DeForest Kelley may be far down in the credits, but he's the key guest star here, along with Cloris Leachman and, to a lesser degree, Joanna Barnes, as three members of an immensely wealthy family.
It seems that someone took a well-aimed rifle shot at ne'er-do-well playboy/socialite Phil Wingate (Kelley), the brother of family head Connie Wingate (Leachman), one of the wealthiest women in the world. She hires Stu Bailey to investigate the attempt, but Bailey quickly discovers that getting honest, direct answers from either of them about possible motives or suspects is trickier than it looks; the one person involved who seems sincere, Lisa Cabot (Barnes), is a poor relation who serves as Connie's social secretary and is genuinely attracted to Bailey, whose aloof, off-handed manner she finds refreshing.
While he's wading through the half-truths and disinformation provided by his clients, about possible jealous husbands and a five-figure gambling debt to a Vegas heavy-weight, the private detective discovers that there's more than a little resentment between Phil and Connie's intended husband, lounge pianist Vic Connors (Bobby Troup), who may be after her money. And then Bailey is attacked by a would-be burglar in his office, who promptly takes a death-dive over a railing, so now it's a potential homicide case, with the cops looking for someone to hang the rap on. The case gets stickier from there, with more murder attempts and enough personal complications to make Bailey want to throw up his hand in frustration. Eventually, however, he works out what's going on and who's behind it by sticking to that old investigator's adage: Follow the money.
Kelley is excellent in one of his better pre-STAR TREK roles, as a seeming upper-class twit, completely cavalier about the attempt on his life, and Leachman is outstanding as the reluctant matriarch of a family with too much time and money on its collective hands, while Barnes turns in the best work of all of them, as the poor-relation hanger-on who is a kind of libidinous cynic -- she could have done wonders with the role of the nymphomaniac younger sister in The Big Sleep, if she'd been born at the right time. And I haven't even gotten to Lee Van Cleef's second-act appearance, which adds to the violence quotient as a crooked ex-private investigator (who has a special dislike of Bailey). It may be 77 Sunset Strip, but the story is something right out of Philip Marlowe.
It seems that someone took a well-aimed rifle shot at ne'er-do-well playboy/socialite Phil Wingate (Kelley), the brother of family head Connie Wingate (Leachman), one of the wealthiest women in the world. She hires Stu Bailey to investigate the attempt, but Bailey quickly discovers that getting honest, direct answers from either of them about possible motives or suspects is trickier than it looks; the one person involved who seems sincere, Lisa Cabot (Barnes), is a poor relation who serves as Connie's social secretary and is genuinely attracted to Bailey, whose aloof, off-handed manner she finds refreshing.
While he's wading through the half-truths and disinformation provided by his clients, about possible jealous husbands and a five-figure gambling debt to a Vegas heavy-weight, the private detective discovers that there's more than a little resentment between Phil and Connie's intended husband, lounge pianist Vic Connors (Bobby Troup), who may be after her money. And then Bailey is attacked by a would-be burglar in his office, who promptly takes a death-dive over a railing, so now it's a potential homicide case, with the cops looking for someone to hang the rap on. The case gets stickier from there, with more murder attempts and enough personal complications to make Bailey want to throw up his hand in frustration. Eventually, however, he works out what's going on and who's behind it by sticking to that old investigator's adage: Follow the money.
Kelley is excellent in one of his better pre-STAR TREK roles, as a seeming upper-class twit, completely cavalier about the attempt on his life, and Leachman is outstanding as the reluctant matriarch of a family with too much time and money on its collective hands, while Barnes turns in the best work of all of them, as the poor-relation hanger-on who is a kind of libidinous cynic -- she could have done wonders with the role of the nymphomaniac younger sister in The Big Sleep, if she'd been born at the right time. And I haven't even gotten to Lee Van Cleef's second-act appearance, which adds to the violence quotient as a crooked ex-private investigator (who has a special dislike of Bailey). It may be 77 Sunset Strip, but the story is something right out of Philip Marlowe.
