The Case of the Nebulous Nephew

The beauty of this episode is that a man recovers his humanity. The two elderly women, incredibly rich, are the targets here, but their unflappable resolve is endearing. They aren't made to be ridiculous as is often the case. There is also a wonderful conclusion to the trial, rather daring for 1963.

Another reviewer on this forum has correctly stated that the end credits(actors real names) do not match those appearing in this episode . In effect to add to that reviewers contribution, the end credits of the NEBULOUS NEPHEW are in reality the end credits to the episode known as THE CASE OF THE SAD SICILIAN. Both episodes are fine as is the acting in each. The SAD segment of the NEBULOUS NEPHEW relates to Irene Stone-a character played by Kate Manx. This attractive middle thirties woman-fragile in real life-committed SUICDE several years later by taking a sleeping pill overdose. What a waste.

Young Ron Starr is Perry Mason's client in this episode, he's been contacted by Hugh Marlowe to help with a con game involving Starr pretending to be the long lost heir of a patent medicine fortune. He gets two maiden sisters, Meg Wyllie and Beulah Bondi to believe him to be their long lost nephew and the idea is for them to change their respective wills.

But Starr backs out and when Marlowe is found clubbed to death with a favorite shotgun of his, it's Starr who's looking real good for the homicide. Raymond Burr who's been brought in by the aunts in the first place, takes Starr's defense at their behest. In fact they're willing to say they killed Marlowe who was not a favorite relative of their's.

The back story here is quite interesting with the young Starr being put in an orphanage in South Carolina where his mother was from and making friend's with a kid who grows up to be Ivan Dixon. When Dixon is called on the stand, he has quite a tale to tell himself. Seems that Starr and he had their own con game going.

This was one of the better Mason episodes of this particular season.

The PM crew definitely started season seven with a BANG. This is by far the best episode of the season. While murder (and the solution of such crime) is usually the main premise of the story, in this case it almost serves as a side-plot to a bigger and more important mystery. It involves a complicated web (woven by the eventual defendant of the homicide) that Perry and his subordinates eventually unravel to great dramatic effect in court, completely overshadowing the murder case. Well-acted, competently directed and suspenseful enough to keep you glued to the edge of your seat. This one is definitely a winner in my book.

At the end of the this great episode on the DVD the ending credits are from 1965. This episode was made for television in 1963. I looked to see if a character in this episode was the late Ivan Dixon from the television show Hogans Heroes which started in 1965, and it obviously was. But surprisingly the credits at end of the show are not from this 1963 episode. Recently I have noticed a lot of these "wrong" credits on a lot of television DVDs from other shows. They probably lost them and replaced them with other credits thinking the public would not notice them. I particularly like this episode because it uses race when it was a taboo subject at the time of its release. I also like the judge in this episode because he always played a crook in earlier movies especially with the "Three Stooges" and other earlier films of the 1940's and 1950's.