The Case of the Potted Planter

A woman is maligned by her community because she is a successful actress and it is rumored that she is sleeping around. What is amazing is trying to figure out what she ever saw in that sober, abusive guy. Throw in some teenagers and a dose of jealousy and it works pretty well. Not so far fetched as some of these have been.

Robert Bray is a wealthy and troubled man, he knows that his wife, former film starlet Diane Brewster is cheating on him, but who is the question. He's settled on Joe Maross who recently purchased the town radio station from Bray. So Bray decides to fix his wagon by getting the bank to call in the loan Maross used to buy the station. That gives Maross enough reason to want to murder Bray and need the services of Perry Mason.

The murder weapon was potter and Bray was killed in his greenhouse. Right at the beginning Raymond Burr in his cross examination of the medical examiner elicits that the high temperature that the greenhouse was kept in could have skewered the time of death. That opens the field to any number of possible suspects including Davey Davison Maross's daughter who discovered the body.

Here's a hint, the perpetrator is someone who was looking to benefit from what Bray was doing to skirt California's famous community property laws. And it's not who you think.

This was a really clever Perry Mason episode.

You can't keep a campy title down. This deserves a look.

Very, very clever mystery written by Robert C. Dennis, as usual. Since he also wrote for Hitchcock's tv show, there was a cross-over in ideas and plots between both shows. And it's amusing to think about what he would have done with this storyline had he wrote it for Hitch, considering the victim got bumped off in a greenhouse?

The intriguing angle here is the temperature difference in the greenhouse. The temp effectively changed the time of death of the deceased, thus opening the door wider to the investigation.

Robert Bray (known for LASSIE), plays the atypical Mason no-account with lots of money and a beautiful Hollywood wife. Joe Maross is involved in a business venture with Bray, more over, he learns that he's a bit too "chummy" with his wife (Diane Brewster, looking marvelous).

Getting to the best part, and what most reviewers agree, Bray gets his due, though he's murdered after a confrontation with Maross -- who gets charged with the crime. Someone was laying in wait, waiting for him to leave and finished the job. The only debit in most of these mysteries ( sometimes can't be helped), is the perfect timing for the real killer to slip in and out. Was he or she wearing "non squeeky" sneakers? Just who is it? An interesting bunch revs up this story, again thanks to Dennis' fine imagination.

Diane Brewster is best remembered for LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, in a more showy role here. Soap opera star Constance Ford (ANOTHER WORLD) plays Frances. Paul Fix, a staple in tv westerns, plays the district attorney.

SEASON 6 EPISODE 27 remastered CBS dvd box set. Volumes 1 and 2. Thanks to METV for running these prime time mysteries twice daily.

In this full-plated episode we get Martin Walden who is a wealthy nursery owner accusing his wife, Andrea Walden, of having an affair. This was not the first time that Martin has accused her of cheating but it seemed this time Martin was ready for a divorce.

There was some evidence that Andrea may be cheating. One was with a nephew of Martin named Roy Mooney and the other was radio station owner Nelson Tarr. Young Roy had actually been hired to make like he was the other man in Andrea's life while Nelson was an old friend that Andrea still talked with at times. This caused lots of talk with the people in the community.

Nelson had bought the radio station from Martin but when Martin sold the loan to the bank, the bank officials wanted payment to avoid foreclosure. When Nelson goes out to talk with Martin they get into a scuffle with Martin receiving a fist to the face. Later the police are called to the scene and Martin is dead. He had been hit, with great force, by a flower pot from the nursery. Nelson is charged with murder and Perry will defend him in court.

During court proceeding it is determined that Martin Walden was nearly bankrupt. He supposedly had been withdrawing money from the bank and gambling in Las Vegas. But Perry believes there is more to this case than what-meets-the-eye. And after Paul Drake does some investigating in Nevada, Perry's client will hopefully receive a satisfactory result.

This episode is more 'old school' than some of the previous shows. It is back to basic investigation is this nice mystery. Good Watch

This Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Potted Planter," is one of the best in the series. It starts off with one character, teenager Melinda Tarr, riding a motor scooter down a dimly lit road, wearing a party dress. From there, the episode zips along in Robert Dennis's great script. One character is played by Diane Brewster, who looks so good wearing large wide brimmed circular hats that she wears two styles of such hats during her court appearances. I thought courts told people in the room to remove their hats. I have all the Perry Mason episodes on DVD and I transferred them to XviD avi format, to watch them using my media player. Until two days ago, I never got around to watching this episode. This episode has plenty of rotten characters, most of them concerned with money. At one point, Perry says about his client, that he stands to lose his $29,000 investment spent buying a big share of a radio station. Those were the days, when a dollar was a dollar. Robert Hager was the DP for this episode and, boy, did he like photographing Diane Brewster and the shadows her big hats cast on her cheekbones. With several day for night scenes, this episode is one that would look good when Paramount releases Perry Mason on Blu-ray. Assuming Viacom doesn't spin off its Paramount subsidiary, now that parent company Viacom is falling apart (in April 2015). Even in DVD format, "The Case of the Potted Palm" is recommended viewing from one of television's finest series.