Show9
CARS: 1957 Ford Skyliner retractable, black (Mason), 1957 Lincoln convertible, medium color, top down, 1957 Continental MkII, light color, 1957 Mercury 4dr sedan, medium color. From The Cars by Greg Cockerill.
+ Screenshots of the featured cars in the order they appear early in the episode:
- Pete Handsell's '57 Mercury 4dr sedan Lic No MTE 707, with Veronica Dale here; complete car looks like this.
- '57 Lincoln convertible Lic No KYL 907, Edgar Ferrell driving with passenger Veronica Dale, here. Front and rear licence plates are both easily read in this sequence of shots.
- '57 Continental MkII with John Addison exiting passenger door, here. This car's plates are not seen but the car's registration form is shown just after this shot. Note that before the "Vehicle Identification Number" (VIN) was introduced in 1981, engine & chassis serial numbers were used to ID vehicles.
- Perry's 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner Lic No HGA 056; no image from episode but similar to this. Lic No clearly seen at 25:28 (CBS/Paramount DVD).
+ Models are '57 Mercury Montclair, '57 Lincoln Premiere. Don't think you can distinguish the Continental Mk II in this episode as a '56 or '57; if you can, tell me how.
Submitted by oldgray, March 7, 2014.
Continuity Error: The opening scene shows Veronica Dale and Peter Handsell exiting Peter’s auto on the coast highway. Veronica has a sweater draped around her shoulders. In the closeup shots that follow, Veronica’s sweater has disappeared. After that, Veronica again has her sweater again. Submitted by daveb, 5/27/2008. Updated by daveb, 10/3/2008. A vidcap here.
The missing sweater is because those two responses to Handsell were shot in the studio in front of a white canvas. If they had been on location, you would see the partial dunes/vegetation behind her. This also happens in Show 1 TCOT Restless Redhead. Submitted by Jared 09 May 2021.
Continuity Error: In the scene where Peter Handsell lets Veronica Dale out of the car, he gets out and, with appropriate dialog, unbuttons the top button of her dress. Seconds later, as he gets back in the car, we see the dress is buttoned up again. Shortly after he drives away, as she stands by the side of the road, her dress is unbuttoned again. Submitted by daveb, 10/1/08. Some vidcaps of the magical button here.
The script for “Vagabond Vixen” is dated 18 June 1957. The scripts of at least 8 other episodes are dated earlier. There’s a good chance this was the 9th episode filmed. It’s actually the 9th episode broadcast. Submitted by billp, 4 November 2009.
+ As evidence of Perry's car is back to the Ford Skyliner in this episode. Since we know that there was a "Cadillac" episode shot in April, some of those shot in July, we now have "Cadillac" episodes shot in April and July sandwiched by "Skyliner" episodes (this one in June). Submitted by HamBurger, 9/20/2020
ESG:This episode of Perry Mason (TCOT Vagabond Vixen) is based on the Erle Stanley Gardner novel TCOT Vagabond Virgin. The season nine episode titled TCOT Golden Girls (#255, 9.14) is also based on this same ESG novel. So this ninth season episode is often considered to be a "re-make" of TCOT Vagabond Vixen. See here. Submitted by Charles Richmond, 26 April 2013.
Goof: “T” marks the spot. When Edgar Ferrell and Veronica Dale are at the Gull’s Way hideaway and as they approach a desk/table near a window, you can plainly see a “T” on the carpet. This is Veronica’s mark, and she sort of sidesteps to hit it. This curious lateral movement is what drew my attention to it. You can also see Edgar Ferrell’s mark by the desk leg. They start to be visible at about 4:20 into the episode. Submitted by billp, 29 November 2009.
Uncredited Actors: Don Anderson plays the bailiff seated behind the court clerk. Submitted by FredK, 30 September 2010.
+ Lee Miller appears as a Deputy Sheriff: a job RB held in Real Life before becoming an actor [IMDb]. Mike Bedard 3.8.15.
>>> Lee Miller played a patrolman giving testimony in a murder case Perry Mason, er, Raymond Burr is defending in the 1956 noir "Please Murder Me!". jfh 29Jan2023
BTW - IMDb lists 17 actors in "Please Murder Me!", 11 of whom also have acting credits in Perry Mason, giving the movie a whopping 64.7% Perry Participation score, closely rivalling that of "I Want To Live" jfh 25Jan2024
Location: About 16 minutes in, Perry gets a call: “Mason, I need your help. Meet me up at the house in Malibu. It's called Gull’s Way. 26800 Pacific Coast Highway.” Amazingly enough, this is all completely true and factually accurate! I drive by it all the time and that is exactly what it is called and exactly what the address is. Earlier in the episode, a girl runs down the hill from Gulls Way to a gas station which is still at the bottom of the hill. More of Gull’s Way can be seen here. Submitted by Eric Cooper, 9/25/08. Posted by daveb. A vidcap and more here.
+ The beach back entrance to Gulls Way can also be see in Episode #66. Submitted by Eric Cooper, 6 January 2011.
Location: About 33 minutes into this episode we see an excellent shot down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills where it deadends into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. This hotel is most famous for being the Pretty Woman hotel where Julia Roberts stayed with Richard Gere. Submitted by Eric Cooper, 2 November 2010. Some pictures here.
Portraits: Who’s that in the portrait/poster opposite Myrtle Northrup’s desk? (It’s to Myrtle’s right, above the filing cabinets.) Some have suggested it’s Jayne Mansfield. Submitted by billp, 14 November 2010.
