The Case of the Skeleton's Closet

This episode--an above average one-- included Ray Collins who portrayed Lt. Tragg since the show's beginning. Veteran actor Collins had been absent for many months and presumably ill. He only had a few short lines and looked frail.

Collins was a big part of this series and with his career coming to an end he was still in the credits until 1965.

This Ep. also had a African American judge in the courtroom scenes. This may have been a first in US TV.

Another reviewer commented on Ray Collins. I've always loved his presence in the episodes. He was a perfect, and sometimes cleverly antagonistic, compliment to the series. His absence in the newer episodes was both sad and disappointing. It just wasn't quite the same without him! May he RIP.

I agree. There is a lot of prior restraint here. The courts should be there to protect those who are slandered; not to keep someone from writing about events. I know this could invite abuse, but the alternative is what invites totalitarianism. This is really out of a different time and I'm sorry to see the producers selling these goods.

It isn't the murder that will get you riled about this episode--it's Perry Mason's casual attitude towards censorship. Someone wrote a "smutty book" and Perry is out to help punish him.What an antique!

Apparently the tiny town of Cliffside is rife with naughty people who have sex with each other, and sex did not exist in 1963 America. Babies were made by birds. So, when a nefarious novelist decides to write about ladies and men doin' it, all the bluenoses puff up. Except for publisher David Lewis he says he will, then says he won't, after Perry slaps a class defamation suit against him. This is weird because the lurid book cover looks like a Perry Mason novel.

Anyway, whatever sordid sex details were covered in Michael Pate's novel would be tame topics today. They'd likely be put in a reality show.

To sum up, Perry should have had a keener eye to the First Amendment. What a prude..

Perry Mason is representing the small community of Cliffside which has just been made the target of a racy novel by Michael Pate. It's a kiss and tell memoir painting the town to be west coast version of Peyton Place. And the good citizens of Cliffside have retained Raymond Burr so that their secrets are not spilled to the world.

But Peggy McCrary has a special secret, she's a bit puritanical and doesn't trust the good judgment of her kids. She was once married to Pate and gave the kids the name of her second husband and she doesn't want her girls to find out they come from the seed of a rat.

But rats have more than one enemy and Pate has his usual collection, the same as any victim in a Perry Mason story. Just publishing a Peyton Place novel guarantees that. It turns out to be a surprise perpetrator, a character you thought of as peripheral.

When you can't figure the perpetrator, it's the sure sign of a good Perry Mason.