The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

Stewart Bradley is the Perry Mason client in this episode. He's a former army buddy of Raymond Burr's who calls up Burr long distance from some rural part of California. He works on an estate as a handyman for Tom Palmer and his wife Phyllis Avery. He thinks maybe he has a thing for Avery though he has never approached her.

Palmer disappears and the police in the person of Claude Akins believes it murder. Turns out to be murder when Palmer's body is found in a lake. Which gives Bradley a real need for a defense attorney and makes Perry Mason have to revise his own theory of the crime.

A hint of background is given for Perry Mason. We learn that Bradley was in the Army Air Corps during World War II and he was at Normandy as a pilot. I assume they served together as Bradley was a pilot and Perry could have been a paratrooper.

As is usually the case the deceased was not a nice person and had a lot of folks out there who would like to have seen him dead. The culprit was a bit of a surprise though.

Nice to get a bit of personal insight to Perry Mason.

Well written, performed. Mason's performance in court is among the best. Claude Akins cop role and Hansen's DA are very good, too.

This is really a good story, kept you interested. A lot of these early Perry Masons were taken directly from the novels, towards the end 65-66 they were writing the stories sometimes using several books, obviously the writers changed and some have written that a later director was not the best. This was during the shows prime. Good story , great writers and everyone does a great acting job. I think this is the only Perry Mason that his client does the first part of the episode without a shirt on. I can recommend, if you are a Perry Mason fan, you need to make sure you see this story

Once again we have a man who has seen trouble much of his life, being played by a married woman who has a nasty husband. The guy is sort of an innocent and keeps his distance, despite being urged on by his libido. Soon he finds himself in the courtroom when the husband dies. But the death is a twisted mess of events. Pretty good, but sometimes pushes the envelope.

This as actually quite a good episode and was enjoyable to watch the twist and turns as you try to figure out Who Done It. As is normally the case in the early Perry Mason Episodes you are kept guessing till the very end. Something I have always enjoyed about this show. Some interesting added actors who never made it back to Perry Mason Land. The one I was shocked at was Claude Adkins in an early roll biggest surprise was here he was actually one of the Good Guys something he rarely played on TV or in the Movies. In the later years he would of been a good regular instead of John Anderson who we ended up getting but that is in my own Opinion.

Over all I give this episode 10 out of 10.