The Case of the Lucky Loser

I enjoyed this episode a lot. One of the most cohesive plots and endings, yet still, for me, a complete surprise.

This isn't a fun episode with lots of interplay with Street and Drake. It's all business and lots of it. And a bit on the dark side. Shades of Chinatown with lots of corruption and a very dysfunctional family. Lots of levels to uncover, but it didn't feel contrived (as many episodes do). Really first rate story.

Not that it doesn't have some small plots holes. But they are forgivable, if not undetectable. I didn't notice them until I read another review here. The red herrings are palatable, minimal, and suit the story.

And, for a change, no blackmail.

This is an absolutely top-notch episode, the kind that marks this as one of the very best mystery shows ever to come to television. In this episode, we have: action; a complex legal concept, explained so the audience can grasp it (not easy! I'm a lawyer!); beautiful women (well, Della, as always, plus gorgeous Patricia Medina and classy Heather Angel)and a tough antagonist for Perry; and an outstanding story. The pacing is swift. This is one you will remember.

While the story is certainly interesting, I couldn't help thinking that the entire thing was totally illogical and probably a violation of Ted Balfour's constitutional rights. Since another court had already ruled on the illegality of double jeopardy, it made very little sense that the judge in this case overruled Mason's writ of habeas corpus. The case law quoted by Perry clearly stated that the same person cannot be tried for the same death more than once. Not even if the prosecution was incompetent and didn't adequately investigate. Once again, Burger was so anxious to get to court that he didn't notice a bullet in the head of the victim. He always had a habit of taking the most obvious answer and running with it. This led to his prosecuting Ted on a lesser charge of manslaughter. In any other court in America, that would have been case closed.

For some reason, the judge in the episode claimed he would send it to a higher court and then somehow they overruled it. Case law is there for a reason. It sets a precedent for judges to rule on tricky constitutional issues.

There were also way too many characters thrown at us at once (Boles, multiple Balfours and their wives, Mrs Ingle, and a butler). But the main problem with the episode is that this show is supposed to be all about justice. The double jeopardy thing was the opposite of justice. Even though the truth was exposed, the entire thing was a violation of Ted's rights. Why bring up double jeopardy at all if it's just going to be quickly overruled? Another thing that's weird is the judges seem a lot more cranky in this season. The judge in this case used to be a kindly old man who usually took Perry's side. In this case, he's crotchety and is downright rude at times. Wondering if the creators were trying to create more suspense by making it seem as though even the judges were against Mason?

Even with all the flaws in this episode, it's still miles ahead of any show on television today.

This episode has everything - suspense, obvious lying and not so obvious lying, head scratching moments when you wonder exactly what law school Hamilton Burger attended, and red, green, and blue herrings.

Lawrence Balfour (Bruce Bennett) is getting on a train headed for Mexico and kissing his wife. Harriet, goodbye. But it is just a ruse. Lawrence gets off of the train and follows his wife in a car he has stashed nearby. He follows her to a remote cabin, she greets her lover, and Lawrence waits for her to leave. Lawrence, armed with a revolver, goes into the cabin to confront the other man, that other man shines a bright light in his eyes, there is a struggle, the gun goes off, and the other man falls to the floor dead. Lawrence frantically calls - not the police - but the Balfour family fixer as to what to do. The fixer, Steven Boles, tells Lawrence to catch the same train that he got off of at the next stop, try to get on unobserved, and act as though he never got off of that train. Boles says that he will take care of the body. Did I mention that the Balfour family is very wealthy, thus they can afford an able and loyal fixer.

Things don't go as planned. The body is discovered too soon, somebody sees the license plate of Steven's car as it speeds away from the dead body - the license plate belongs to Lawrence's nephew Ted. Ted was out drinking that night at the goodbye party for Lawrence, and can't account for his time during the accident. Ted is charged with vehicular manslaughter.

There is a hung jury before Perry gets involved in this case of the wrong man charged with the wrong crime. How does Perry figure out what actually happened? He doesn't have to figure out what I just told you. The fixer actually TELLS Perry everything just to let him know who has all of the power in this situation. It is the only time I can remember that somebody told Perry Mason to sit down and then he does so.

If you know what to look for in an episode of Perry Mason, some "tells" will hit you, as in - This is a common situation on Perry Mason, why did they do this scene in this particular way? Also note that, in the age of DNA and hard rules about forensics, the kinds of mistakes being made here by the prosecution would simply not be made today, or even in 1958.

The "Lucky Loser" in this case is the defendant, who--while trying to get assistance to repay a $20,000 gambling debt, is framed for manslaughter, which becomes murder.

I've seen (I believe) all 281 Perry Mason series episodes, as I used to watch them every day way back when TBS cycled them endlessly. There were only 82 Perry Mason novels, and this was novel number 52. I always go back and watch the episode matching a novel to see how they compare. Sometimes they're not all that close, at times even changing the murderer to a different character.

This episode happens to roll along very close to the story in the novel, only eliminating one important character and changing the role of second, combining it into the character dropped for the TV episode. The other main difference is the order of things in the novel are scrambled in the TV episode, so you see certain events at the start of the episode which you only learn about in the last half of the novel. There are a few sequences of dialogue in the novel which were adapted almost word for word into the TV episode, and that is QUITE unusual.

The episode itself is a good mystery, and off the normal plotting track from many Perry Mason mysteries. It's a good show.