User Reviews

Bailey&Spencer and particularly Spencer are on a fugitive warrant case in Hawaii in this episode. Roger Smith gets entertained by the Hawaiian cast before getting down to business.

Which involves him playing a drifter in one of the more remote parts of the island where Tyler McVey runs the Ponderosa of pineapple plantations. His possible target is Skip Ward the wastrel son-in-law of McVey married to his daughter but kanoodling with Myrna Hansen on the side.

Let's say that Ward has some plans for Roger Smith that aren't good for him healthwise.

Nicely done episode though this was clearly back lot Hawaii.

Undeterred by a writer's strike and the Ed Byrnes strike, the Sunset Strip team simply refurbished an episode from the show's first season and turned it into a well-deserved showcase for the many talents of Roger Smith. Posing as a narcissistic none-too-bright beach bum, with a slicked-back hairstyle and a wardrobe consisting of little more than bathing trunks, Jeff travels to a remote Hawaiian island to investigate whether a wanted fugitive is hiding out there. Getting a job as the entertainer at the local hotel gives Smith the chance to accompany himself on the guitar and show off his fine baritone voice crooning four songs, one of which he composed himself, another a dandy duet where he and Connie Stevens (Cricket of Warner Bros.' other private eye series "Hawaiian Eye") perform a delicious rendition of the catchy "I Like the Likes of You". But she (and her "Eye" co-stars Anthony Eisley and Poncie Ponce) are only on hand for cameos. The village's luscious femme fatale (the gorgeous Myrna Hansen) wastes no time spinning a seductive web around the seemingly innocent newcomer, obviously impressed by his enviable physique as much as by his romantic vocalizing. And when she offers to give him a tour of the island, they wind up playfully swimming in a lagoon, a sight we haven't seen the likes of since the heyday of Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall. But when she tries to slip an exotic ring on one of Jeff's fingers, he resists, claiming that "it's too tight", totally unaware that she and her scheming young lover (Skip Ward) are planning to murder Jeff that night and shoot his smiling face beyond recognition so that they can pass his corpse off as Ward's while they flee the island $150,000 richer (the amount of the loot delivered in cash on a monthly basis to pay the salaries of the hotel's staff). To avoid any spoilers, I'll simply add that two more characters figure in the plot: Warren Stevens (as the local policeman who involves Jeff in a no-holds-barred fist fight) and Joyce Meadows (as an American tourist Ward married when he mistakenly thought she was a wealthy heiress, and then promptly ditched when he found out she was as penniless as he was). Need I add that since Ms. Meadows wears glasses, she is considered homely, but when she removes her spectacles at the very end of the story, WOW!!!).

I hope I haven't made PERFECT SETUP sound unpleasant because of its gleefully lurid plot. Quite the opposite, it's as perfect an hour of sheer escapism as 77 SUNSET STRIP.has offered. Sure, the closest the cast gets to Hawaii is the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank but who cares? The twists and turns of its frantic pace will have your head spinning, and its still every bit as sexy, clever and good-natured as it was nearly 60 years ago! Every member of the cast seems to be having the time of their lives, no one more so than Roger Smith whose droll, self-effacing sense of humor is one of the highlights of the entire series. Smith was also a first-rate writer who penned several of the show's finest episodes (including one with absolutely no dialogue, another an hilarious spoof wherein the three male leads lampoon each other as well as themselves). He was also James Cagney's protégé and a consummate (albeit underrated) talent in his own right!