The Case of the Fifty Millionth Frenchman

Hilarious that the previous two commenters single out the accents as a weakness of this episode. Two of the three French characters in the episode are, in fact, native French speakers. One is a Frenchman and one is French Canadian. David McCallum, the third actor using an accent, is a trained dialectician, and to a French native-speaking ear, his dialect work in this episode is quite good. Most viewers are not discerning or educated when it comes to actors' accents, (the correct professional term of art is actually "dialect", not "accent"), and it seems that the famously put-on one used by Maurice Chevalier in GiGi is the standard most audiences are familiar with and accept. Of course, there are as many authentic dialects/accents in every language as there are American accents, and there are at least two in this Perry Mason episode. In this instance, the episode's plot is not the series' strongest and the acting, in general, is not terrific, but the accents are actually one of the stronger elements of the episode.

Oh dear. The previous episode was one of the best ever but this rather pedestrian episode features some bad acting with the supposed French all speaking wid zee accent. Strange to think David McCallum who guest stars here as an accused Frenchman (although his accent is as French as Dick Van Dyke's Cockney was English) probably got his Illya Kuryakin role on the back of this. And as for the story - I got the murderer before the case even got to court.

We have here another of the "ethnic" episodes (French in this case). I don't have any problem with the French dialects -- they are more than adequate (2 actors were French speakers, and David McCallum's is quite good). The plot is the same as we've seen before, so it's basically just the same dancer in a different costume. The direction is a bit ham-fisted, and the side-plots convoluted and uninteresting. The murderer is pretty apparent early on, so much of the suspense deflates rather quickly. It's more a matter of how the killer would be unmasked. Kind of a ho-hum episode, aside from the French dialects.

I found this episode to be intriguing. This whole row about the French accents on this board is rather infantile.

Regardless, the players did a good job. And so did the production people. I enjoyed seeing a young David McCallum as I recalled how well he did on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and many other series on television. Perhaps the plot could have been fleshed out but the end result was fine for my taste.

The title line, is the last line spoken by Raymund Burr. It elicited a smile and pleased feeling on my part. Good episode with interesting story.

I'll just stick to the moment the plane crashed.. "Pull up! HIT THE GAS!!!" LOL! And the plane is obviously close enough to cause a flash of light on the controller's face, but neither he nor the others in the tower bother to duck in any way. Hilarious! But, typical PM! 4/5/2023-Just watched it again. What a chucklefest!

And now, for the sake of meeting IMdb's ridiculous character minimums: I'll just stick to the moment the plane crashed.. "Pull up! HIT THE GAS!!!" LOL! And the plane is obviously close enough to cause a flash of light on the controller's face, but neither he nor the others in the tower bother to duck in any way. Hilarious! But, typical PM!