The Case of the Glittering Goldfish

While working as a partner in a fish store with Gage Clarke, John Hudson comes up with a formula for gill fever. But Clarke's in debt up to his neck and fish chain store owner Murvyn Vye buys them out in order to acquire the new formula.

Murvyn Vye with that deep voice and swarthy complexion played a variety of villains on the big and small screen. As Cecil Kellaway the chemist that Vye uses to see if the formula is genuine, to know him was to hate him. Kellaway steals this episode with his inebriated scientist.

When the perpetrator is nailed in court by Raymond Burr it comes almost as a relief. The coda on this episode has the perpetrator looking forward to prison as a field of endeavor.

Can't this that.

This entertaining show begins at Fredrick Rollins Tropical Fish Store as one of Mr Rollins' employees, Tom Wyatt, is showing a man named Jackson Huxley a cure for a nasty fish disease named gull fever. Wyatt mixes his paste with the water and the fishes that were near death seemed cure of the disease and are back swimming around. This is going to be something that will bring much money to the store. However we learn that Jackson Huxley had bought the Rollins fish store not long ago and since he owes the company he going to push Wyatt and Rollins out of the way and profit from the remedy. Needless to say Wyatt is not happy.

Later Jackson Huxley is found murdered and the main suspect is Tom Wyatt. When the police learn that Wyatt was also dating a secretary of Huxleys, plus Wyatt's blood was found at the scene, it will be only a short time before Hamilton Burger will issue a murder warrant for Wyatt. Perry will defend him in court against a large amount of unflattering evidence.

But do not think Wyatt was the only suspect. There is a cascade of people that are not sadden by Huxley's demise. From his jilted wife, a fired sexy secretary, a partner in financial trouble, a drunk chemist and the owner of the fish store - Perry will have to look at all the facts and then determine who had the best motive or the luckiest chance to get rid of Huxley.

This is another one of the mysteries that will keep you on your toes. When people team up together to form an alibi, you know that it will be a tough case for Perry to defend. But like always, Perry will maneuver through the muck till a confession is reached and has his client out in time for supper. Good watch.

If you are prone to motion sickness, take some Dramamine before watching The Case of the Glittering Goldfish, because you are in for some very abrupt and constant camera motion - in particular, some rather intense close-ups. But before the dramatic direction goes into full effect, we are shown a monumental innovation: the cure for gill fever! Tom Wyatt has spent the better part of his recent years perfecting the formula. What he doesn't know is that, in order to fund the experiments, his employer (Gage Clarke as Frederick Rollins) has sold the fish store to a man named Huxley.

Huxley's purchase made him sole owner of Wyatt's cure for gill fever, because it was done in Huxley's store with Huxley's lab equipment. As you can imagine, both Wyatt and Rollins are pretty cheesed with Huxley and they do the intelligent thing by consulting Perry Mason, who promises to look over the contract and find a loophole that will restore ownership of the fish medicine to Wyatt and Rollins. Unfortunately, Wyatt's blood is found all over the scene of the crime when Huxley's corpse is found- he's been poisoned with morphine. Wyatt is arrested and the search for the killer begins, a search complicated by the fact that everybody hated Huxley. Including Huxley's wife.

Cecil Kellaway plays Huxley's drunken scientist (Darrell Metcalf), assigned to break down the formula for the gill fever cure. Kellaway is hilarious as the drunken genius. One scene has Kellaway and Mason trading fish metaphors during a discussion of the murder, and even the stone-faced William Hopper can be seen trying to stop himself from laughing.

The aforementioned direction is a bit jarring and not to my taste, but it adds to the general feel of campy late-50s noir. All in all, this is not up there with the best of the Perry Mason episodes. It's corny, complicated, and predictable if you're an avid Mason fan. But Kellaway's performance is every bit as contagious as gill fever, and for that, it's a fun hour of television.

What we have here is a tale of two episodes; the one with the milquetoast, boring script, and the one with Cecil Kellaway as a guest star. The writers were definitely not going to win an Emmy on this one -- it just never really went anywhere and wasn't anything we hadn't seen before (just with different characters and situations). Then there is Cecil Kellaway's portrayal of Darrell Metcalf -- a brilliant actor that can even make a badly written part sparkle like a fine diamond. And that's exactly what we have here. This episode is worth watching just for that -- just don't expect much else. But I'd sit through an average show just to see Mr. Kellaway anytime...

The accused did have a rather violent temper and was abusive to his girlfriend. He also was careless in his research, doing work on company time and then being surprised when the jerky owner moves in for his share. When he punches the guy out, it is beyond the rights he has. I just wasn't all that interested in this episode.