The Case of the Impetuous Imp

A young woman gets all supercharged with confidence gets in over her head, thinking things will be resolved for her. Perry is frustrated because she depends on hm and then ignores his advice. She also is manipulative. Of course, there is a bad guy. Sometimes, it's hard to have sympathy for the defendants in Mason's cases.

This episode begins with a young blond Diana Carter (Bonnie Jones) being chased from the estate of Addison Powell by a German shepherd. The dog chases her into the ocean where low-and-behold Perry fishes her out of the water into his boat. While Diana is drying off Perry finds a note in a bottle that Diana is going to carry to the police.

Addison Powell (Richard Webb) use to be married to her aunt Elvira Simmons who drowned in a yacht accident not too long ago. Diana and her Uncle Henry Simmons (Stuart Erwin) believed that Elvira was killed by Addison. And Diana has the note that was supposedly written by Elvira right before her death.

Other than the newly found note there is no evidence to point to anything other than an accident. However Addison believes that all the throwing of stones hinges on Elvira's will that has Diana and Uncle Henry inheriting some of the estate. So Addison calls the two together to settle this misinformation that is being spoken about him and to settle the estate of his dead wife.

When Uncle Henry arrives at Addison's estate, he finds Addison shot to death. After the police arrive they come to the conclusion that the murderer was Diana. Even though the case was rather sketchy Hamilton Burger decides to bring the murder case before a preliminary hearing.

Then, as any Perry Mason fan will know, Diana does a stupid thing- she lies to her lawyer. First she claims she did not leave her house, then she never saw Addison, then she does not own a gun-- in court all these are proved to be lies. Needless to say Perry is not a happy camper.

Bu through a nifty courtroom demonstration Perry is able to shed through all the lies and bring some justice to LA county. Even though the court presentation would have been rejected in nearly all courtrooms in the nation- for TV the judge allows the demonstration and it plays out for the viewer.

The episode was a good watch. I mean after nearly 250 episode it has to be hard to find different ways to kill a person. But the writers did their best by providing a different twist. Plus the beautiful Bonnie Jones was soft on the eyes which always makes a show more interesting. The only thing I would have changed on the entire episode was the prop man. Never put Bonnie Jones behind thick frame glasses.

Pretty young Bonnie Jones budding mystery writer is fished out of the water by Perry Mason and whoever expected that he'd be fishing for clients in that way. She turns out to be his client when the police arrest her for the murder of her uncle Richard Webb.

The former square jawed all American hero Captain Midnight, Webb turns out to be a convincing villain. He married Jones's aunt and now has control of a considerable fortune to the disgust of Jones, Stu Erwin, his brother-in-law and Jones's uncle and any number of other people. Not too many will mourn for him.

Still murder is committed and the truth must be found so that we can decide how much one has to pay. In this case the murderer should not pay too much and we know that Perry Mason does not defend guilty clients.

By the way some forensics not covered by the police, but discovered by Raymond Burr lead the way to the discoverer of the culprit.

In this episode William Talman sent in a young ADA in Don Dubbins to tackle Perry Mason. Silly Hamilton Burger, Dubbins does no better than Burger does and in fact Burger steps in to save the case which we know will be to no avail.