The Case of the Cheating Chancellor

In this episode of Perry Mason after meeting the victim and title character in the story one can only imagine some of what Barry Atwater probably pulled on the way up the educational ladder. There is a severe difference of opinion as to a book he has claimed to have written. A young instructor without tenure played by James Noah saying he did all the work and was entitled to have at least a collaborative share. But Atwater threatens to kill his Ph'D chances should he fuss.

He's also a cheating dog of a man who has been stepping out on wife Louise Latham with Lee Merweather who is a former Miss America. Finally answers to one of Noah's tests were stolen and Atwater is holding the whole class responsible unless the guilty party confesses or he ferrets out the truth. That sure made him a host of enemies.

But when he's stabbed to death it's Noah who is arrested and is fortunate to have Perry Mason visiting because this Raymond Burr's alma mater. Even luckier to have Della Street and William Hopper along for the ride.

A crisis of conscience on the cheating has got Peter Helm in a bind. He doesn't want to be labeled a fink and it's his roommate Michael Walker who ripped off the answers. Helm does the right thing in the end and it's his testimony that leads to the identity of the real killer. But Michael Walker's border on the unbelievable.

It's the reason I can't rate this as a top Mason story.

Many episodes over the years have had a tyrannical professor involved. Now a strict educator isn't so bad, even if he is a bit of a philistine, but this guy got personal. There is the theft of tests and a sculptor in love with the cheating guy. Some of the slang and the interactions among the students is rather dated.

This one had it's moments, but all-in-all it was pretty average -- not a whole lot to really make it a stand-out episode. Not to say there weren't some good performances -- Louise Latham (as usual) has her character's motivations honed razor sharp and Lee Merriweather is very believable as the angry, sheltered concubine mistress. Perry's one-on-one with Peter Helm's character, while a bit melodramatic, was certainly apropos for the issues of the day. The plot seemed slow at times and the killer was a not a surprise (not a tremendous amount of suspense there). It could have been tighter, but it was certainly above average (especially for S9)...

Dr. Stuart Logan is both cheating on his wife with a younger woman AND he is cheating one of the Ph. D. students and instructors there, Van Fowler, by stealing his ideas and taking credit for his book. To add insult to injury Logan is rude to both his wife and the instructor from whom he is stealing.

In a side plot a young man, Bob Hyatt, is worried he'll not pass his finals and graduate, thus disappointing his father. His roommate offers him the easy way out - the answers to the hardest final exam he'll take - but he turns it down. Dr. Logan finds out about the theft of the answers and tells everybody in the class that he is holding their exams and will expel everybody whose answers align with the stolen answers. Given Dr. Logan's personal and professional behavior I'm surprised he is so devastated by his own cheating students. But he doesn't have time to be shocked because, later that night, he is murdered.

Chance would have it that Perry Mason is on campus for a fund raiser and reunion - this was Perry's alma mater - so he is on the case when cheating educator is killed and Van Fowler is arrested for murder.

This was one of the few Perry Mason episodes to deal with the angst of the younger generation. He has a conversation with young Bob Hyatt, who might be able to shed some light on who did kill the professor, but he'd have to rat out his cheating best friend in the process. Hyatt then enumerates his list of complaints against Perry's generation, which grew up in the Great Depression and fought WWII. Of course getting expelled from college in 1965 has its own problems - primarily that you are likely to find yourself in Vietnam with a rifle slung over your shoulder.

This wasn't a great episode of Mason, partly because Hamilton Burger is not the prosecutor due to the distant jurisdiction.