The Case of the Telltale Tap

There isn't much question here that Jeanne Bal owns this episode. She is absolutely magnificent in her potrayal of the evil and tyrannic secretary Vera Wynne. Despite her relatively short screen time, she makes the most of every second. The rest of this entry is more-or-less fluff. The plot is too confusing, the rest of the cast is adequate, but it slips downhill after Bal's exit. Unfortunately, the writers must have thought the more complex the issues, the more interesting the stories would be -- but as the cliche goes, less is more. The confession in the end is the low point. Watch it for Jeanne Bal -- she makes the rest worthwhile...

Money is being embezzled at a company. A head secretary to the CEO has total knowledge of the operations. She has an interest in a young man who does not share her beliefs. She is a tyrant and strikes fear into several of the people in the loop. A disreputable electrician is a specialist in wiretapping and he pays a huge price for helping with a fraud. Not a bad story.

Jeanne Bal's scenes, along with H. M. Wynant, make this episode memorable, knew their time in this episode would be limited--and give it their best. Jeanne plays the psychotic executive secretary, in love with the new controller, Clyde, who is having a relationship with the C. E. O.'s niece--that was previously screwing the fired former controller. Add this to the phone-conversation recording and the leaking of the advance information regarding stock purchases by a mutual fund--this becomes an important historical episode.

There is courtroom exchange with Burger & Perry arguing the admissibility of wire-tapped conversation in a murder trial, with Burger arguing they can, if the they were taped by the murder victim, and Perry arguing that they are illegal in California (and therefore, non-admissible), and that gives some importance to the timing of the episode, as the technology was keeping ahead of the courts. Give the writer some credit for having having the one that's sets up the "Telltale Tap" finished off, by being "clubbed" with HER OWN PHONE! All the way around, a good episode to record, and re-watch, although MeTV has cut out some scenes containing actors listed on IMDB.

No Perry Mason episode is perfect, but I'm going to round my score up to a 10. For an hour-long show--this one is timely, has good acting, and the determination of the killer--who was in it from the opening scenes.

Raymond Burr complained that the plots in Season 8 were too complicated for even him to figure out, and this episode is an exemplar of this. As the end credits rolled, I still had little idea just what the hell happened.

Five stars is about as few as I'd give any Mason episode (at least of the ones Burr actually appeared in). The acting is good, as usual, especially by Jeanne Bal and H.M. Wynant, whom you reliably hate in every appearance (his character, not the actor). But the story itself is another of the "explain it all in the last five minutes" variety that makes you wonder if they also WROTE it in five minutes.

Still, at least they didn't go for one of their novelty shots. The characters, even though burdened by forced plot machinations, fit right in.

This story centers around So-Cal Mutual Investment Company. The president of the company is the mild Archer Bryant (Roland Winters) he has an executive secretary named Vera Wynne (Jeanne Bal). She is one of those people that seems to be keeping the office going when times are rough.

She believes that a young new office manager Clyde Darrell (Linden Chiles) is in love with her and she gives him some information that an stock broker Ian Jarvis (Parley Baer) is getting kick backs from stock purchases made by So-Cal.

In the mean time we learn that the secretary is not all she makes herself out to be. After the stock broker Ian Jarvis was fired, she calls him up and gives inside information about the company. she also taps the phone of the president.

When she finds out that Clyde is in love with another woman, she turns into a black widow and provides information that Clyde is stealing from the company. When she calls Clyde in the middle of the night to confront him- Clyde knocks Vera to the ground and he thinks he has killed her. He runs to get help but cannot find anyone. Later he is charged with the murder of Vera. Perry is there to defend him and find the true killer.

But hold on to your seats Perry fans. The ending is kind of bizarre. This is one of those episodes where Perry starts telling how the events must have happened and someone from the gallery confesses to two murders, forgery and theft all without the slightest evidence against the person in nearly the entire show. The story was very interesting but it seemed the ending was TV magic.

With all that said- it is still better than most things on TV today. Middle of the pack show for me.