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.

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.

Nina Rouvet a lovely 30 something comes to Perry Mason's office and asks for help. Not for her, but for her young friend an immigrant young French kid played by David McCallum. Her beast of a husband Jacques Bergerac a womanizing ski instructor at Arthur Franz's ski lodge has taken $5000.00 that McCallum has lent her.

After quite a few suspects like Don Collier, Coleen Gray,. and Jackie Coogan are introduced to us at the lodge when McCallum arrives, Bergerac is killed in a plane crash. He was also a pilot and flew charters to the lodge on a return trip to Los Angeles. His regular thermos of coffee had been doped.

So Perry Mason who had been retained to help get McCallum's money back is now in his element as a defense attorney. Bergerac was not a nice man and a lot of people had reason to kill him.

Not the strongest episode, but a well acted one. And I think you'll spot the killer well before the climax in court.

An important episode to watch due to the public's fascination with skiing, as to the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Olympics, perhaps. But the old culprit, "barbiturates in the Thermos bottle" causing the death of Andre--loathed by every man in this episode, as to prowess over all the good looking women in this episode. Think of David McCallum's career with CBS, and the early stages where he plays a naive, bumbling, giant glass wearing, nerd to a an ongoing career as medical examiner--I don't know if there is an actor in TV that has had a longer run on TV. Maybe this part was the first to launch him as the sexy, cerebral, foil that he played through out his career.

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.