User Reviews

As one reviewer pointed out, there is no actual evidence against the two murderers who then conveniently do bad things to establish their guilt. Much like many Perry Mason episodes, the hero lays out a likely scenario for the crime with no real proof and the bad guys confess for no apparent reason.

Of course, if the patsy had just given up, there could have been a paraffin test done on him to show he hadn't fired the gun. Also, you think there would be some brave people among the gawkers who would subdue a would-be murderer. This is one of those stories where it is best not to think it through.

On the plus side, the plot moves along. Joe courts a pretty secretary while getting information from her. The police are wrong again, thus maintaining their perfect record. Lt Malcolm likes to argue with Joe, much like Hamilton Burger argued with Perry. Since both were wrong every time, you would think they would shut up and go with the flow.

Joe get paid! Also, Peggy gets points for ensuring Joe met the client (the wife). Good teamwork. If you don't think about it too much and it is a passable episode.

An okay episode. It's certainly well-paced and entertaining most of the way through - but the final minutes strain credibility. Let's set aside for a minute the fact that the frame-up is far fetched to begin with (The victim's secretary plays a recording of a pair of gunshots that sends everyone into a locked room where they find the poor sap - our Patsy - standing over the bullet-riddled victim holding a gun. Uh huh).

And everything breaks their way and their nutty plan works like a charm. I suppose I can buy that. Maybe. But here's the biggest problem with the episode: The wrap up.

Even after Mannix deduces what happened there is no way he'd be able to PROVE his theory in court. All the secretary and her accomplice would have to do is DENY everything. "Mannix made the recording of the gunshots himself to demonstrate his crackpot theory!" they could say - and they wouldn't be far off! Mannix even admits to making a recording of the gunshots (let's call Joe's recording the "Demonstration recording") because the secretary already erased the first one.

And how would THAT look to a jury? (Not good)

As for the victim being unwilling to pay $25,000 for an incriminating photograph? Who's to say he didn't pay for it? All Mannix could say is that it's unlikely he'd have wanted to. Big deal. Now let's look at the enormity of the evidence on the other side: An escaped felon with a clear motive for murder is found holding a gun over a bullet-riddled corpse in a locked room.

The killers would have gotten off scott free and the Patsy would have wound up on death row.

But of course, Mannix explaining his unprovable theory is all it took for the real killers to panic and pull a gun on our hero and announce their guilt to the world.

Lucky, lucky.

So this one gets an 8 for entertainment and a negative 48 for plausibility.

6/10

In this one, a woman (played by Davey Davison) hires Joe to try to prove her husband is innocent of a murder he's been accused of.

This is yet another episode that features an elaborate scheme to kill someone, a plot element that has been seen many times before. It also features another plot element that has been seen several times before - a person is accused of murder because he's seen holding a gun near the murder victim but yet he and his spouse proclaim his innocence.

There are some plot holes. Why would the secretary allow Joe to snoop around in her boss's office when she was in on the scheme? And how was everyone in the office able to hear the tape recorder? There's no indication the sound was amplified in any way, so there's no way everyone in the office would have been able to hear it.

Another problem is it's obvious who the killer is because there's no one else it could be, so there's no suspense.

Then there are the clichés. The guy accused of murder goes on the run, has been shot and needs a doctor, and hides out in a dump and only tells his wife where he is who then tells Joe. Also, Joe gets shot at but not hit, but for a change, someone other than Joe gets clobbered over the head, which is rare.

There are several obvious continuity mistakes in the scene where Joe is talking to Mrs. Demarco as the location of her hand and the olive changes from shot to shot. Very sloppy. She also uses the same silly dialogue about pencil mustaches that Nancy Kovack used in Sing a Song of Murder from earlier this season, so not only does this episode reuse plot elements but it also reuses dialogue.

Robert Burr has by far the worst hairdo I've seen on this show yet. It is absolutely hideous.

The total body count is two.

The episode ends very abruptly after a single punch from Joe, with no counter punches being thrown or any other action whatsoever. It's one of the most abrupt endings of any episode to date. There's very little action elsewhere in the episode either.

There's really nothing to like here except for Davey Davison's performance, but she disappears for the last fifteen minutes, so this is a rare instance where Joe's client doesn't appear at the end. John Bennett Perry, who plays her husband, also doesn't appear at the end.

This is a tedious and forgettable episode.