The Case of the Fugitive Fraulein

This was a really stupid episode. The series jumped the shark on this one. The clients go to Mason because he's better than US State Department despite his being nothing more than a criminal attorney. Please. Just a dumb, implausible premise.

Perry takes on the commies in this dated episode as he travels to East Germany to dish out some justice- Mason Style.

Professor Hans Ritter (Wolfe Barzell) and his wife Emma Ritter (Jeanette Nolan) have been contacted by the East Berlin authorities that their grand-daughter is in a orphanage. And if Prof. Ritter agrees to return to East Germany they will release the child to Emma so that she may live in the United States.

The Ritter's contact Perry to see if he could help in the exchange of the child. Perry does not agree with the decision for Prof. Ritter to return so he goes over to East Berlin to help negotiate a a better deal and to also prove that the child in indeed their grand-daughter.

And because the Ritters did not take Perry's advise- Prof. Ritter is in the hands of East Germany and Ms Ritter is in the East Berlin Jail accused of murder. Plus the child is still in the orphanage. So it went from bad to worse.

However through some nifty work, Perry is able to make everyone in the NATO region happy and everyone in East Berlin disappointed.

I am sure that at the height of the 'cold war' that this episode played well to viewers. But for todays audiences it played as well as watching a silent movie. It was not a bad script but just so out-dated and unreal. It was so far-fetched that at times seemed almost comical. About the only thing interesting was trying to find out who in the crew was providing information about the Ritters to the East Berlin authorities. Other than that we knew at the beginning how this was going to end.

Not one of the better episodes.

In this episode Perry Mason takes on a client in a different venue than the Los Angeles County Court. The clients are Wolfe Barzell and Jeanette Nolan who are after their granddaughter whom they've never met and who is behind the Iron Curtain. She's being used by the East German government to leverage a defection east by scientist Barzell.

The People's Court in East Germany does not have the protections of one in where the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence is used. And he's up against a ruthless public prosecutor in Gregory Morton. Still when Nolan of all people is accused of murdering one of those Ugarte like scoundrels played by Ronald Long, Mason if not actually in the court itself where he has a much limited role in that rigged system does prove who actually did the deed.

Perry Mason still triumphs in a rigged system. And beats the Communists at a propaganda game. Who could ask for more?

One of the many reasons I enjoy the Perry Mason franchise is because usually, it is NOT topical. These stories could as easily be set in 2018 as in the years 1957-66...except for this one (as well as episode #171, TCOT Two-Faced Turn-a-Bout.) In both instances, the story became topical and therefore dated rather quickly...especially after the Communist governments fell like dominoes behind the Iron Curtain after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. (I will remember to my dying day, my roomie and me watching that on the TV...his parents were Lithuanian escapees to the West in the early 1950s, shortly after he was born.) Mason had the deck stacked against him, but in the face of immutable truth even Herr Stromm had to see reality and let Frau Ritter free. There are a lot of people still alive who remember what it was like, to pass from Western Europe to the East - it really WAS like entering a prison - but making a TV show about the experience dated it immediately. Once us older viewers die off, future viewers will scoff at the animosity and distrust between East and West.

This is not so far removed from reality, but it is overdone a bit. Nevertheless, when truth conquers evil, even evil has to admit to it. Gregory Morton plays his usual, delightful bad guy and Ronnie Long gets his - nice and early. A good watch, all things considered.

I'm not sure if I can pan this one any worse than any of the other reviewers have -- the whole storyline would have been impossible in the Cold War timeline of East Germany. None of the characters here are the least bit believable, the court scenes are a joke, and apparently the E German psychologists are the dumbest people on the planet (from the country that was attempting to lure the best of the best in every profession). The melodramatic solution was not only completely unrealistic, but would never have occurred at the time (at least in the presence of a Western enemy). The ending was far too saccharine but it fit in with the rest of the ridiculousness. Preposterous on its face...