User Reviews

A missing business owner for two years suddenly emerges from hiding accusing everyone in sight of stealing $6,000 from his business before he disappeared. At that time, it nearly bankrupted the business. Meanwhile, his step son, (Robert Redford) is marrying a young blonde & getting ready for his honeymoon. Then he gets the call that his hated step dad is back.

It brings him back from his honeymoon with his bride, & she is at the office when the murderer nearly runs her down leaving the office after shooting the step dad. Then she disappears.

Mason, desperate because she can't be found to identify the murderer, has a client with a toupee who appears to be guilty because a piece of the rug is in the murder victims hand. He then hires a double to create an image to flush the true murderer out from hiding.

While Mason does little in the court room to solve this one, one of his famous cross-examines with Lt. Tragg is here. Tragg is in this episode a lot. While not a Gardner script, it is a good effort.

While some details have been changed, this show is based on The Case of the Counterfeit Eye, the third Mason book, back in the 1930's.

In particular, the original story concerns a killer identified by a glass eye, whereas the 1960 TV script uses a toupée for the same purpose.

The parallels with the Case of the Counterfeit Eye are numerous:

[1] A young man marries an adventuress after a whirlwind romance

[2] He has a difficult relationship with his stepfather

[3] The adventuress is a key witness to the murder, but skips out, leaving Mason holding the bag

[4] Mason tricks the authorities into capturing a different woman, all as a ploy to frighten the culprit.

On the other hand there are differences

[1] a sub-plot concerning the murder of the embezzler's accomplice is missing (not enough time for it?)

[2] The adventuress in The Counterfeit Eye is made out to more than a bigamist but a female Bluebeard

[3] The adventuress is captured by the end of the TV show (far away) but is still at large when the book ends. This can be seen mostly as the difference between communications in the 1930's and 1960.

[4] In the book, the true culprit is killed in a shoot-out at the airport, rather than being peacefully apprehended at a ticket counter.

All in all it's pretty well done.

We've seen these type cases before in Perry's episodes. The guy that comes back from wherever whose presence threatens something or someone, and they wind up dead (usually unmourned). So it is here. Bob Redford is a young, brash ding-dong who marries a tramp who's smarter than he is, and then she disappears at the crucial moment. Perry can't find her but does present a very near copy, and exposes the killer. As in other stories, the mere presentation of a double casts enough doubt on the prosecution's case, that his client is exonerated. This one didn't really do it, except for the no-good slut that manipulates men into giving her their money. Redford's character got lucky when she ran off; she was just about to clip him hard, too. Good acting, Della's beautiful, plot moves quickly, just not exiting.

***SPOILERS*** Based on Earl Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason short story "The Case of the Counterfeited Eye" the glass eye in the book was replaced by a hairpiece or toupee to make it far less gruesome and bloody has Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, try to solve a murder that took place almost under his nose when he was supposed to have an appointment with the murder victim just back from the dead, he was missing for almost two years, Hartley Basset, Thomas Browne Henry.

Basset pooped up unexpectedly just when the company that he was the CEO of Basset Dye & Tool was to be liquidated by his partner and wife Peter Dawson & Mrs. Sybil Basset, Philip Oben & Peggy Converse. Mad as hell in being left out of the deal Basset hired high power lawyer Perry Mason to keep the deal from going through. Before Basset could even consult with Mason he was found shot to death, by Mason, in his office! With Basset's step son Dick Heart, Robert Redford, and wife of one day Teddi, Cynthia Chenah, at the scene of the murder Perry feels that the two lovebirds know a lot more about Basset's murder then they are telling. This soon leads Teddi who claims she knows who did Basset in to disappeared from sight.

With one one really to defend. Peter Dawson was a poor suspected killer, for the murder of Hartley Basset Perry Mason now more or less becomes a private eye in him trying to track down his murderer working , without pay, Pro Bono! As things turned out it was the late Hartley Basset who accused Dawson of not only having an affair with his wife Sybil but also having embezzled his company of some $7,000.00 who uncovered his own killer before he murdered him! Now trying to draw out Basset's killer Perry launches a plan to uncover the missing Teddi, the only one who can identify Basset's killer, Heart by having a double Lorna Grant, Dee Arlen, impersonate her! Grant does such a good job impersonating Teddi that even her husband Dick Heart was fooled by her!

The person, Peter Dawson, that Perry eventually defended in Basset's murder who's only evidence linking him to Basset's murder was a piece of his hairpiece, or toupee, that was found clutched in the dead Basset's hand. This evidence was so flimsy that no one even D.A Hamilton "Ham" Burger, William Talman, didn't take it at all seriously and was dropped, into the wastebasket, halfway through the Perry Mason episode making the ending or confession of Basset's murderer seem even more silly that it would have been without the toupee.

Hartley Basset, ball bearing magnate, returns from being MIA for two years, and promptly starts throwing his weight around, firing employees, calling his wife "stupid", and behaving like an injured party because his wife and one of his executives were attempting to sell his business (or something) and start another one in her name only--completely understandably, as they didn't know if he was alive or dead or what and his family needed the money. What the script never gets around to explaining is where he was and what he was doing for those two years. The suspicion is raised that he had run off with the wife of another of his employees (who, after possibly being abandoned by Hartley, killed herself), but even that is in doubt; he never confirms it and seems genuinely surprised to hear of the woman's demise. Frankly, he didn't seem like the type to me--a cheater, yes, quite possibly, and maybe for a weekend in Spring Palms or something, but I just couldn't see him as being the kind of guy who would run off for two whole years and neglect his business; money and control were too important to him, and he simply wasn't enough of a "romantic" to embark a 24-month passion spree. It is outrageous that he doesn't feel he owes his wife an explanation as to his whereabouts, and acts aggrieved that she might be--very, very tentatively--considering a romance with a man who lent her emotional support and sound business and financial advice during her husband's absence. And she's so browbeaten that she doesn't ever really muster the nerve to just come out and ask him where he had been and what he had been doing!

Poor Sybil Basset; it's mentioned in passing that her first husband wasn't very good to her, her adult son from that marriage tends to yell at her, and then she got a jerk like Hartley as a 2nd husband. No luck with the men in her life! One can only hope that the affection between Sybil and Peter Dawson, who had been her rock, later developed into something more substantial.

It nags one that the murder victim's temporary disappearance was never adequately explained, and is the main reason I'm only giving the episode 4 stars; though I suppose Hartley's behavior is all meant to contribute to the feeling--typical for the series from the episodes I've seen--that the viewer shouldn't shed any tears over his offing; both his wife--guiltily--and his step-son--gleefully--admit that they're glad he's dead.

You can't help but feel that the substitution of a toupee in the teevee episode for the glass eye from the source material was the writers having a bit of fun; but it makes me wonder about the original story, which I haven't read: how in the world would a glass eye end up in a murder victim's hand?? That must've been quite some wild death-struggle (or at least intended to look like one).