The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

This case was based on a story by Erle Stanley Gardner. This might explain why the set up takes it time and it also has a crime noir element.

Frank Lawton is an old army buddy of Perry Mason. He works as a handyman for wealthy Scott Shelby and Lawton has aspirations to be a writer.

Shelby though seems to think that Lawton is getting a little too friendly with his wife.

The viewer sees Shelby setting something up and plans to leave Lawton as a patsy.

When Shelby disappears, Lawton is a suspect and Perry Mason is called in. Perry thinks that Shelby has faked his own disappearance because his company was in financial difficulties. Later Shelby's corpse is found.

Unusually here Detective Sgt Phillip Dix is prepared to consider that Shelby might had faked his disappearance. There are several references in the courtroom scenes that Perry might have been hoisted by his own petard.

It is difficult to buy though that someone who claimed to have taken photos on a particular day could be said to have a cast iron alibi. After all those photos could had been taken on some other day.

Shelby's manner of death was nasty so the reveal of the murderer might be shocking.

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.

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.

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.

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