The Case of the Crying Cherub

This is a reasonably clever episode. A Matisse has been stolen from an art museum, replaced with a forgery. The head curator has foolishly allowed this to happen. There is a nearly ex-wife, a group of art snobs, and a neat little explanation that was satisfying.

This episode is a classic mystery story that involves a troubled marriage, a new love and a valuable item that has been stolen. Even though it is a basis for many mysteries this episode ends differently than a regular love triangle show.

The show centers around a Matisse painting that hangs in the Harkins Gallery. The director, Richard Hawkins, finds out that the painting hanging in the gallery is a fake. It appears that someone has stolen the real painting and replaced it with a fake.

When the owner, Amelia Harkins who is a rough old bird, hears about the painting she becomes aware of one employee, June Sinclair, has been seeing a married man named David Lambert. Seems that Mr Lambert use to be an artist that painted copies of original painting for museums.

David Lambert is married to a regular vamp Lisa Carson Lambert. They have been going through a divorce but Lisa refuses to sign the papers so the divorce can become final.

When Lisa overhears about the painting, she calls Amelia Harkins claiming David stole the painting but can get it back if the money is paid. When June hears this she confronts Lisa and they get into a argument and shake-fest (they shake each other). Lisa pulls a gun and June leaves.

Right outside the door June hears Lisa yelling to someone and then shots are fired. Lisa Carson-Lambert ends up dead and June leaves the scene to call Perry.

With some incriminating evidence, Lt Tragg is able to obtain a warrant for murder against June Sinclair. Perry defends her in court while the testimony moves from the stolen painting to the murder in each witness stand answer.

Even though the first half of the show seemed like a chore to watch- the second half pulls the episode to the final stretch. Courtroom testimony from the characters are interesting and fun to watch. We are also introduced to the title of this episode- a crying cherub.

Not the most interesting episode- but watch worthy.

Actor William Talman, who played DA Hamilton Burger, was arrested in March 1960 at a party where everyone was found to be naked and marijuana was discovered. Shortly thereafter, CBS fired him from the show and Jim Aubrey said they would recast his part, which they did not end up doing.

Instead, they had a succession of Assistant DAs played by various actors- starting with this episode, which ran a few weeks after Talman's arrest.

Looking at the courtroom scenes carefully, I believe they did some re-shooting after Talman's firing with a different actor. Watching the courtroom scenes, you can see some changes in lighting.

Normally, the show worked about six to eight weeks ahead of air date. If so, this episode should have been filmed before the incident.

Perry Mason invades the world of art when a valuable Matisse is stolen from a private gallery and Raymond Burr's client Mala Powers is accused of its theft. She's also accused of the murder of Carmen Phillips one sexy vixen who happens to be married to Joe Maross who is seeing Powers. Phillips and Maross are both artists who make a good living copying the great masters. But there is a fine line between copying and forging that's often erased.

Phillips is one greedy blackmailing two timer herself so few tears are shed at her demise. I have to call special attention to Kathryn Givney who plays the owner of the gallery who keeps her son Tom Drake on a very short leash. She is one imperious dowager and her's is the performance from this episode you will remember.

***SPOILERS*** Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, not only gets his client June Sinclair, Mala Powers, off on a murder charge but also makes a killing, a legal one, in the art world. That's at an auction where Perry bought a what at first looked like a worthless painting for a cool $26,000.00 that in reality turned out to be a masterpiece, after the paint was washed off, worth almost ten times as much! As for the murder that his client June Sinclair was on trial for it turned out that her supposed victim Liza Carson Lambert, Carmen Phillips, was in fact involved in the painting heist that turned deadly, for her, in stiffing her partner in crime of his share of the loot! He got only $1,000.00 while Liza before she was murdered was to get almost 200, that's about $200,000.00, times as much.

This is a case of not only murder for profit but greed stupidity and a series of double-crosses among those involved who just couldn't get anything right that made it so easy for Perry to solve. It was June's boyfriend painter of the classics, so he can sell them as it they were genuine, David Lambert, Joe Mross, who at first gets railroader for the crime in murdering his estrange wife Liza. That's until his now lover June who in fact was at the scene of Liza's murder, moments before she was murdered, ended up getting indited for it. This set the stage for Perry to uncover the person who really murdered her at June's trial who's greed, after he was home free, got the best of him.

Perry Mason did his usual sleep walking act going through the motions in exposing Liza's killer as if he was a mind reader in getting the person to admit his crime on the stand without really having any evidence if he did it. The evidence was so flimsy that if it went to a jury it would have been thrown out before even being deliberate on. But by Liza's killer admitting his guilt and also implicating her in the crime of stealing the missing painting,and holding it for a $25,000.00 ransom, it made Perry's job that much easier.