+ Good catch. It is a contemporary photo of Jayne Mansfield with what looks like a silver winged horse (at 25:43 on the 2006 Paramount DVD); tineye found the same photo being auctioned on ebay in February 2015. A similar pose gets more hits, for example here on listal. For this episode, Walter M. Scott and Charles Q. Vassar are credited as the Set Decorators. In 1957, Sophia Loren sat next to Jayne at a Paramount party, in the well-known photo of Sophia looking at Jayne. lowercase masonite, 2/5/16.
++ The portrait to the right of the door in this scene (at the far left of the screen) is of Will Rogers. It a well-known later portrait that was used extensively on posthumous souvenir prints, calendar art, and church fans after his untimely death in an airplane accident in Alaska in 1935. The third portrait in this room, of a standing man, at the left side of the door, is unknown to me. Submitted by catyron, September 13, 2020.
This episode marks the first of four episodes featuring Barbara Pepper, a former chorus girl (Ziegfeld Follies, no less) and good friend of Lucille Ball. She also appears in episodes #119, #134, and #168. Submitted by gracep, 11/14/2010.
+ I noted Barbara Pepper’s name in the credits of Alfred Hitchcock’s excellent 1940 Foreign Correspondent, and thought I would test the hypothesis advanced in these pages that she had been a great beauty in an earlier day. She appears at 12:30 in that film, alongside Robert Benchley as his, um, big blonde escort. Now, she was no Joan Tabor (see TCOT The Substitute Face, or The Dubious Bridegroom), but she’s pretty good-looking, and well-suited for the part. IMDb speaks highly of her early acting, and tells of her tragic personal life. JohnK, 1 July 2018
> If you have the misfortune of watching a station that dumps MeTV, one of the small - very small - benefits that comes from watching one of the Cabless World alternatives is seeing PM regulars in their other (acting) lives. One of them, as JK notes, is Babs Pepper, who also appeared, prominently, in They Made Me a Criminal, an OK movie which doesn't quite live up to the excitement of its title (but then, really, how could it ??) Notcom 070218.
Character Names: Mrs. Dale's first name is Martha. jfh 24May2024
James Anderson played racist Bob Ewell in the 1962 classic "To Kill A Mockingbird" [IMDb]. Mike Bedard 4.1.15
Sightings: Distinguished Gentleman #1 appears as an elevator operator, and Pencil Mustache Man is one of the passengers in the final scene today. DG #1 apparently says “Second floor,” while PMM chews gum and eavesdrops.
Submitted by evelyne, 10 February 2011. More here.
+ We can see Distinguished Gentleman #2 in court on Perry's side along with Little Old Lady #2. Distinguished Gentleman #1 is over on Burger's side and later Distinguished Lady #4 joins the group in the elevator. Submitted by BigBill767, Nov 11, 2016.
++ We can see Distinguished Lady #2 sitting next to Little Old Lady #2 in the back row on the defense side as the trial gets underway. Then, as Della escorts their surprise "witness" into the courtroom, Little Old Lady #2 is clearly visible sitting in the back row on the prosecution side. Distinguished Gentleman #1 appears on the defense side, as well as on the prosecution side as noted above. Submitted by JazzBaby, 7/3/2019.
Syndicated cuts: Scene of Handsell in Mason's office where Mason hands him the $2000 check; scene with Mason, Della and Lorraine; Tragg with Addison saying the judge will decide if Handsell's story is true; Veronica identifies the man who picked her up on the highway; Mason says Burger still has enough evidence to convict Addison.
Additional Hallmark cuts: Scene of Mason getting Veronica out of jail; Scene in Mason's office where he tells Drake the plan to trap a blackmailer is not working and Della interrupts to tell Perry Sgt. Bent of Forgery wants to see him; a brief section of the print man's testimony where Perry asks him whether or not Addison's prints were put there before or after the murder and he replies that all he knows they were there. Submitted by Wiseguy70005, 7/16/12.
Gun: The murder weapon is a nickel-plated Harrington and Richardson top-break revolver. If you look closely, you can see a round (or casing) in a cylinder chamber. Submitted by oldgray, March 7, 2014.
Cheater!: Second episode in a row where the murder victim is a philandering married man. Submitted by 65tosspowertrap, 3/19/2014.
The Automotive Registration in John Addison's car gives his address as 10460 Cheviot Drive. This may be a real address in the Cheviot Hills area of West Los Angeles. The legal owner of the Lincoln Continental is Fidelity Studio. The car was first sold on 3/7/57 and the registration was issued on 3/26/57. The vehicle fee was $248. The license plate is given as KYL-907, the same as the plates seen on the Lincoln convertible of Edgar Ferrell. ..MikeM. 7/20/2016
+ 10460 Cheviot Drive is a very nice pseudo-Tudor home. It has 4 bedrooms and 3 baths in its 2,500 square feet, and in 2018 it sold for $2,122,851. It is shown on Zillow here: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/10460-Cheviot-Dr-Los-Angeles-CA-90064/20499326_zpid/?mmlb=g,0 Submitted by catyron, September 13, 2020.
This is the first of three PM appearances for Robert Ellenstein, whose father was a two-term mayor of Newark, New Jersey...MikeM. 5/2/2018
This is the first of two Perry appearances for Catherine McLeod (Lorraine Ferrell) who had played in A Blueprint For Murder in 1953 alongside Jean Peters and Joseph Cotten. jfh 27May2020
Gavel Tally: Judge uses his gavel to adjourn court ". . until 10 am tomorrow morning." after Handsell's testimony -- twice! OLEF641 11/18/21