User Reviews

This episode has a richer & longer set up story than a lot of Masons which makes this a strong show. An old client of Paul Drakes who had her reputation ruined 3 years prior stops to see Paul. Paul could not clear her but now living in LA, she has gotten mail from home that Fred Swan who went to jail was out and back home. Now she wants to go back & confront him about the missing money. Drake offers to go with her, but Enid turns him down. She goes to stay with her Aunt

Her old boyfriend is back home too- Adam (Batman) West plays Enid's old boyfriend (Dan Southern), now a small town tabloid reporter. When Enid gets back to town, several things start happening. She calls Drake but gets Mason in a panic when she remembers her Aunt sent some stuff to her in LA for safe keeping. She wants to make sure it is still safe in her LA apartment. When Mason gets to Enid's apartment, it has been ransacked & her Aunts envelope stolen.

Then Fred Swan turns up dead right after Enid visits him, & all the evidence points to Enid murdering him. Paul Drake realizes this and calls in Perry Mason to defend Enid. Veteran character Actor Paul Fix is Prosecutor Hale, one of several DA appearances Fix makes in this series. While West is not Batman here, it is pretty easy to pick him out. The court room sequence in this is quite short, but that is because a lot of care was taken in putting this episode together.

Mason does find out where the embezzled money went, but it takes him & Drake a lot of work to get there & is critical to solving this case. Robin & the Bat Cave are not needed when Mason is on the job.

**SPOILERS** It was still about the money, even though the imperious old gal that drove the oldest car in the county was hiding a secret. Yup, she wuz married, he ran off, she lost the child, and her pride and shame kept it under wraps, allowing her to be extorted into silence; carrying on unknown facts that hurt her niece, and playing out in a murder.

This is the second time I've seen the "wear a beard or get arrested" gambit used on this show; this time, Paul gets taken in, booked, and mugged. It's important later, watch it yourself, please.

Iris McKay was Paul's employer when she tried to clear her name in the embezzling scheme, and at that time, he could not find out much, for reasons already mentioned. This time, it's murder. After someone overheard Iris telling Perry about a folder in her apartment, and before he or Paul could get there, It's tossed; folder taken. It's got the crucial data inside, and Perry has to chizel out the truth from the old gal on the stand. A rare occurrence; actress Josephine Hutchinson actually cries in the scene, real tears, that is. By the time it's all out, Perry uncovers real estate fraud, illegal conversion of funds (the bank loot), the reason for the killing of the original dirtbag, Swan. Of course, who did it came next. As usual, when the chips are down, he loses his common sense. See, if he was watching what was going on, he'd have known that he needed a lawyer.

It's very interesting watching Perry uncork the crook's foul bottle of dishonesty. I like the way I said that, ..yeah, I know.... Unfortunately, after it's all in the record, the story reverts to Victorian drivel. Hopefully, Iris will tell Dan that she's gonna keep on truckin', and he's gotta be left on the curb. She must realize that she has zero friends in Pinion City, and she's started a good life in L.A. How did she know? Friends want to know YOUR side of it. THEY support you; those who don't aren't your friends, no matter what explanation they offer.

Marta Wiltern and Paul both drive beautiful 1961 Buicks. Hers is a sedan, his an Electra convertible. Creep who kicks it off has a sweet Jimmy pick-up with a plain camper shell on the back; the bunk inside is going the wrong way, by the way - there's not enough room to sleep crosswise in back unless you're real short. Tellin the truth, I can't recall what the interesting "old buggy" Miss Sarah had.

Very good acting, plot and a great old courtroom; the judge had a cool button tufted chair. Top notch episode, (R.I.P. Adam West).

But her imperious bearing, respectable clothes and out of date hair do (and car) are hiding a rather more racy past. You can see she's been pretty - she still is. Her house seems unchanged since about 1910.

But it's 1961 now. If you take away 25 years (when she "married" a defaulter and had a baby), that only takes us to 1936. She says she was 35 at the time - take off another ten and we're in the roaring 20s. So why the Victoriana? Why the Gibson girl hairdo? Why the shame?

Solution: the Mason stories were written in the 30s. From the POV of the 30s, the "more gracious age of 50 years ago" is the late 19th century, of which Miss Sarah is supposed to be a survival.

She's a great character. I rather got lost when it came to the plot about the money. Yes, somebody knew about a dam, but they bought a dried-up farm for a song under another name, then sold it for three times the money. Or something. You work it out.

And a young man would be driving a Ford, not a Surrey, in the 30s.

***SPOILERS*** Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, is called in here-From the bullpen- as short relief to help out his friend private detective Paul Drake, William Hopper, solve this baffling murder case that Darke is one of the suspects in being the first person to come on the murder scene. This happens in the town of Pinion during it's annual "Hairy Week" where anyone without any facial hair , like Drake, gets arrested fingerprinted and mug shot as well as force to pay a $5.00 fine for being clean shaven. It's Drake's job to find out where $33,750.00 that was stolen three years ago from the local bank is hidden that his client Sarah McKay, Josephine Hutchinson, is suspected of stealing.

There's also the man who in fact stole the money Fred Swan, Russ Conway, who's suspected of being Sarah's accomplice in the crime who's later found, by Drake, with his skull cracked open with a tire iron with Sarah's fingerprints on it! The story then goes into a number of different directions with among others being the bible thumping and holier then thou Sarah's aunt Iris McKay, Enid Jaynes,having something to do not with the murder but which is even far more damaging to Mrs. McKay's spotless reputation then the stolen money in what documents was in the hidden envelope mixed up with it!

***SPOILERS**** Perry is soon brought into the case and finds out that Swan wasn't murdered for the money but for not giving the killer credit for solving the case and earning a $5,000.00 reward which is all that he wanted. What was so unusual in all this is that the three person who were first on the murder scene Drake Sarah and Dan Southern, played by Future TV "Batman" Adam West,had nothing to do with Swan's murder! But the person who did was nowhere in sight when Sawn's body was discovered! As for Aunt Iris McKay her only interest in the case had to do with an incident that took place some 20 years ago when she was 35 years old that if it became public could destroy her reputation as a church going and God fearing women.