User Reviews

This episode has one of my favorite courtroom scenes in the series. Perry Mason grabs the empty tin from the judges desk and begins rather clumsily to demolish it to find the secret panel at the bottom of the tin. An incredulous Burger is stunned. The whole case is so draining that Perry Mason offers his nemesis Burger drinks on his dime as the case is solved.

This episode is one of the more interesting of the excellent first season of Perry Mason. It has a few interesting scenes. One with Benson Fong, who plays the close friend of a rich man who's been murdered. Mason has met him earlier in the show and he spoke in "pidgeon" English. Perry then meets him later while investigating for his client and this time he speaks perfect English. Perry notes it and he replies "You do not expect an accent from me, most people do. By giving them what they expect I save many explanations." That's a nice poke at racism. The show is also unusual in that much of the action takes place outside of the courtroom. While I enjoy most of the old Perry Mason shows, this one I especially liked.

**SPOILERS** I agree with the other reviewers on this case. Just a couple of points, though.

1) Doris said she HAD picked up the gun, but when she touched the trigger, it discharged. As far as I could tell, nobody in the crime lab examined the weapon for a light trigger pull or malfunction, did they?

2) Where did the bullet (from Doris's accidental discharge), in question go? If Doris is telling the truth, that bullet HAS to be in the crime scene. If so, it immediately calls the housekeeper into at least peripheral suspicion. Did anyone search for it? Tragg says he found it in the floor. What explains this? Perry says it was accidental.

3) BOTH women, because they were right at the scene, and if they were both questioned (that is normal police procedure), they should have been paraffin tested for gunshot residue.

Now, I'll admit that the estate lawyer was a slicked up dirtbag, but neither he nor his girlfriend deserved what the got; too bad for them, no mercy for the killer. Great episode, and Paul gets a sweet last line, with an appropriately exasperated look from beautiful Della. Excellent episode, glad I've got it my collection for review.

***SPOILERS*** It's when San Francisco resident Doris Hocksley, Toni Gerry, is told by her next door neighbor the sweet kindly and what later turned out to be mysterious photography store owner John Lowell, Otto Waldis, that she may possibly be in entitled to a 2.5 million dollar inheritance she shoots straight down to L.A to find out if it's true. It's there that Doris gets to meet the one person who can see to it that she gets the big bucks the man in charge of Elston Carr's (Anthony Jochim), the man who's to give her the cash, finances oily shyster lawyer Alan Neil, Warren Stevens. That's if Doris can prove that she's in fact the late Adam Hocksley's daughter. It seems that her father together with Carr and, wow what a surprise, next door neighbor John Lowell were partners in some kind of underhanded dealing in China before the commies or Communists took over the country in 1949. Where the two and a half million dollars comes from -probably from arms and drug dealing-that Doris, if she can prove that she's Doris Hocksley, is entitled to is in a tin can with a bible and photo in it locked away in Elston Carr's safe with proof of her being Adam Hocksley's daughter.

As we know in watching enough Perry Mason episodes someone has to get murdered for them to work and the lucky guy who gets it here, with two bullets in his chest, is Elston Carr. That all happens off screen just a scant few minutes, the the screen writers didn't wait long here, after he was introduced to the audience. And of course who's found at the scene of the crime Doris Hocksley with the smoking gun or murder weapon! Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, gets the call to defend Doris and runs into a number of roadblocks as soon as he's on the case. One of them is Alan Neil and what turned out to be his secret love Marian Hocksley, Mary Ship, Doris' possible lost sister. The two Neil & Marian are anything but cooperative in trying to help Perry get to the bottom of Carr's murder case.

****SPOILERS**** Perry going through all kinds of legal and court room acrobatics to save his client from either the gas chamber or a lifetime stay, Perry is also planing to use an insanity defense, in a state mental institution gets bailed out by getting a phone call at his pad in the middle of the night claiming to be that of Marian Hocsksley. Marian in a state of total hysterics tells a barley awake Perry Mason that she just shot to death her lover Alan Neil and is now going to shot herself and wants Perry to be the first to know about it! This phone call breaks the case wide open and also reveals that Doris is innocent of Elston Carr's murder. It also brings an end to this very confusing and hard to follow Perry Mason episode. Unknown to the caller Perry gave out his unlisted phone number to just one person involved in the Elston Carr murder case! And by now trying to implicate Marian, who in fact survived, in both her and Neil's murders reviled that person's guilt as well as identity without him or her really knowing it!

P.S Check out former Charlie Chan #1 son Benson Fong as the late Elston Carr's friend the sinister and intense looking Gaw Loong who, in looking as if he would rather be somewhere else, never as much as cracks a smile in any of the scenes that he's in.