Philip Marlowe Week: Nevada Gas

Well folks it is Friday and just time enough for one more adventure with our favorite flatfoot.  Seems like work has been piling up on Marlowe and he hasn’t been spending time enough with his lady friend Annie Riordan (Kathryn Leigh Scott of Dark Shadows, House of Dark Shadows, The Great Gatsby, Brannigan and Parasomnia) so it looks like he may have a little competition in the henhouse.  So pull the cork on that bottle of rye and pour me a tall one.  This is Nevada Gas.

 

Portrait of the sleep deprived

Lt. Magee: Can he sing me a spoiler?

Philip Marlowe: You ask him right and he’ll sing you an opera.

A hotshot lawyer out of Reno, Hugo Candless (Bill Bailey of Superman, Superman II, Outland, Balto and Just Visiting) is encroaching on L.A. as his new power base of law.  The guy has a sophisticated wife, a mansion in Bel-Air and all the grace and charm of a cop beating on a suspect but with the animal savvy to know where to park his money winds up in the ocean and Lt. Magee is quick to point the finger at an old two bit punk Marlowe sent up the river 10 years ago. 

Not only are we lost but I left the meter running..hahahahaha!!!!

Marlowe is not convinced and ignores Magee’s warning even after Magee tells him of two out of town torpedoes coming to do a job.  Maybe the bullet has Marlowe’s name on it and maybe not.  In his line of work, death threats are just part of the thankless job but Marlowe keeps his eyes peeled.

Ms. Riordan is entertaining a gentleman caller assistant lawyer from Candless’ firm George Dial (John Terry of The Living Daylights, Full Metal Jacket, Of Mice and Men, Trauma, Lost and Brothers & Sisters), a slick mover and shaker around town making certain every major star and starlet gets the best representation money can buy.  After meeting him Marlowe looks like he wants to play whack-a-mole with this cat’s head but just chocks it up to being a rival for Annie’s affection.

We've gotta hit the buffet before W.C. Fields does!!

Following the trail of bread crumbs it is looking less likely that “Mops” Prizzi is the one calling the shots on these attempts when Marlowe is jumped by two hoods and tossed into a car.  Not sapped hard enough Marlowe notices the smell of bitter almonds and realizes the car’s ventilation has been rigged to pump cyanide into the back seat.  Narrowly escaping the car and putting his two new playmates on the slab, Marlowe connects the dots to where this all started and finds he doesn’t like what adds up.

Friggin' squirrel darted out in front of me!

I have just a few fun facts for you about the episode now.  Candless’s limo is a prestine 1933 Touring Limousine from Rolls Royce.  Personally I fancy the 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom but that’s just me. 

The Wilcox Building acting as the Police precinct was constructed in 1895 and is remembered as home of two of L.A.’s oldest institutions; The California Club which was based in the first top two floors and Southwestern Law School. After the Sylmar Earthquake in ’71 the upper four stores were complete destroyed and the only original content to the building is the basement and the ground floor seems to jut out to the street.  Guess it is true when they say, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”