"Perry Mason" The Case of the Careless Kidnapper (1964)

TV Series:

"Perry Mason" (1957)

Original Air Date:

30 April 1964 (Season 7, Episode 27)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Perry Mason | Courtroom | Secretary | Lawyer | Murder Confession

Cast

Raymond Burr	...	Perry Mason
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Pamela Baird	...	Third Girl
Marilyn Erskine	...	Susan Pelham
Mimsy Farmer	...	Sande Lukins
Barbra Fuller	...	Maid (as Barbara Fuller)
Gilbert Gardner	...	Boy
Gail Gilmore	...	First Girl (as Gale Gerber)
Regina Gleason	...	Mary Manning
Barbara Hale	...	Della Street
Peter Hobbs	...	Gregory Pelham
William Hopper	...	Paul Drake
Frances Karath	...	Second Girl
Ron Kennedy	...	Joe Velvet
Tom Lowell	...	David Pelham (as Thomas Lowell)
Burt Metcalfe	...	John Lathrop
Lee Miller	...	Sgt. Brice
Tudor Owen	...	Capt. Horatio Jones
Mark Slade	...	Michael Da Vinci
Harry Stanton	...	Judge
Garland Thompson	...	Lab Expert

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Paisano Productions

Just Try And Keep Up

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I'm watching these old Perry Masons for the first time, and I must say, they are emerging as incredibly convoluted.

This one in particular, as described by the other review.

Yes, David and his friends were having square dialogue trying to sound hip (when actually, I would guess this simply shows how out-dated hip dialogue becomes).

The strangest thing about this moment is it has next-to-nothing to do with what takes place in the episode.

Filler? Then why not show the group stop at a red light and a truck drives by? It would mean as much as the conversation here did.

And yes, then we get the equally strange argument with parents who were labeled as conservative.

I looked at that scene and tried to figure out what the problem was now.

The parents were believed to be conservative, but now they were seen as something else? Not conservative? Shouldn't that have made the son happy? Now the kids looked terrified, mortified. I thought, wow, now who is conservative? Shocked at married people arguing.

I get the impression there was supposed to be something here about why David didn't take his friends around his parents.

With that in mind, it starts looking like someone is writing the episode as they were filming it.

But the orderly confusion doesn't stop there.

So David gets drunk at seeing his parents argue, and the friend hatches this unbelievably bizarre plot to 'kidnap' David and worry the parents, get money from them, something.

This reminded me of the Frank Sinatra Jr kidnapping by his friends.

The confusing part was we have no reason for why this friend is doing this? And why was it on that boat? So the mother gets the letter, goes to the boat and meets this friend. Yes, that much took place.

She strikes at him, knocks him over the side and her purse falls as well. We saw this much.

She rushes home, tells her husband.

Now this is when it gets confusing, both in plot and to make suspense.

The father goes back and tosses the body over into the water. The handbag is missing.

First impression is this man did this to protect his wife.

We don't see the face of the man he throws into the water.

Perry was called, the police go to the scene, the body is found.

Now we are shown the man's face.

Apparently it wasn't the same face as the man the wife had hit. I looked away a bit here.

The son was found by dad's secretary, who took him home and called a scientist who worked with the father.

Total confusion, isn't it? We THEN learn the young man who fabricated the kidnapping is the son of an old Hollywood actress, they don't have a good relationship.

The son is also still alive! So how did he get from the dock, to bandaged up and the other fellow get on the dock, in the SAME spot, dead? But one more! The dead man is the ex-husband of the secretary who got the son off the dock! Turns out there was a scene of the ex-husband and the secretary at the bar when the son and his friend left, but I didn't pay attention to that.

I've watched soap operas for years, but I don't think I've ever seen one with a convoluted plot like this episode had.

Turns out the dead man was blackmailing the father, a doctor, over treatment he was giving to 'special' patients, celebrities and big name persons who wanted their dependencies and no doubt, STDs, kept secret.

So the show cleverly didn't show the man the father looked at that was dead, and we don't see the mother's reaction to the face of the dead man we are shown.

It just wasn't a phenomenal mystery. How did the bodies get switched? It was a coincidence. One got up or was taken away (can't remember) and the actual victim and killer were there at the same moment, later on.

And yes, the solution involving a safe and binoculars, yea, that would just make me break down and confess too.