While reviews of The Rockford Files naturally focus on plot, characters, and setting, little is ever said about direction. What makes this episode stand out for me, however, is the quality of the late Stuart Margolin's directing. There are numerous imaginative shots that lend this episode of The Rockford Files, the first of only two that Margolin directed, its own distinct, playful flavour: the foreground close-up of a goldfish bowl on the counter through which we see Jolene and Len enter her flat in the background; the close-up of a dessert cart with a pink torte under a glass dome being wheeled past before revealing Jolene and Len sitting at a restaurant table in the background; the unconventional camera angles, with actors' faces shown from a point of view looking up at them from below or the Firebird shown from a high aerial angle as it pulls into the golf club car park; the shaky handheld camera chasing after Rockford, Jolene and Len as they run to the chicken shed near the end of the episode - the only example of a handheld camera shot in The Rockford Files that I can think of. Margolin also includes a reference to the then recent What's Up Doc (1972), in the scene where Rockford baffles pursuit by driving up the ramps of a car carrier trailer before ducking down to make it look as if the Firebird is part of the transport, a gag employed in Peter Bogdanovich's film by the Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neill characters after they steal a VW Beetle in the famous San Francisco chase sequence. In the scene in question, Margolin also uses the clever narrative technique of not showing Rockford subsequently trying to justify himself to a traffic policeman: he instead shows the policeman walk up to the Firebird as it backs down the carrier and then cuts to Rockford and Jolene in the car afterward, wondering how Rockford is going to explain the violation in court, leaving it up to the viewer to imagine the scene. The same technique is employed later, when the Firebird is shown in the distance as Rockford and Jolene drive out to look for the hidden treasure, followed by a cut to them driving back, commenting in a voice-over, "two hours of digging and for nothing," thereby dispensing with what would have been a tedious, narratively superfluous scene. It takes an exceptional director to establish a narrative sequence by deliberately creating gaps in the action. All in all, this episode serves as a reminder that Stuart Margolin was not only a brilliant actor, but also a consummate director.