User Reviews

The rating comes from the fact that this was the first episode of 77 Sunset Strip I ever watched (I was eight, the same age as guest star Jay North, later Dennis the Menace) and I still remember it vividly. In it, Jay accidentally witnesses a murder; the murderers go after him; private eye Stuart Bailey somehow becomes involved, and ultimately rescues Jay from the killers at Pacific Ocean Park (POP), where the bad guys plan to toss him into the sea. For me in 1959, it was a nail-biter, and the next morning, I asked my mother to write "Stuart Bailey, Private Investigator" on a slip of paper, so I could use it like a business card. I had discovered a possible career.

I've been a fan of private eye fiction more or less ever since. I still reread Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald. But I will always remember this specific episode as my initiation into the genre.