Top Gunn

The cloistered nuns from the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Friendless are the only witnesses who can back up the murder suspect's alibi. But they cannot leave their convent to come to court; their vows forbid it. What is more, their reverend mother cannot even ask the mother general in Paris for special permission; the reverend mother has forgotten her French. And unless someone can get the nuns out of the cloister, the monosyllabic police lieutenant is prepared to see the suspect strapped into the electric chair. Enter Private Detective Peter Gunn.

It is hard enough to figure how the handsome, hard-eyed guy in the Ivy League lapels keeps a straight face while he straightens out such impossible plots. It is even harder to figure how his audience keeps from collapsing with laughter. But they both manage. Introduced by NBC (Monday, 9-9:30 p.m. E.S.T.) this fall as a kind of literate Mike Hammer, Private Eye Gunn in less than two months was pressing the prizewinning Danny Thomas Show, in latest surveys ranks near the top of NBC programs.

One reason, suggests a pressagent, is that Peter Gunn is "a little bit much." The program so exaggerates traditional private-eye brouhahas that it can be taken for parody. And it is done so deadpan that it has rigor mortis of the upper lip.

Gunn (Craig Stevens) has all the normal qualifications: 1) a bachelor apartment that would do for "Baby" Pignatari; 2) a girl friend (Lola Albright) who sings in "Mother's" cabaret and waits languidly on his couch so she can boil a couple of eggs whenever he gets e; 3) a rampant palship with every list, pool shark, trigger man and le in town. But Producer-Director Blake Edwards, 36, who also writes about the Gunn scripts, believes that Pete a little extra going for him. Says ards: "We tailored him in high style, man is intelligent, dresses well and is much at home with hoodlums as high society. He and his girl have wonderful relationship."

Actually, the show's special appeal is neither sex nor standard whodunit suspense. The audience is rarely kept guessing about who scragged the rich widow or shot the human fly. All Peter Gunn's have to do is wince while their man absorbs his beatings. Usually they know did what to whom, and they can be that Pete will survive with his features unscrambled. While the mayhem builds up though, the show offers a fine sound track. Jazzman Henry Mancini, who boasts some 50 movie credits, composes scores for each show, leads leman band through a whining, insinuating background good enough to become foreground fairly often in the series whenever Pete drops by the club where the apple of his private eye is singing. The music is a lot cooler than even Peter himself.

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