Show242
Cost of Doing Business A well-timed pause on Amazon Prime Video revealed what Perry and Paul charged for their work on this case. Today this would barely cover the cost of the olive microphone!
Two Tickets to Charity Ball - $100 Photographs of Party - $38.20 Video Tape Machine - $48.20 Paul Drake - $500 Expenses (Truck, Tape Recorder, Small Olive Microphone) - $519 Mr Mason - $500 Total - $1705.40
Submitted by DellaMason
Note that Carla Chaney's address on the bill is that frequently used address on La Brea. Submitted by Miss Carmody, 26 March 2024.
Starting with this episode and for the rest of the series, Ray Collins as Lt Tragg is no longer credited.
When Perry goes in to have his first talk with Carla Cheney, she is “under restraint” for causing a disturbance in the jail the night before. We see her in a bed, wrists tied to the bed frame and her arms tightly covered by a restraining sheet. Carla spits venom throughout the interview and toward the end they cut to her and her arms are on top of the restraining sheet (wrists still tied). In the final cut of the scene, Carla’s arms are once again safely tucked beneath the restraining sheet. Submitted by Elsie of the Perry_Mason Yahoo Group, 5/13/2008.
Bernard Fox makes his only Perry appearance here playing Peter Stange. Bernard Fox was the only actor to appear in both the first Titanic movie, A Night To Remember (1958) and the 1997 version of Titanic. He also played the character of Dr. Bombay in three different television shows: Bewitched, Tabitha, and the soap opera Passions. But I will forever remember him for his character of Malcolm Merryweather on The Andy Griffith Show. Submitted by PaulDrake 33, 18 August 2009.
+ The Welsh-born actor appeared in 2 Columbos: as Purser Watkins in "Troubled Waters" & Detective Chief Superintendent Durk of Scotland Yard in "Dagger of the Mind" [IMDb]. Mike Bedard 2.9.15.
++ For me, Bernard Fox is most memorable from his several appearances as the bumbling Col. Rodney Crittendon on Hogan's Heroes, and also as Dr. Watson opposite Stewart Granger's Sherlock Holmes in a movie adaptation of the Hound of the Baskervilles (with William Shatner as the villainous Stapleton). TriviaSleuth 8/8/19.
+++ I’ve always loved Bernard Fox as Captain Winston Havelock in the Mummy. What a fun career he had! SoCalSis 12 July 2023.
Ravishing beauty Allison Hayes makes her fifth and final appearance on Perry Mason as "Cho Sin" a decidedly non-Asian playing an Asian role. What's more interesting is that there was no attempt outside of her wardrobe to make her Asian nor did she attempt any accent. In fact, I was completely unaware that her character was supposed to be Asian until I heard her character called "Cho Sin". Submitted by Kenmore 9/20/12
+There is a woman extra who is seen sitting next to Lt. Anderson during the trial...and she is very clearly Asian! I wonder why she had no role in the story? She could have played the part of Cho Sin...and I also wonder who she was? Submitted by MikeReese, 10/28/2023.
+ How would the actress have been "made Asian"? what sort of accent should she have used? I once knew a man whose name was Billy Ling who was nothing but southeast Texan, although his great-grandfather was Chinese. jfh 03Apr2020
++Actually I think you are all misunderstanding the woman's name. The cast list may have it spelled incorrectly too. It's not Cho Sin. It's Chosin (as in Chosen). That's not necessarily an Asian name nor is there anything to suggest in the story that she might be Asian. In fact, at one point Carla claims she looks just like Leona who not Asian either. Submitted by DellaMason
This is like a reunion episode of prior Perry Mason actors. There was the always classy Constance Towers, Jean Hale, John Abbott, and John Dall. Submitted by Perry Baby 12/28/16
Uncredited Actors: Don Anderson remains on the scene as the ninth season begins. He first appears as a tuxedo wearing guest at one of the art gallery functions where Mr. Stange, after welcoming Perry and Della, saunters over to banter with him and a woman companion. Later, Anderson can be seen over Burger’s shoulder in the courtroom gallery. Submitted by FredK. 3 December 2010.
+The female prisoner who says, "Knock it off, Carla," does not receive a credit, even though she speaks a line. Submitted by Miss Carmody, 26 March 2024.
Sightings: Seated in the back row of the courtroom gallery is a recurring extra we call Quiet Old Man #1. Submitted by gracenote, 5/9/2011.
+ I believe Miss Carmody is in the gallery, shown as a bit blurry on the long shots when Perry is speaking, but I think it is her wearing a hat. ;-> Submitted by mesave31, 02/16/15.
++Miss Carmody is enjoying a meal at Clay's in a booth near the back wall in both restaurant scenes. She is also present in the courtroom gallery, without a hat, on Burger's side of the room. In fact, Paul sits next to her near the end of the episode. Submitted by Miss Carmody, 26 March 2024.
This is one of the few episodes in which the murder victim is not shown. Submitted by Mason Jar, 8/17/2011.
+ It's also one of a small number - TCOT Deadly Verdict readily comes to mind as another - where the murder has already taken place and the suspect arrested when the show begins. Although, of course, this precludes the usual who me?? moment where someone is told "I have a warrant...first degree murder!!", it gives more time for investigation, and thus a more plausible dramatic development. Seconded by Notcom, 080619.
