The Case of the Prankish Professor

About the midpoint of this episode ( S6, E15), Della Street walks into a hotel lobby and then disappears into the telephone room. Paul Drake walks in from a different door. He is seeking info on a person of interest. It is never explained in the story line why Della Street was at the hotel, or if Paul Drake even knew she was there.

A Robert C. Dennis original, lead writer for Hitchcock's tv show, and I wouldn't be surprised if this slick story (or an outline) wasn't considered for the master of suspense. Rich with possibilities.

Barry Atwater (looking a bit more wry and sly with a moustache) portrays "playful" Professor Hewes, a modern approach type teacher with many tricks up his sleeve, such as staging a mock murder in his own class? Among other interesting sidelines, he's about to get divorced from his wife, Laura (Patricia Breslin) and stands accused of stealing a manuscript, which eventually became a best seller for him. What a trickster.

You can well see how Dennis developed this despicable character, likely to interest Hitch. Most definitely, the professor is doomed (and should be), however it's his poor wife who is charged with cold blooded murder. Breslin well cast here, a role not uncommon for her. The tantalizing list of suspects mounts, yet another entertaining guessing game as to whodunit. And remember, the solemn faces always rule, or is the most content face? Director Jesse Hibbs' closeups and angles are first rate, an inspiration to many tv dramas and cop shows.

Movie buffs will appreciate Kent Smith guest starring, remembered for the ultimate noir slash soaper, NORA PRENTISS. Comedian Barbara Pepper, a few years before GREEN ACRES, appears. Originally considered to play Ethel on I LOVE LUCY. Look for Joyce Van Patten, perfect match for the good professor while he's alive.

SEASON 6 EPISODE 15 remastered CBS dvd box set. Volumes 1 and 2. Thanks to METV for running these oldies twice daily.

An English professor stages a stunt in which he has paid someone to enter his classroom and shoot him at point blank range. A student pushes him out of the way. The professor then tells the class to spend the next 25 minutes writing about what they remember seeing as an assignment. Later he is informed by the shooter that somebody had replaced the blanks in the gun with real ones and had the "hero" not pushed the professor out of the way he would have been killed.

The professor has other troubles too. His divorce is not final, and since their separation he has racked up ninety thousand dollars in royalties for a trash romance novel he penned. His wife wants half of that money as part of the property settlement, except the trash romance novel was actually the work of a deceased former student that he plagiarized. Except the deceased former student plagiarized it too - Her sister wrote the actual text. Very much alive, she wants that money too and she has the original notes to prove she is the author.

The professor goes to Perry Mason to help him with the property settlement problem, but thinks he can settle the plagiarism on his own. Things get permanently settled when the professor ends up murdered.

Perry has taken on poor clients before, and he has taken on clients that have to have the absolute truth pulled out of them. But here, Perry is dealing with a cold, arrogant, unlikable client in the person of the professor, at least up until he dies. The professor is quite the womanizer too, having romanced at least one student. And let's not even get started on what would happen today if a professor staged a shootout in a California classroom. I doubt that would even go over in Texas. Charges of plagiarism and his ex-wife's financial demands would be the least of his problems. As usual, it's a pleasure to see Perry reason his way through a case.

Yes, the professor isn't a nice guy. I don't like him. But the wife doesn't work and doesn't do anything. There aren't any children so she's not a stay at home mom. Just a leech who does nothing and expects her husband to support her comfy life and then likely will demand alimony during the final divorce. As a woman that is offensive to me. I love Perry Mason. But this is another episode where I have no sympathy for the defendant.

It really shows how much our society has changed and also how much it continues to change. I do not believe that the soon to be ex-wife should have been entitled to anything that her husband earned after they were legally separated. I also don't believe that the ex-wife should receive any alimony if there were no children.

Lastly, it appears that none of the wives in this episode actually work.

The episode begins inside the college class room of Professor Hewes English class. During an staged experiment, the Professor comes very close to being murdered when someone replaces blank bullets with the real ones. Professor thinks someone is trying to kill him.

The Professor is right to be suspicious since he plans on getting a divorce from his wife and also has stolen a manuscript, from a former female student that has recently died, and published a book, 'L'Affaire Annabelleas' as his own. And now the dead student's sister, Sally Sheldon, has found out that the Professor has claimed he wrote the book and used a false name as the author. Sally is putting the squeeze on Professor Hewes.

When Professor Hewes ends up stabbed to death much evidence points to his wife, Laura, as the suspect. It was just days before the divorce became final and now Laura is set to receive a large amount of money that was going to her ex-husband. And with her fingerprints on the murder weapon, it does not look good for Perry's client, Laura Hewes.

An entertaining mystery that was well written and well acted by the people involved. A notable thing in the show is that we actually get two gallery spectators that stand up during the trial making confessions to testimonial evidence- both are standing at the same time. The episode was interesting from beginning to end which always makes for a good watch.