The Case of the Reckless Rockhound

A very good episode with a night sky of guest stars that add to the interest of the show.

This involves Burgess Mine Company located outside LA. Mr Burgess had died and left the mine to his wife, Reba Burgess. Everything is going well until Carl Bascom comes to town.

Mr Bascom was the bookkeeper for the mine before Mr Burgess's death. He had found problems with the books and it seemed that Mr Burgess gave half ownership of the mine to Mr Bascom just days before his death. Since Mr Bascom thought the mine was going to shut down and criminal charges was forthcoming he tailed it off to South America.

After the death, Ms Burgess had some diamonds stored in the local bank's vault. She would use them for collateral to try pay off all the outstanding debts and get the mine running again. When Mr Bascom gets wind of this he is back to claim his half of the mine company. Much to the dislike of everyone in the town.

But before he can get his money he ends up dead by Ms Burgess's gun and she is charged with the murder. Perry comes in to defend her in a courtroom outside the boundaries of LA county.

Even with this simple story- the characters do a good job of making the viewer interested in the outcome of the mystery. We have bank presidents to handymen that seem to be a suspect in the case. But leave it to Perry to find the true closure to this set of circumstance.

In this we have a slew of guest guest actors. Bruce Bennett plays the bank president---Elisha Cook plays Reeling Pete---Ben Johnson plays Kelly---Ted de Corsia plays the police chief--- and some of older stars play minor roles like Ralph Moody and Lenore Shanewise (Ms Shanewise played in one of my favorite 'Perry Mason' episode in the 1958 The case of the Fiery Fingers)

This was a good show with a nice twist at the end. Good watch for all viewers.

The whodunit here is better than usual and I was genuinely surprised by the outcome. Nonetheless, reviewer tdickson is on target. The cast is an unusually illustrious one from the studio golden age, familiar faces from hundreds of B-movies of that era. My real purpose here is to pay my respects to them.

Too bad Audrey Totter never got the recognition her talent deserved. Few actresses of her time could do bad girl seductresses as well as she. Catch her in Lady in the Lake (1946) where she holds up beautifully under director Robert Montgomery's experiment with a subjective camera and 10 minute takes. She's not only lovely to look at but watch her many nuanced expressions.

Obviously, the great movie-maker John Ford thought a lot of Ben Johnson, casting him in a number of Ford's classic Westerns. Johnson looked and sounded more like an authentic cowboy than perhaps any other Hollywood actor. Maybe that's because he was an Oklahoma- born rodeo performer before catching on in Hollywood. Anyway, his best performance likely came as the aging cowboy in Peter Bogdanovich's non-Western The Last Picture Show (1971).

Then there's cult-figure Elisha Cook Jr, fall guy from a hundred crime and horror flicks. My favorite Cook role is from Stanley Kubrick's great caper film The Killing (1956), where the diminutive Cook is paired with buxom sex-pot Marie Windsor. Their verbal sparring over his frustrations with her allure are priceless.

Ted de Corsia was Hollywood's archetypal tough guy, gruff, bull-necked, and believably brutal when necessary. Nonetheless, I don't think I've seen any actor do sweaty fear any better than de Corsia in that crime classic The Enforcer (1951). Those first 10 minutes are a marvel of playing against type, deserving of a noir Oscar if there were such a thing. I expect the jail-house set still shows the sweat stains.

Hawk-nosed Jeff Corey is another unforgettable face, sort of a 40's look-alike of the wacky Kramer from the 90's sitcom Seinfeld. His specialty was shady urban types, such as Blinky Franklin in that masterpiece of the slick double-cross The Killers (1946). Too bad he ran afoul of the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950's that knocked a big hole in the middle of his career.

Tall, athletic Bruce Bennett may not have equaled the others in acting prowess, but he was an excellent Tarzan in Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938) and a strong physical presence. Note also, Roy Barcroft stunt man extraordinaire and bad guy from innumerable Saturday matinées, along with professional old-guy grouch Ralph Moody, veteran of some of the best early Dragnets.

None of these folks were headliners and I know I've gone on for some length for such an obscure web-site. Still and all, I'm a fan of the Mason series and this is an unusually fine cast for any of the series entries. It's sort of like Oscar night for a bunch of B-movie all-stars. Thanks Gail Patrick Jackson for getting them together in a single episode.

A rare fine episode from season eight. The characters were believable and well-acted (especially by Bruce Bennett, Jeff Corey, Ben Johnson and Elisha Cook). Bruce was always at the top of his game, Jeff made his nervousness realistic, and Ben and Elisha were very underrated actors in their own rights. While the story got muddy at times, things got cleared up with a minimum of extraneous scenes. There were a few surprises that were well-placed and carefully crafted. No complaints with the direction, but this group of actors didn't need much. The atypical unmasking of the killer in the courtroom (with associated emotional confession) was the weakest point of an otherwise stellar episode...

A woman who lost her husband, a man who was an irresponsible businessman, has been left to fend for herself. Suddenly, an old business partner of her husband's shows up and demands half of her business. Of course, he is going to be the victim, and she will be the defendant. Some interesting facts come to light along the way.

I thought I was watching "The Love Boat" seeing so many well known actors past their prime. The only difference was the names of the famous actors came in the end credits. The first one I recognized was Audrey Totter, then Bruce Bennett, Jeff Corey, Ben Johnson, Elisha Gish Jr., and finally Ted de Corsia. These six actors go back many years and were in many good movies. If this show were made in 2023 using actors with this pedigree, it would be a big deal. I imagine back then these actors were happy to get a payday. The Perry Mason show often used once famous older actors, but this episode outdid any other in the sheer number of them.