This is the first of fifteen PM writing credits for Orville Hampton, who would later have five writing credits on "The New Perry Mason" television series...MikeM. 3/6/2017
Richard Anderson (1926-2017) Three Score Years and Ten is the Biblical formula for the length of a person's life; that, less then ten, was ultimately the duration of the PM cast, for with the passing of Barbara Hale earlier in the year - the sixtieth since the show began - and of Richard Anderson Thursday night, the regular cast is now gone (note: I exclude Karl Held from this category). Anderson would permanently join the show with this episode, and close out the series, as the LAPD presence (he had appeared in two earlier episodes as different characters, and would also appear in both The New Perry Mason, and with Raymond Burr in Ironsides). The introduction of Steve Drumm, Anderson's character, was something of a new direction for the show: Drumm's predecessors, Lts. Tragg and Anderson, had been an irreverent wit and a low key personality, repectively, but he was pretty much all business... sometimes civil. more often hostile, but never joking. Whatever levity that was introduced on the show would likely come from the other new character, restauranteur Terrance Clay (Dan Tobin); and with that, for better or worse, PM would move toward becoming a lot more like the other police shows of the period. Notcom, 090217.
+ A really terrific insight. I would add only that I find Richard Anderson's Steve Drumm a better semi-antagonist for Mason than Wesley Lau's Lieutenant Anderson, who is a bit too low-key--I would say bland--and thereby undermines the potential dramatic tension between Mason and the Homicide Department. Drumm's more animated--and, at times, confrontational--presence makes the last season of the series more interesting than the season or two that immediately preceded it, at least regarding the PM/police relationship. Submitted by BobH, 13 April 2018.
++ I've always had a mixed reaction to Richard Anderson's 'Steve Drumm'. He was a tough detective, true: so was Collins' Tragg. But Tragg had some humor with his toughness. 'Drumm' was so often harsh, abrasive and dismissive of Perry and anyone being arrested or questioned that I found it hard to reconcile the character with a line that Perry used to describe him: 'He's tough, but fair.' As many times as 'Drumm' tried to keep Perry from talking to and advising a client, I kind of doubted the 'fair' part of that statement!
Submitted by MikeReese, 10/21/2021
This is the only PM appearance for actor/singer/dancer/comic Mickey Manners (Lenny Linden), born Solomon Shapiro, who had a recurring role in the series "Many Happy Returns"...MikeM. 3/12/2018
This is the second of two PM appearances for Jean Hale (Carla Chaney), who was born in Salt Lake City. She married Dabney Coleman in 1961 (divorced 1984), and they have four children. Their son Quincy is a musician...MikeM. 7/16/2018
When Perry is introduced to Roan Daniel and Dr. Tobey, he shakes hands. However, there is no handshake after his introduction to Peter Strange. Otto Gervaert, 4/19/21.
The video tape recorder (VTR) used by Perry to replay the video from the TV show is a Sony model CV-2000. It was introduced in August 1965 at a cost of $695 just a month before this episode aired. I guess the PM producers wanted to wow the audience with the latest high tech gadgetry. Kilo 10/22/2018.
The television set in the opening scene appears to be a 1956 Trav-Ler brand model 621-32 21 inch console. Kilo 4/23/2020.
Location - The Sybil Brand Institute for Women was the primary Los Angeles County correctional facility for women until it closed in 1997. Since then, and as of 2021, it is mostly used as a filming location. OLEF641 9/1/21
Chinese Antiques - approximate up-to-date values for the prices quoted in the gallery:
Gong: then $2,000 - now (2021) $17,250
Birdcage: $5,000 - $43,250
Sofa being toted out: $3,000 - $26,000
Tickets to charity event: $50 each - $425
. . and the cost of Daniel's house - $60,000 - $520,000
OLEF641 9/1/21
Season 9 Titles: Season 9 brings us the opening when Perry Mason seems lost in an empty courtroom. Maybe he's saying to himself "I could have sworn Della told me 'Room 640 at 10 0' clock.'" I wonder if our title expert catyron can offer an interpretation of this existential exposition of the final season. JohnK 15 October 2021
+ The trend in the opening sequences seemed to be an ever increasing emphasis on Raymond Burr (or, we might also say, on Perry himself): the first, it will be recalled, opened with Perry being handed some paperwork by a judge; he then walked over and handed it to Della, who handed it to Paul, etc. In short all five recurrent cast members were shown, plus a judge. Variations of this continued until William Talman's demotion to part-time status, at which time only the judge and Perry were shown. A third version opened with a strange, almost Daliesque setting in which figurines of someone standing before a judge dissolved into a short of the real thing (again receiving a folder). Then we had Perry entering a(n empty) courtroom, and walking to the Defense table. And finally, this: already seated, moving only his lips (into a smile). Increasingly it became a tableau vivant. Notcom 101621.
++ I think Notcom nailed it; the titles began by emphasizing the great ensemble cast and ended up only placing a focus on Raymond Burr. catyron. Submitted in October 23rd, 2021.
The fourth and final PM appearance for John Dall, and third where his character is associated with art and antiques. -HPW 10/01/24
John Abbott and Allison Hayes also appeared in TCOT Bogus Books.