The Case of the Tarnished Trademark

This may not be the worst ever episode of PERRY MASON but it comes very close with a muddled and hard to believe plot and a lead performance from Albert Swenson that's somewhere out in space with an accent that's as Danish as Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep was Cockney - and his supposedly nice character is punctuated with wild nonsensical outbursts and comes over as one of those people you sometimes see in the street who talk loudly to themselves. I really wanted Perry to lose this one but it suffered like so many other episodes of someone standing up at the end and shouting 'I did it' as so many episodes did. And to think the 50 minutes I wasted watching this could have been spent doing something worthwhile!

The Perry Mason client for this episode is Karl Swenson who is a manufacturer of high quality furniture. He's been in business for over 30 years and his trademark name stands for quality. But he'd like to get out and enjoy some retirement years. I can identify with that. He and his new socialite girlfriend Marie Windsor have sold the business to Dennis Patrick and another piece of the land of the business for a children's hospital.

Sad to say though Dennis Patrick is a conman who has no intention of doing with the business what Swenson would like. He's buying cheap woods and lowering the quality of the furniture he's selling and banking on the Swenson trademark to make some quick profits. Patrick won the company in a bidding scheme that might not have completely been on the up and up.

Anyway he's found dead and there are a lot of suspects including the men at Swenson's factory all of who would have lost their jobs, other parties who bid on the factory, etc. But it's Swenson who Raymond Burr has to defend.

Swenson is a good manufacturer and boss, but boy is he thick about the ways of the world. He had to be good at his craft because he's so naive in personal matters.

That's all I'll say on this Perry Mason episode.

This is one of those stories where the defendant is so stupid, it's hard to have any sympathy for him. I'm not talking about his being charged with murder but the idiotic way he ran his business. Are we to believe that someone as clueless as he could have produced such quality and kept the business financially sound.

This one is not one of my favorites. About the only positive I can give is that at least Karl Swenson is playing a Scandanavian instead of a miscast ethnicity. His character is too irascible for the audience to really get behind. Marie Windsor also seems very out-of-place in this little world. Ossa Massen is well-cast, at least. And of course, Dennis Patrick is the perfect hated (and soon to be dead) antagonist...

The plot in this case is completely illogical. Axel sells his business to someone who plans to use the profits to build a children's hospital. When Axel finds out that is not the case, he gets so mad he publicly threatens to murder the buyer, and of course, when the buyer is found dead, Axel is the one arrested. But let's think about this. If the business is so profitable that there are enough profits to build a children's hospital, why didn't Axel keep the business and apply the profits himself? Why is it okay for Axel to sell the business (presumably at a profit) and then criticize the buyer for attempting to do the same? What reasonable buyer would purchase a business merely to give away the profits?

Oh well, the lead in does not have to make sense. As long as someone gets killed, and Perry's client is accused of the murder, we get to see Perry do his stuff. Will he be able to get Axel off? Or will this be the case that Perry loses? Watch the show yourself and find out!