Rick Lowell - Private Eye is an original 1940s-style detective drama series similar to The Adventures of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. This is a three part series of 20 minute episodes where Rick searches for the movie-prop of The Maltese Falcon movie and runs into Nazi agents, crooked dames, snooty art dealers, actors playing English detectives, and dangerous gangsters. This exciting and often humorous show is packed with classic 1940s Los Angeles settings, “hard-boiled” dialogue, and colorful characters. It examines the war time hysteria of early 1942 together with a deadly mix of screen fantasy and real crime. The musical score is in the tough orchestral style of 1940s detective films.

This three-part Rick Lowell series is called “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of” which, besides being a paraphrase from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, is also the final line of The Maltese Falcon, the1941 detective movie classic starring Humphrey Bogart. In that film, several crooks seek a foot high statue of a falcon made of solid gold and covered with rare jewels. Several characters get killed over this Maltese Falcon statue. Rent the video. It's a marvelous film version of the classic detective novel by Dashiell Hammett.

This Rick Lowell series is related to The Maltese Falcon, except Rick is trying to find the prop man who worked on the Falcon movie. As it turns out, the prop falcon has disappeared and people are after it, thinking it's the real Maltese Falcon--worth up to a million dollars. Our story opens in February 1942, just after the movie has closed and World War II has begun. This is a Los Angeles rife with anti-Japanese paranoia, blackouts, and fears of imminent air raids--a time not unlike our own.

In the first episode, Rick Lowell is hired by Alice Reese to find her husband, Lyndon Reese, the prop man from The Maltese Falcon. After tangling with some gangsters, Lowell visits a movie set at the Warner Brothers studio  for a "golden age" British detective film, Inspector Rufflethorpe to the Rescue--a scene from which is performed, much to Lowell's hard-boiled dismay. Between takes, Lowell questions Reese's prop assistant and discovers Lyndon had a girlfriend--actress Gladys George from the Falcon film.

While running down her address, Lowell researches the Falcon story by visiting a snooty Beverly Hills antique dealer--who questions Lowell's detecting skills. Tracking down Lyndon's girlfriend, Rick finds her freshly murdered in her Wilshire Boulevard apartment--just as somebody starts pounding on the door--the police, the murderers, thugs? While there, Lowell gets a phone call from the victim's answering service with the message, “Time to deal. Bring your half at 9 p.m.” He searches the apartment and finds a package containing...a Maltese Falcon prop and a baggage claim ticket from Union Station, downtown. As he's leaving her building, a car pulls up and rains lead on Lowell. Episode one ends there with a cliffhanger.

Episode two introduces the mysterious Myrna Stanton, a tall redhead--trying to broker a Maltese Falcon. Rick tangles with a murderous thug, gets double crossed, and winds up at a prize-fight where he meets an expatriate German film producer, who may or may not be a Nazi-sympathizer. Later, Rick is abducted and taken to a crooked nightclub in the "Chiseltown" district, where he is reunited with that red-headed stick of dynamite, Myrna and her gangster friend, Johnny Valletta. The tables are turned--a couple of times--as Rick plunges into a gun fight with Valletta's gang for another cliffhanger ending.

Episode three opens with Rick and Myrna on the run. After framing Valletta for Gladys' murder, they head out to a cottage in the Hollywood Hills only to be surprised by Lyndon Reese, the missing movie prop man. Allegiances flip flop several more times as Rick ends up at the Warners prop house with plenty of gangsters, Nazis, double and triple-crosses, and a Japanese air raid in a fatal finale--fatal for some characters.  

The Rick Lowell - Private Eye shows are especially popular with adults and teenagers, but pre-teens like it too. Parents get a big kick out of kids spouting hard-boiled dialogue such as the femme fatale saying "Nazis? What do Nazis want with me?" answered by "It ain't a manicure, sister."

Rick Lowell, Private Eye - "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" is produced by arrangements from RuyaSonic and Anthony Palermo.

Crookston Community Theatre strives to present the highest quality theatrical productions to area communities by providing learning experiences through programs and workshops, and opportunities to experience the joy of live theatre productions.