This is kind of a weird episode for Perry Mason as we deal with the art of Black Magic. Fay Wray, plays Mignon Germaine, a night club dancer that has an act where she changes herself into young women by means of voodoo.
But the real plot of the story features Larry Germaine (Gary Collins) who works as assistant DA for Hamilton Burger. He has fallen in love with this alcoholic blond named Carina Wileen (Karen Steele). All this much to the dislike of Larry's mother Mignon Germaine.
Larry has been working on a case involving Allied Chemical Company. It comes to the attention of Hamilton Burger that Larry may have been offered a job a Allied Chemical not to prosecute the case. He also learns that Carina may have ties to Allied and he has to suspend Larry from the DA's office.
When Carina goes to the club to see the voodoo show. Larry's mother, Mignon, comes to the her table with a voodoo-doll and stabs the doll in the heart with a ceremonial knife. Moments later Carina passes out and is rushed to the hospital in a coma.
Now here is when it gets kinda too far-fetched. The suspended Larry is looking for his mother and for some reason sneaks into Carina'a room at the hospital.(Why? I am not clear). And when the nurse come in the room, Larry is standing over Carina and she has the ceremonial knife sticking out of her chest.(You do have to catch the nurse screaming- I know she was an extra but you could tell she practiced that scream for a week) Needless to say, Larry is charged with the murder of Carina and Perry is to defend him in court.
The story changes gears as we enter the courtroom. We start to learn the dirty laundry of Allied Chemical Company that will lead Perry to find the true murderer. It converts back to a regular Perry mystery as we have blackmail and embezzlement coming to light. It is sort of ashame since the story of the voodoo was much more interesting that the part about Allied Chemical.
Anyway, through a spectator in the courtroom, we learn the true set of events and Larry will still be able to catch his mother's late show at the night-club.
Since the first half of the episode was so interesting- when we got to the second half I felt disappointed. It really was not a bad show but it has so much more potential that was left unexplored.
