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A gunsel steals a boat from Pat Novak, and winds up dead, and when Novak goes to the Hotel he finds a nightclub singer dead. As usual, Hellman’s ready to pin the crime on Novak.
Original Air Date: May 1, 1949
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Wiktionary has a good definition
(and proper spelling) of gunsel.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gunsel
Hammett slipped an innocent sounding
but actually quite filthy Yiddish word past his editors.
Both meanings applied to Wilmer, Gutmann’s henchman,
in the novel and as played by Elisha Cook, Jr in the film
of The Maltese Falcon.
The milder sense of ‘gun-toting accomplice’ has moved
from secondary to the primary dictionary meaning.