User Reviews

How can one even begin to summarize or review this masterpiece of an episode. For one thing, At the end of the hour, I felt as if I had been watching the intrigue for a much longer time. It was that good...there were no superfluous events nor any red herrings to led you astray.

The plot was also unconventional and a mighty welcome respite from the normally formulaic programs produced by 'Paisano Productions'. There were unexpected turns and twists and what apparently looked like location shots and then, there was the finale: absolutely chilling in a delightful way. I actually laughed out loud for a bit after its conclusion. It was THAT good.

I was equally impressed with the superb acting of all involved. There are too many to mention but, JULIE ADAMS and JOAN TOMPKINS were at the top of their game.

I have now watched at marathon of almost all of the episodes in one nearly continuous feast of Perry Mason. So far, just 185 episodes. I have been satisfied with each and every one and bowled over by just a couple dozen. But this one was one of the most fascinating episodes of all. I will never get around to ranking them all but this one, will definitely rank in the TOP 5 if I ever do!

...Perry Mason finally loses a murder case to prosecutor Hamilton Burger.

You never see the trial. The episode opens after the guilty verdict as the penalty phase is being debated by the jury. And then the jury returns with its decision - the penalty will be death. As Perry's team gathers in a local bar to discuss what to do next, Perry is seemingly nonplussed as always, even as Della and Paul say that perhaps, since defendant Janice Barton lied about where she was at the time of the murder and got caught in that lie, she really is guilty. But Perry remains convinced of her innocence as he goes over what happened at the trial with a fine-tooth comb. I said that Perry is seemingly unplussed, but you can tell that inside that this case is eating at him.

The motive in the defendant's case was a half a million dollar (about five million dollars in 2023) inheritance from the victim. People who would have had a motive to frame the defendant - the other relatives of the deceased who would inherit in her place.

I'm not going to say much more about the case than I have. There are some interesting themes of the 60s going on here. For example, nine years before the Supreme Court temporarily overturns the death penalty at least partially because by 1972 it had become a freak occurrence, you see the cast echo the exact same sentiment - that it is unlikely that the condemned will actually ever go to the gas chamber. Also, there is an inconvenient pregnancy thrown into all of this. But the pregnancy never results in a baby. What happened to that pregnancy? Or can the show dare say what probably happened ten years before the Roe V Wade decision? Finally, some left over ideas that die hard with a very subtle message about the perceived frame of mind of gay persons. Those ideas will die hard over the next thirty years.

Well plotted, well acted by the entire cast, with some interesting and timely topics, this has to be among the top episodes of this stellar show.

Some are commenting on Mason losing a case. But we need to remember that his success depends on his client telling the truth. Guilt is at work here and she seems ready to bite the big one to keep quiet. But there are some greedy characters that stand to get a bunch of money, so the "why" is in play. Good effort.

This was one of the better Mason episodes. It definitely showed the vulnerability of Perry Mason.

No doubt in my mind if there was the perfect judge to oversee the Mason defeat and grim defendant sentence it was S. John Launer. Perfect casting !

That rarest of occurrences happens in this Perry Mason, like actually finding a four leaf clover. The show opens up with a jury filing in and Perry Mason's client has been found guilty of murder in the first degree. The client is Julie Adams who is an actress and one of three sisters and a brother who are the possible heirs to the victim who was their aunt. But Adams was a favorite and the one who administered her nightly prescription. Seems as though a sedative was administered and the victim in a groggy state fell off a balcony.

The verdict may be in, but Perry Mason is still on the job. The Perry Mason parameter varies a bit as the solution is not found in the courtroom. Instead Erle Stanley Gardner's famous lawyer takes a gambit from Agatha Christie gets all the subjects together to give them as much information as he can. Of course one of them bites.

As for who really did the deed? Here's a hint, think Psycho.

***SPOILERS*** You just don't quite know what to expect at the beginning of this Perry Mason,Raymond Burr, episode with a jury verdict being handed down within the first few minutes of it's running. Did I miss something by my watch being too slow or did I turn the TV on 55 minutes too late? No it's as I expected it to be the start of the episode, But the biggest shock is soon to come. Perry's client Janice Barton, Julie Adams, has not only been convicted of first degree murder but she's now sentenced to death in San Quentin's infamous gas chamber as her punishment! Knowing that there's far more to come since Perry Mason feels that the doomed and soon to be executed Janice is hiding something he, despite the verdict, goes on his own investigating Janice's Aunt Amnanda's murder. That in order not only to get her death sentence not only overturned but, with new evidence, thrown out altogether!

Highly complicated murder case with so many different bottles of medication being involved in it that you have to be a licensed pharmacist to figure what exactly is happening. It turns out that Aunt Amanda was given knock out drops to put her to sleep and then pushed off her mansion patio to her death. And it's Janice who gives Aunt Amanda her medication every evening that's arrested tried and convicted in her murder. What bothers Perry is that Janice had a air tight alibi in where she was when her Aunt Amanda was murdered but kept it from him in order to get herself convicted. Why did Janie do it and what are her reasons for doing it.

We soon find out that first Aunt Amanda was to leave her money to her immediate relatives which Janice was one of them. And if Janice is convicted in murdering her, like she was, the money would be split up four instead of five ways with her being disqualified, by murdering Aunt Amanda,in getting any of it. Perry deduces that it had to be one of the other four relatives who murdered Aunt Amanda and framed Janice for the crime. But what puzzles Perry more then anything else is why Janice is so freely taking the rap for it.

****SPOILERS*** The reasons for Janice's strange actions to get herself convicted are far more interesting as well as shocking then who murdered her Aunt Amanda! We also find out later that Janice's attempt to get herself convicted was for a better good that turned out to be a misguided reason on her part. The person or persons she was protecting didn't need any protecting at all! In Janice mistaking them for lovers which they weren't. Which had the person who in fact did murder Aunt Amanda come out of the shadows and fall into the trap that Perry Mason set for him or her!