The second show in a row where Paladin plays Perry Mason, this time defending eccentric old coot Parker Fennelly. Raymond Burr's iconic legal drama launched at the same time as this series, and I suspect its popularity prodded the producers to add courtroom acumen to Paladin's already crowded curriculum vitae of skills, talents, and honed experience.
Paladin offers his suite to a newlywed couple who failed to make a reservation and discovered there's no room at the inn. When asked where he'll stay the night, Paladin claims he'll be playing in an all-night poker game. Yeah, right. By this thirty-fourth episode of the series, we all know of Paladin's penchant for feminine pulchritude and of his enviable ability to woo wanton women. When Paladin breezed jauntily into the suite for breakfast, he didn't strike me as a man who spent the night hunched over a table in a smoke-filled room. (Okay, okay, he did do just that with Leadhead a show ago in "The Silver Queen.")
Parker Fennelly plays Rupe Bosworth, a twice widower with a pet owl and a peculiar pastime of shooting cuckoo clocks with a rifle loaded with homemade shells. He also tosses in the trash his dirty dishes because he hates washing them. Why wash when you can buy a new set in town for a buck? He also fills his acres of land with sweet peas because he loves seeing and smelling them in bloom. Rupe has plenty of money but is arguably shortchanged in common sense. But is he crazy? Certifiably nuts in need of locking up in an asylum? That is the question before the court.
"Three Sons" proves the adage that the villains make the more interesting characters. Paul Jasmin as good brother Hank Bosworth is at best bargain-brand vanilla. It's the two Goofuses to his Gallant that steal the show. Up n' coming stars Warren Oates and Kevin Hagen play the bad brothers John and Ed. They conspire with a corrupt attorney to have their doddering dad dumped in a padded cell so they can lay premature claim to their inheritance.
Another adage proven herein is the one about apples not falling far from the tree. John and Ed take after their father and are less evil and more just dimwitted bumblers. They reminded me of the backwoods brothers Larry, Darryl and the other brother Darryl on NEWHART. A quick judge of character and threats, Paladin appeared unruffled and unafraid when visiting their shotgun shack, even though John had a rifle pointed at him. He knew Gomer and Goober posed no real threat but were merely being played as pawns by their mercenary "shyster" (Paladin's apt phrasing).
Paladin takes an immediate liking to Rupe, played as a simple and naive rustic rube, as if Parker Fennelly were still in character as Pa Kettle (he pinch hit for the late Percy Kilbride the preceding year). I didn't warm up to Rupe and was puzzled by Paladin's being taken in by his maddeningly self-indulgent even spoiled childlikeness. Paladin doesn't usually suffer fools gladly, and Rupe was a fool, the kind from whom money is soon parted.
The courtroom scene was brisk, satisfying, and as unsurprising as the one last episode. And yeah, like last time, Paladin pulls all the right heartstrings of the aging judge, surfing that argumentum ad misericordiam fallacy wave all the way to victory. S. John Launer as Roy Daggett, Esq does his level best Hamilton Burger impression, vainly objecting and going all apoplectic as the ball in his slam-dunk case deflates.
Now what did Paladin expect when he went charging out the side door into an empty alley? A not unexpected ending ensues, closed out with Paladin's mic-drop line to the sheriff: "His lawyer will tell you what happened. I'll come around later and tell you the truth."
In many ways "Three Sons" is a mirror to "The Silver Queen," featuring wealthy old men doing whatever the hell they want to do, social conventions be damned. An old and oft-cited commonplace claims that the Eisenhower era was an age of gray-flannel-suit conformity, but these two episodes effectively argue for individuality and champion those who swim against the tide.
