User Reviews

An okay mystery helped out a great deal by the guest cast. This time Perry is representing an elderly client named August Dalgren (Otto Kruger in the second of his four appearances) who is judged to be incompetent after tossing money out the window of his Hollywood (you can see the walk of the stars below) office building. But then he escapes from the institution threatening to kill his nephew. When the nephew turns up dead, Perry has a murder case on his hands.

Kruger is terrific as Dalgren and shows a lot of levels to the character. I remember him as the assistant DA in "Another Thin Man" and frankly, this guy can be fun to watch. Connie Hines is familiar to many as Wilber Post's wife on "Mr. Ed". Here she gets to play a bit against type as the cheating wife who cares nothing for her husband, but again there's more to her character than that. And Burt Reynolds turns in a solid performance in a small role as Chuck Blair, a loyal worker and friend to Dalgren. This is back when Burt actually cared and it shows. When he wanted to, he could be a really good actor. Rounding out the cast was Jeannette Nolan as Burt's mom, Dalgren's loyal secretary and William Woodson as Dr. Jackman the psychiatrist. While you've seen Nolan everywhere, Woodson is also very familiar...if you close your eyes and listen. He did a lot of narration in his career, particularly in cartoons. It's nice to finally put a face to the voice.

Robert Leslie Bellam takes a turn on this script. Otto Kruger & Burt Reynolds head a major guest cast in this one.

Uncle Gus is crazy, or is faking it, in order to arrange for his nephew to take over his company. At least it is that way until the nephew pulls the old double cross & tries to take the uncle for a swindle. Gus breaks out of the sanitarium saying he is going to kill the nephew.

As we go along the nephews wife, & the company's other partners get involved with being suspects. Reynolds role is minor in trying to help Gus. Gus doesn't help himself when he shows up for the police to arrest him in a car with his dead nephew in the back of it. Fortunately, Mason is there to sort it out & frustrate Burger again.

**SPOILERS** Yes, the supporting cast was great; acting wise, that is. Problem (for me) is that Nobody explained if old Gus was losing what was left of his marbles, or if he was fooling everyone for a purpose that remained undisclosed. Next, with Perry's business and financial acumen, it should have been explained much more clearly as to why and how the future plans of Gus could be uncompromised. Even if he didn't bump off his ratty nephew, it still looked like he was a couple of coco puffs over the line.

Main cast was solid, story a little (okay, really) shaky, completely goofy, still pretty good.

The Case of the Counterfeiter Crank (a faked illness), 1962, 5.27.

...Spoiler...

You always have to suspend disbelief in a Perry Mason episode.

Not everything will make sense or get flushed out.

In this one it was the threatened divorce.

Fenton learned of Kenneth's plan to sell the desert land after the airforce base announcement and wormed his way into the deal.

Jay Fenton (John Larkin) hired a private detective to spy on his business partner Don Morley (Michael King) and Sandra Dalgran (Connie Hines). He threatened to expose their affair if Don Morley did not sign over his partnership to Jay Fenton.

Fenton learned that nephew Kenneth Dalgran was planning on killing his uncle August Dalgran (Otto Kruger) and that Kenneth had bought addition land next to their desert holdings, which were going to sky rocket in value once the Air Force announced they were going to build an air base there. Fenton went to Kenneth's house (after Sandra left and before Gus got there), Kenneth thought Fenton had taken Gus' fake suicide note (Sandra had taken it and shown it to Gus at the sanitarium), and thought Kenneth was going to double cross him. They got in a fight, the gun went off, and Kenneth was dead.

I don't know what societies morals were in 1962 but now a days I'm not sure that forcing a divorce between 2 spouses who no longer love each other is a compelling threat or something that you can use for blackmail.