Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 80

76 Popular Culture Review cism drowned in alcohol. Or Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade who is emotionally detached and distrustful of the world around him, also totally cynical, believing only in being a good detective. The Rockford Files takes the conventions of this genre and turns them inside out, so much so that network executives were con cerned that audiences might think that Rockford was dense and stupid. In “Beamer’s Last Case” Freddie Beamer (James Whitmore Jr.) is a mechanic at Tony’s Body Shop who has read so many detective magazines and novels that his mind has turned to Chandleresque mush. He just has to be a hard-boiled RI. He steals Rockford’s credit cards, impersonating him, and for the rest of the episode Jim has to bail Beamer out of a variety of jams. For example, Beamer confronts Ralph Steel (Jack Kelly), and Rockford tries to break up the fight: Beamer: I had the situation totally under control. I don’t know what you pulled that guy off me for. I could’ve handled the guyRockford: Freddie, let me tell you something. A guy like that can go get a gun and shoot you, me, or both of us! Beamer: Well, sometimes a private detective’s gotta take risks! Rockford: Well, not me! I make a habit of avoiding risks— that’s why I’ve got a full set of teeth. Beamer insists that he’s “not the kind of guy you blow away with a threat.” Rockford’s simple retort, “Well, I am.” But while Rockford may not be as brave and physically tough as Sam Spade, he does share one of Spade’s personal charac teristics: Both men are skillful story tellers, improvisers, and bluffers. In an inter view with Tom Shales, Gamer tried to sum up the significance of Jim Rockford, who “...was no less macho than anybody else. He just did it in a different way. If you go back and look, when Maverick originally came on the air, there were 17 westerns. Every one of them had heroes who were steely-eyed and strong and brave. And Maverick came along and said, ‘Wait, don’t do that!’ (he holds up his arms as if to deflect an oncoming fist) and stuck his tongue in his cheek, and that was the end of the western because we kind of punched holes in the balloon. And you take Rockford, we did the same thing. There were how many detective shows on— 12? And we came on and said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t be that brave, that’s not right,’ and it kind of stopped those too. So we punched holes in a lot of balloons.”8 Critic Richard Meyers had his own observations, “Jim Rockford was a man who know his limitations. That was part of what made him the best-loved private eye of the medium....Don’t get me wrong. The show itself was hardly spec tacular. It wasn’t flashy, unique, or original. Sometimes it was downright deriva