User Reviews

**SPOILERS** Peggy Knudsen plays the victim in this sordid soap opera turned murder mystery. She was Eddie Mars' wife in "The Big Sleep" - one of my favorite movies. She's still a babe in this one. Several problems. One, Marie had been dead in her car for four weeks prior to discovery? The lying, snoopy, neighbor knew her, and used to ride horseback past their cabin? He didn't smell Marie's decomposing body? in a car with all the windows down? "Stinkin' to High Heaven" is the descriptive terminology that applies here. The car (a nice, new Edsel), would've stunk so bad it would have to be scrapped. See Bobby Fuller's Corvette. One other small thing. Greg Evans had said that Bruce had coasted by his place with the engine and the lights off. He had a beautiful Buick Invicta convertible. These cars ALL had power steering and power brakes; they are big cars and need the assistance to steer and brake them. The engine must be turned on for these systems to operate. Driving down a dark, hilly, road at night without it would be next to suicide. Evans had to be lying.

Ginny Hobart was a deceitful, thieving, fool, and the lawyer was the key. Where was his cut of the dough Marie extorted out of her Huz for a settlement? Why didn't Perry argue harder against such a payment? ANY TIME someone says "It HAS to be paid NOW or you'll lose everything"; you know it's a con. Never pay under those circumstances. Still, we have to have a story, or, there's no mystery, and, after all, people do stupid stuff all day long; that's why there are lawyers, right? All the killer had to do was deny recognizing the victim. It had been five years since he had seen her, and peroxide blondes were a dime a dozen there and then.

Why did Chapman not just hire a detective to check on his wife, rather than return and incriminate himself? Four weeks the body had decomposed? Very poor evidence, indeed. How much time did Ginny get in Tehachapi for felony grand theft and conspiracy after the fact in a murder? Speaking of flimsy, the "happily ever after" in this one stunk to high heaven.

***SPOILERS*** Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, has to dig deep almost all the way to China to find the killer of Marie Chapman , Peggy Knudsen, who's husband-Perry's client- Bruce, Karl Weber, is on trial for her murder. It's after Bruce came home from a business trip that he found Marie's body decomposing in her car at the bottom of a ravine that was left unattended for almost ten days. It was the greedy and degenerate gambler Marie who had threatened to sue Bruce for divorce and take half of his property and money unless he gave her a flat $25,000.00 payment to fly down to Las Vages to gamble with it on the crap and card tables. It soon turned out that while Marie was dead someone was impersonating her to get her hands on the $25,000.00 check that Burce sent to the casino of her choice in Vages for her, the impersonator, to pi** away on the gambling tables.

Far too complicated to go into the plan that hinged on the fact that nobody knew that Marie was dead but still alive and in having the check cashed as well as it was gambled away before her body was discovered after her killer with his accomplice would be long gone before the police knew what happened. It was the luckless Bruce who faced ruination who not only ended up broke but arrested for Marie's murder. Perry following a number of clues at a local nightclub who Marie's Bopsie Twine act partner impersonated her to get the $25,000.00 in payoff money that her husband Bruce mailed to her.

****SPOILERS**** With Perry really getting nowhere he gets help from the killer himself who should have know better that a sharpie like Perry Mason would easily find the connection to his involvement with Marie that not only had him purger himself but also, by shutting her up, have her murdered. This little tidbit that Perry dug up about Marie's past and her killers connection to it was all Perry needed to get him to confess without even being cross-examined by him. As for Marie's Bopsie Twin partner she was so brainless that she left herself wide open for at least a charge of perjury or even worse accessory to murder by claiming that she was never at the murder scene even though she knew-or should have known-there was a photo of her being there!