Out of Focus – Director: Sudz Sutherland/Writer: John Callaghan
This one starts with Frankie about to be hanged; naturally, it’s a fake-out, but we don’t get to see the circumstances until later. The real story starts with Frankie and Trudy watching a silent comedy in Frankie’s office. The guy showing them the film turns out to be Mack Sennett, who points out someone getting shot in the background of the scene. Sennett tells them that nobody saw or heard anything, and no dead body has been found, so he wants Frankie to find out what happened. He does mention that a local who worked on the production (Dan Channing) has disappeared, so he could be the victim … or the killer.
Frankie and Trudy check out the crime scene and speculate the killer might have used a silencer, since no one heard the shot. They find blood spatter and a .32 shell casing, leading them to think that the killer either didn’t realize they were being filmed, or that they wanted the murder to be recorded. They check out Channing’s place and find that he was kinda obsessed with the star of the film, Sofia Devoe. They go to the studio to let
Sennett know what they found and he worries that he might lose funding if word gets out that someone’s stalking Sofia. Frankie says they’ll need access to the studio and suggests Trudy go undercover. Trudy (who has aspirations to be an actress) wants to be one of Sennett’s famous bathing beauties, but he lets her know that’s not possible (because she’s black, although he doesn’t come right out and say that). He decides to make her his “assistant” so she can move around the studio and talk to everyone. Frankie goes to find Sofia, but first meets her stunt double, Ruth Atkins. Sofia turns out to be a typical diva (played perfectly by Laura Vandervoort), but does get worried when Frankie mentions Channing might’ve been stalking her. Trudy meets Benny, the propmaster, who lets her know Channing hasn’t been around lately and didn’t seem to know anything about moviemaking even when he was there. (Apparently, he broke protocol by talking to the cameraman, Victor Manfrellotti, without permission.) Trudy notices a gun and silencer missing from a cabinet and Benny assures her the guns are only used with blanks … 
but urges her to keep quiet about the missing one anyway. Trudy goes to the City Morgue to ask Flo if any unclaimed bodies have popped up lately. Flo says she’ll keep an eye out. At the studio, Manfrellotti shows his fiery Italian temperament by arguing with Sofia and Sennett ends up taking her side and letting Manfrellotti go. Trudy asks Mary to check out Channing, but she finds nothing. Mary volunteers to investigate the crime scene to see if she can turn something up. At the studio, Frankie sees Sofia about to be crushed by a falling light and pushes her to safety, but it turns out to be Ruth.
Ruth is fine (except for a broken wrist), but Frankie and Trudy wonder whether Sofia or Ruth was the real target of the falling light. Mary goes to the pavilion where the murder happened to puzzle out the angles and
figures the body must’ve been dumped in the lake. At the studio, Ruth is still hanging around to supervise the stunts, worried that she might get fired if Sofia doesn’t need her anymore. Mary asks Flo to help track the body, assuming it actually was thrown in the lake, and Flo is happy to go out and look for a floater. At the studio, Sofia is worried for her safety and accuses Manfrellotti of trying to kill her. Sennett suggests Frankie become Sofia’s bodyguard and new stunt double. Unfortunately, Frankie’s not much of an actress. Mary and Flo use a life preserver as a proxy corpse to follow the currents in the lake, hoping to find 
the body. Frankie asks Sofia about Manfrellotti and she says he was hounded out of Italy for braining someone with a golf club. She also mentions she saw Manfrellotti arguing with someone—probably Channing—a few days ago. Sofia coaches Frankie on how to be more like her, even giving up one of her biggest secrets … always show your knees when you get up from a chair. Apparently, men go crazy for a girl’s knees. On their lakeside sojourn, Flo gives Mary dating advice and they find the dead body. At the morgue, Frankie checks the dead guy’s pockets and finds out he’s the missing Channing.
