Roger C. Carmel, in the role of Mr. Blair, plays a character who is foiled by his own attempted scam, the kind of role he is perhaps best remembered for in Mudd's Women (1966) and subsequently in I, Mudd (1967) where he plays the infamous and rather unsuccessful con artist Harry Mudd.
Patty's self-satisfaction with her writing speaks to the silliness of the entire enterprise in that she selects "Early one night" as the best way to begin her story. The allusion is clearly to the much-parodied "dark and stormy night," which holds the distinction of being perhaps the worst way to begin any story.
The best-selling novel by a French teenager perhaps refers to Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan, published in 1954, when she was 18 years old.