Noirvember 2024: TV Noir - The Rockford Files
After reading Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939) and watching the 1946 adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, I decided it was time to kick back and view something less taxing.
I never watched The Rockford Files when it originally aired from 1974 to 1980, although during that period, I was a frequent viewer of other crime shows: Columbo, McCloud, The Streets of San Francisco, and Cannon. I suspect I kept my distance from The Rockford Files because of James Garner. I’d seen Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), which were fun, yet even as a kid I considered those pictures (and maybe Garner himself) slight.
I later learned Garner had much more range, enjoying his work in films such as 36 Hours (1965), Victor/Victoria (1982), and others. He always comes across as likable, which no doubt accounts for much of his success, and as PI Jim Rockford, Garner is easy to like. When you see the actor crop up in movies and TV shows, you know it’s Garner before you know it’s the character he’s playing. You can’t help it. You feel the same thing when you see a star like Tom Cruise, who always seems to be playing Tom Cruise. But with Garner, he’s frequently playing an average joe, and we tend to embrace that quality. Yet there’s got to be more to the show’s success than likability, and there is.
Rockford isn’t Philip Marlowe (although he played the character in the 1969 film Marlowe, which I have not seen). Rockford also isn’t a hard-boiled, tough-talking detective. Even when he is, we know it’s just a persona. Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep suggests Marlowe is something of a heroic knight trapped in a post-chivalrous era. I don’t see much of that in Rockford. While Marlowe may be an anachronism concerned with upholding a long-forgotten code or standard, Rockford’s goals seem different. He’s agreeable to helping people but also needs to earn a living. Were he independently wealthy, he’d probably be content going fishing every day.
Yet Rockford isn’t a loner on the level of Marlowe, who never seems to fit into mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles. Rockford has good relationships with friends and even his father, Rocky (Noah Berry Jr.).1 He also clearly isn’t in it for the money since (at least in the episodes I saw) he never seems to get full (or sometimes any) compensation for his work, even when he succeeds.
The Rockford Files was created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell, who knew what they were doing. Huggins excelled at creating, producing, and writing successful character-driven TV series such as Maverick (1957-1962, also starring Garner), 77 Sunset Strip (1958-1964), and The Fugitive (1963-1967). Cannell, a producer, writer, novelist, and actor, enjoyed a career working on (often creating or co-creating) a multitude of TV shows from the early ‘70s to the mid-‘90s including Adam-12 (1971-1973, story editor), Columbo (1973, writer), Baretta (1975, creator), The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983, creator), The A-Team (1983-1987, co-creator), 21 Jump Street (1987-1991, co-creator), The Commish (1991-1996, co-creator), and many more.
These guys knew how to put together compelling shows. I’ll focus on three episodes I recently watched:
In “The Dark and Bloody Ground” (S1:E2), Rockford’s attorney, Beth (Gretchen Corbett), pleads with him to investigate the death of a screenwriter. Rockford finds himself a moving target from people who don’t want him nosing around in the case, particularly in a scene recalling Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971).
Rockford takes the case of a missing husband in “Exit Prentiss Carr” (S1:E4). He finds the husband dead in a hotel bungalow, the smoking gun clear on the other side of the room, an apparent murder. He alerts the cops but does not tell them he’s been inside the hotel room to see the body. They conclude death by suicide, which Rockford knows can’t be possible, which he tells them. Big mistake, Rockford…
“Tall Woman in a Red Wagon” (S1:E5) was the best of the three episodes I viewed, with a script by Cannell. The frame story is compelling, with Rockford digging up a grave to determine whether it contains the body of a six-foot-tall woman named Charlotte. Before the 50-minute episode is over, Rockford will encounter an evasive doctor, a pesky IRS agent, a train, the mob, and more.
Even after viewing only a few episodes, it’s clear that The Rockford Files is a solid mystery/detective series I hope to continue watching well beyond Noirvember. When the classic film noir era ended in the late ’50s and early ‘60s, it migrated from the big screen to television with shows like Peter Gunn, Johnny Staccato, Dragnet, The Naked City, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, various episodes of anthology series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, and more. The Rockford Files (along with several of the other shows mentioned earlier) simply keeps TV noir going through the ‘70s. Even if you don’t consider the show noir (and some don’t), it’s hard not to have a good time while watching it. If you haven’t yet sampled it, I hope you’ll give it a spin.
If you’ve only seen The Big Sleep (1946), you might be surprised to know that the relationship between Marlowe and Vivian in the novel is very different. As much as I love Bogart and Bacall together, I prefer the novel’s treatment of Marlowe and Vivian.