George Peppard is very amiable as the title character, a down-on-his-luck private detective who'll take just about any paying gig. He is hired by a supremely arrogant fat cat, William Orbison (Raymond Burr), to act as bodyguard for his not-exactly-secret girlfriend Maureen Preble (Gayle Hunnicutt). This, despite the fact that Orbison is already married to a fairly pathetic woman named Betty (Coleen Gray). Eventually, after he has accidentally killed a man, P.J. is smart enough to realize that he's been set-up from the start. But for what purpose?
The script by Philip H. Reisman Jr., based on a story by him and Edward Montagne, manages to stand out a little for being rather humorous and sometimes witty. Also, director John Guillermin does a pretty stylish job, giving some life to the entertaining story. The story is not necessarily a great one, but it does entertain, and even adds up at the end; one of its best assets is that eventually you do learn something interesting about one of the side characters that has actually motivated the whole con job. Wonderful location shooting in a Caribbean locale helps, too, and the jaunty pop score by Neal Hefti is a true delight.
Peppard is all too human here (he takes some lumps here and there), and is a believable, compelling main character to watch. He has genuine chemistry with the enticingly sexy Hunnicutt, whom the camera clearly loves. Burr is superb at playing the kind of heel the viewer will love to hate. The supporting cast is superb and full of familiar faces: Wilfrid Hyde-White (as a governor), Brock Peters (as a cheerful police inspector), Jason Evers (as Orbison's employee), and Susan Saint James (as Orbison's opinionated niece), as well as Severn Darden, George Furth, Herb Edelman, John Qualen, Bert Freed, and Ken Lynch. Anthony James appears unbilled as a bartender.
Overall, this is a pretty good example of the private eye genre at a time when it was being revitalized, thanks to efforts like Paul Newman's "Harper". It contains effective amounts of sex appeal and violence, as well as elements that would be unlikely to fly in the present culture.
Seven out of 10.
