Marlowe in Love

Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Season 2, Episode 4. "Guns at Cyrano's" (1986)
Directed by Robert Iscove, Written by Jeremy Hole

You can't have a hard-boiled detective without a boxing story and here's the one we get. At the center of this story is a boxing champ named Duke Targo (Mark Humphrey) and where there's a boxer there's gotta be a dame.

Then I saw the girl and she made a difference. She just stood there cool as silk while the mugs around her beat each other's brains out.

The dame is Jean Adrian (played by the awesome Roxanne Hart) and she's so cool that she's hot. Even Marlowe falls for this one...hard. The mastermind behind this story is Benny Cyrano (Cec Linder) the man with the boxer in his pocket who's worried that his boxer will take a dive on the eve of a big win. (Or is he?) He's got a dumb bodyguard on the case and an albino assistant, but he still feels the need to hire Marlowe to help out. And that's enough to get Marlowe suspicious.

Why is it always boxing or horses in these stories? Why doesn't anyone ever fix a bowling match or a lacrosse game?

Cyrano: Ringside...take a girl.
Marlowe: She left town.
Cyrano: Take someone else's girl.

I like how you think, Benny Cyrano. Duke wins his match and escapes a shot from a gunman so he can enjoy a rendition of Sweet and Lowdown sung by Jean and her partner at Cyrano's club where some bullets go flying and Duke is accused of murder. (He's arrested by Lt. Angus and his eyebrows.)

I didn't want to let her go, but she had some plans that didn't include me. In this business you get to know when you're standing in your own way.

The plot for this story is a classic plan within a plan of double-blackmail and a dirty senator with a long lost daughter who turned out to be long since dead, but the senator didn't know that until his action had already been messed up. (There's a great moment of symbolism where Marlowe is holding up a gun and a stage light illuminating Cyrano and the Senator, quite literally exposing them to the light.)

Jean: It wasn't the money, you know. I just wanted to mess up his action. Guys like that think they own the world. They think they can get away with anything.

Marlowe likes this woman so much (she is so like him in her own way) that he asks her to stay in town. This is the first time I've ever seen Marlowe in love--and, of course she doesn't stick around. But if this is how she kisses goodbye she may be back to take another farewell or two.

Why not just stick around? It's not much worse than any other town.

And that's why Marlowe isn't working for the Chamber of Commerce or the Tourist B ureau. But lest you think that love has softened Marlowe, he throws one last cynical comment about the next boxing commissioner (4th in a year) and his promise to clean up the sport. And the everyman hero of this episode? Tony the bellhop (Angelo Rizacos) who was a good kid (maybe too good?) who just died because he was a fan of Duke Targo lucky (or unlucky) enough to get Marlowe's extra ticket to the fight. Another poor shmuck who only Marlowe will remember.