User Reviews

**SPOILERS** The key to the episode is the freezer, of course. How did it get in the kitchen? In a small apartment? I would think that Tragg would absolutely check that glaring feature out, we needed it for the story, right? Second, even though Perry's client seemed like a doormat, by the time they are adults, siblings know how to handle each other; the dirtbag writer would have been either sent on his way, or fixed up some other way by dear old daddy. He's also a central figure in another one of Perry's dramas, "The Buried Clock" another fine episode. The characters are polar opposites, though. Della is beautiful, ending is weak, but the acting is strong. It's a 10.

I can't help but notice how in these early episodes, how much the young, svelte Raymond Burr looks like current day actor Greg Kinnear. Their expressions and movements are very similar. If Kinnear ever gets tired of movies and wants to go back to TV, I think his Perry Mason would be very similar to one seen in season one.

The story, based on an original novel by Erle Stanley Gardner has ugly duckling Harriet Bain accused of murder. Her father Ned (Carl Benton Reid) is sickly with a heart condition and is being blackmailed by his alcoholic ex-partner and a unscrupulous private detective named Arthur West (Dan Riss). When the ex-partner turns up dead and an ice pick is found with Harriet's fingerprints all over it, Tragg charges her with the crime.

The story is okay, but there is oddly very little character development. While Virginia Vincent is good as the mousy sister, we get almost nothing from Tina Carver who plays her sexy sister or Harriet's opportunist boyfriend. Perhaps there just wasn't enough time to properly adapt the Erle Stanley Gardner story into a one hour story.

I also wonder about the chances of a poor man in a furnished room having a modern top of the line freezer unit. Generally you only see those in houses, not apartments because of their size. Also, it seems unlikely Arthur West would have paid for such a modern and costly appliance.

The end shot of this episode has Paul literally holding the bag as Mason walks away arm in arm with Della and the newly made over Harriet.

**SPOILERS*** It's when private detective Arthur West, Dan Riss, tracked down in a skid row hotel room this flat out drunk J.J Stanley, James Bell, he used him by giving J.J cases of free booze to blackmail his once banking partner the suffering from serious heart disease Ned Bain, Carl Benton Reid. J.J a former employee of the Texas National Bank was involved in embezzling it of $50,000.00 together with Ned Bain some ten years ago. Since the statute of limitation had already expired on the crime and Bain was not subject to criminal prosecution it was his good name that he tries to protect.

Blain's daughter Harriet, Virginia Vincent, in trying to get both West and J.J off her very sick father's back hires defense attorney Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, to keep the two from revealing his shady past. Mr Bain in an attempt to pay off his blackmailers goes to see both J.J & West with the pay off money despite the serious condition that he's in. But after he leaves their double,their connected to each other, hotel rooms J.J is found dead stiff as a board by Perry and his private secretary Della Street, Barbara Hale. And the murder weapon used to ice J.J an ice pick has Harriet Blain's fingerprints all over it!

Harriet now on trial for murder has Perry try to prove to the court that J.J was murdered by someone else besides his client. That in Perry proving, through the process of Rigor Mortis, in how long he was dead before his body was found. Even before the trial was over Harriet was completely exonerated of J.J's murder and now it's up to Perry and the presiding judge on the case, played by the venerable Eternal Colonel of movie and TV fame Morris Ankarum, to uncover just who J.J's killer really was. And as it turned out J.J's killer was about the greasiest oiliest and sleaziest, just one look tells it all, character in the entire cast!

***SPOILERS*** Perry Mason who suspended a flight to London where he was to attendant a lawyers conference found the case more then worth while for him. Finding a cold storage unit at the dead man's, J.J Stanley, hotel room Perry knew instinctively that it was in fact a way for his killer to cover up his crime. And the cold cash that Perry got from Harritt Bain helped also in paying Perry's very expensive office, situated in downtown L.A, rent. It, the case, also had Stella give the plain Jane looking Harriet Bain a complete makeover so she was both presentable as well as gorgeous as she together with her lawyer and escort Perry Mason traveled to London to attend that boring and uneventful, unlike the case that he just handled , lawyers conference!