. Then they haul him off to try to kill him. People in Newark threaten him. People in LA threaten him. More car chases. He’s kidnapped again. Then shot at. It’s hard to tell the order all this happens in, because there’s a flashback at the beginning and then an extended “last week on” to pad out that this was originally a movie, but Jesus, no wonder Rocky wants him to quit the business.
I remember this one as being very much Newark as envisioned by someone who’s never been to Newark. But also it’s funny that we got New Jersey crime shenanigans before they hired David Chase.