The Case of the Desperate Daughter

Gigi Peareau is the Perry Mason client in this episode and a most uncooperative client she is. She's arrested for the murder of Werner Klemperer who was a distant cousin of her stepmother Osa Massen. Klemperer recently arrived from Germany starts insinuating himself in the family of Robert F. Simon who is Perreau's father and Massen's husband.

Perreau fakes an amnesia act that fools no one. Later she becomes more candid about her role in the events but now insist on her guilt. Very obvious someone is being protected.

I wasn't crazy about this story for precisely that reason. Seems that the perpetrator would not have wanted Perreau to be guilty of any kind of homicide charge. But she nearly was convicted more by her own stupidity than anything else.

Not one of the better stories.

This story stretched credibility in that I cannot see the very attractive daughter involving herself with the bald and sleazy "Colonel Klink" even to protect a stepmom who's " done so much for her". This amounts to prostitution. Surely Doris could have engaged PM to help get her stepmom right with immigration on the basis of asylum from a communist regime.

This particular offering is not one of those that I jump to as being memorable. There are many different characters here, but not one of them is worthy of much sympathy. The "romance" that the basic story revolves around is so preposterous as to be almost laughable. Some of the side stories (and characters) really don't add much to the general storyline. While I really have no complaint on the production values (the acting, directing, etc is very much competent), this one fails in the writing department. The final solution (while somewhat of a surprise) seems to almost be an afterthought. Not the worst, but far from the best.

I never saw PM in my life until recently, and now I watch it every night; but a couple of points.

When new evidence is brought into court by the prosecution, why does Mason always seem to have not seen it before? Didn't they have "discovery" back then when all attorneys have to be made aware of any new evidence before it is brought into the courtroom?

What's the story with Perry and Della? Are they romantically involved, and if not...why not?

Anyway, I can see why Raymond Burr won two Emmys for this role. Great acting!

Something about this episode kept my interest more than the usual Mason; perhaps because I was a child of the "Cold War" and visited Communist East Berlin with college friends. I also liked the persona of Mrs. Bannister, who did have that hard to define European face, and was a good actress to boot. There were several red herrings that made the final gotcha a surprise to me. Well acted and paced (by Perry Mason standards) make this another good Season One outing.