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 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.

The storyline is bit over the top, with too many things going on. I feel it is the weakest episode, so far, in the 1st season. Still not bad, about a c, c+

Using Werner Klemperer as a possible romantic character is sort of hard to swallow. Perhaps cast a brusque kind of guy who is roughly handsome. The whole story is quite weak. The business of amnesia is always tenuous. I wonder what the laws were in 1958 about a foreigner marrying an American. Did they become citizens automatically. I thought maybe that would come into play.

An episode notable for being directed by Arthur Hiller who went on to have a respectable movie career. This included a best director Oscar nomination for Love Story.

Perry Mason defends the daughter of a wealthy man who was crippled in a horse riding accident. Doris Bannister claims to have amnesia and she was having a fling with an East German man called Riker.

However Riker has been looking for Doris's stepmother, Lisa Bannister who is also from East Germany. Lisa is running away from her past and has no desire to return to East Germany. She is wary of Riker who claims to be her cousin.

Doris got involved with Riker in order to aid her stepmother but she is now accused of Riker's murder.

The courtroom scenes were involving enough but something did not click right with the whole story.

Maybe in 1958, viewers might have had a fair idea of the fragmented post world war 2 Germany and especially Berlin. What Lisa is running away from is not clearly spelt out.

Doris was taking one hell of a risk to protect her stepmother by taking a murder rap.

Even the end reveal was confusing. Paul Drake turns up with some last minute evidence in a box. I just wanted to know how did he managed to get it.