Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 77

The R ock fo rd F iles

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cant as The Long Goodbye in deconstructing the genres of Hollywood and the
Marlowesque, snap-brim feodora wearing, American tough-guy detective in the
nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties.
In fact James Gamer appeared as Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film called
Marlowe based on Chandler’s story The Little Sister. Set in the tie-dyed and flower
power 1960s Gamer for the most part played the character pretty straight and retro.
Yet in the midst of the squalor of an authentic Chandler atmosphere, Gamer brought
an easy-going sense of humor to the role, giving his Marlowe a more than passing
similarity to his later Jim Rockford of The Rockford Files. In fact, in the episode
“Quickie Nirvana” (Nov. 11, 1977) Rockford befriends a 40-something flower
child named Sky Aquarian (Valerie Curtin) and in the process of solving an old
homicide, he denounces the unconscious goofiness of Sky — she is into rolfing
and sense deprivation — and exposes a phony guru who runs the Gordon Borsher
Sunshine Institute: “Are you here for pre- death, Jim?”, he asks. Borsher will be
easy to find in India, where Jim believes he has fled with Sky’s money, as he will
be “ .. .the only guru in India wearing a Christian Dior prayer cloth and driving an
El Dorado.” Sky will later morph into Sister Esther, delivering the message of the
Lord in Venice, California.
There are several defining characteristics of the American private detec
tive as depicted in novels, film, and television that simply do not tightly fit this
character created by Huggins and Cannell and brought to life by Gamer. The Ameri
can detective is driven by an innate sense of justice and moral codes. Here Rock
ford comes close to the mark. In one episode “This Case is Closed” Sue Jameson
(Sharon Gless) asks Rockford to investigate why her fiance has suddenly broke off
the engagement and disappeared. But Jim explains that he cannot help her even if
he wanted to because he would compromise the client relationship he has with her
father. He further explains that he has his own personal ethics: “...the kind you
need to look at yourself in the mirror in the morni