Later, Mary tells Frankie and Trudy that Channing was shot with a .32 and was in the water for a couple of days, which fits with the pavilion shooting. But that means Channing didn’t rig the light to fall, and Trudy points out that everyone filming the scene at the pavilion has an alibi. Frankie reminds
her how pissed off Manfrellotti was at Sofia and suggests he could’ve hired someone to kill Channing. On the set, Frankie is doubling Sofia in a scene where she’s about to be hanged (the same scene the episode opened with), when she sees Manfrellotti sneaking up on Sofia. Frankie ruins the scene and chases down Manfrellotti, who admits he talked to Channing (and that he left Italy because he was banging someone’s wife). Manfrellotti says he directed the scene at the pavilion because Sennett was doing something else. Mary lets Frankie and Trudy know that Channing was really Lucien Tremblay, who robbed a 
payroll fifteen years ago and went to prison … while his unknown accomplice got away with the cash. Frankie wonders if Sennett was the accomplice, since he told her he left Quebec fifteen years ago, and they now know he didn’t direct the movie scene at the pavilion. When they confront Sennett, he says he was banging one of his bathing beauties at the time, so she can alibi him. Sennett points out that the whole idea of using a film to provide a murder alibi is very theatrical and that gives Frankie an idea.
Frankie and Trudy watch the film again and Frankie notices that “Sofia” doesn’t show her knees when she gets up in the long shot, meaning it was really Ruth. When they talk to Ruth, she’s scared to do anything that might get her fired, but it’s obvious she’s hiding something. Frankie goes to
Sofia’s dressing room and mentions Tremblay, suggesting that someone wants Ruth dead because she knows who killed him. Trudy delivers a note (supposedly from Ruth) saying she’s going to spill the beans and we see that Sofia has the silenced .32 in her drawer. Sofia goes to the set to shoot Ruth, but Frankie has taken her place (and does a pretty good stunt fall through a window). Trudy confronts Sofia and she realizes Sennett filmed her attempt to kill Ruth. Sofia threatens to shoot Trudy, but the gun only has blanks in it (put there by Frankie when she was in the dressing room), so Sofia tries to grab Trudy’s gun. Trudy pounds her and Frankie accuses her of being Tremblay’s 
partner, suggesting she spent all the robbery loot on her new life. Later, Sennett gives a private screening of his latest movie, which includes the footage of Sofia trying to shoot Frankie and of Trudy apprehending her. It sounds like Sennett is going to show the movie as is, with Trudy as the heroine who catches the killer, so maybe he’s more progressive than he seems. He asks Trudy to come to Hollywood as a trailblazer for other black actresses, but she prefers to stay where she is.
This is a really good episode, with a bit more humour than usual (especially in the dialogue) and some more revelations about various characters. We
learn that Trudy would like to be a movie star, while Frankie has no interest in the glamorous life. We also find out that Mary wishes her love life was more … well, she wishes she had a love life. It’s nice to see Flo (who seems to do pretty well in that department) giving her advice. Using Mack Sennett as the catalyst makes sense, since he actually was Canadian. Him banging a bathing beauty is in character too, since he’s known as one of the first Hollywood producers to use the 
“casting couch”. Sennett’s timeline seems a bit off here, though; he says he left Quebec to move to Hollywood fifteen years ago, which would around 1907 if this show is set around 1922, as other references would suggest. But in real life, Sennett left home in 1897 and worked in New England and New York before going to Hollywood. Maybe the creators missed by a decade, mistaking 1907 for 1897 … or maybe they just fudged the numbers to fit the episode.
Noticeable Things:
- Trudy says the first movie she recalls seeing was The Red Girl’s Sacrifice, which is a real movie that came out in 1913. She says she saw it at the Red Mill Theatre on Yonge Street, which was a real theatre (originally called the Theatorium, but renamed the Red Mill around 1911).
- Sennett mentions the Fatty Arbuckle rape scandal, which played out in court in 1921-1922.
- Manfrellotti mentions having worked with Mario Caserini and Ugo Falena, who were real-life pioneers of Italian cinema.
Favourite Quotes:
- “No, Sofia couldn’t handle a modest breeze. Lillian Gish, now she’s tough.” Sennett letting Frankie know that Sofia doesn’t do her own stunts.
- “I should’ve brought my purse.” Frankie, just before she and Trudy raid the craft table.
- “Plenty of boring in my life. I could use a little more chaos.” Mary letting Trudy know she’s up for a little adventure.
- “Yeah, okay, don’t sugar-coat anything on my account.” Frankie after Sennett compares her movements to a lumbering sasquatch.