The Case of the Wary Wildcatter

Roger Byrd, an novice nature photographer, is filming wildlife along a roaming meadow. Mr Byrd hears some commotion coming from the road above and points his camera toward the area. He sees a man, Charles Houston, placing his unconscious wife behind the wheel of a car right before pushing the car over a canyon cliff.

Mr Byrd then blackmails Mr Houston or he will release the pictures to the district attorney's office. Mr Houston, who has half interest in an oil well, has to over-sell his portion to pay Mr Byrd. Everything will be alright if the oil well does not produce - but to his dismay the oil well is a gusher. Now people that brought into his scheme- Lucky Sterling a big time gambler, Madelyn Terry the gambler girlfriend and Paula Wallace his dead wife's sister- will soon discover that he is unable to make the claims that he sold.

But before all that can happen Mr Houston is found shot in Mr Byrd's apartment. The police catch Paula Wallace running from the building and with the help of a witness claim that she murdered Mr Houston.

Even though there seems to be much activity in the story, by the time we get to the murder, the show has become cloudy with all the characters and the strange occurrence of events. But it picks up quite nicely when we get to the courtroom scenes.

Perry is at the top of his game when he faces Hamilton Burger at the bar. The show picks up pace with the exchanges and testimony in the courtroom. This action, plus the acting of the actors, saves this episode from digressing into boredom. A good watch for everyone and will have you guessing right till the end.

... as this week's Perry Mason episode takes us into the world of oil well drilling

Freelance photographer Roger Byrd is taking pictures of wildlife when he spots wildcatter Charles Houston posing his dead wife's body in his car and pushing it off a cliff, making it look like an accident. With pictures of the entire thing, Byrd blackmails Houston who pays Byrd a total of 45 thousand dollars. To cover this blackmail Houston ends up selling much more than 100% of his oil well to investors to get the needed money. At the same time, Byrd is trying to sell the incriminating photos to Paula Wallace, who is the sister of the murdered woman and has always believed Charles had something to do with her death.

When the oil well turns out to be a gusher, Charles is a distraught man. He is in a situation much like Mel Brooks' film "The Producers" - only the well turning out to be dry could have saved him from disgrace, scandal, and prosecution. Of course he ends up dead, and of course about the only person in tonight's episode who is not a loathsome creature is accused of the crime, that being Paula Wallace.

So what is different about tonight's episode is that the corpse of the week is not entirely self evident by the end of the first fifteen minutes. There are so many possibilities. And then once that person is murdered, any one of the other loathsome creatures guest starring this week could have been the killer. It's an interesting spin on the usual situation.

The car that went over the cliff was a different car than The car that he pushed her over the cliff in two different cars. Nice work if you can get it. I really like Perry Mason. The courtroom scenes are the best. The set ups are pretty generic, but the show is addicting. Perry. Mason loves to "Leonard hand, who was a appellate court judge that the Supreme Court quoted often one of his quotes was eventual supremacy of reason we can use that today for sure. Shows of this nature, we're dearly loved and seriously missed television today lacks the same entertainment quality of the shows from years past.

This Perry Mason episode is about some sleazy people. Freelance photographer Harry Jackson happens to take some pictures of Byron Palmer rolling a car off a cliff with his dead wife's body in it. Jackson knows an opportunity when he sees it and blackmails Palmer for several months.

But that well is running dry and that's not just an expression. Palmer is an oil wildcatter also one of the sleazier of that breed. He's oversold shares in his oil well that his drilling operator King Calder says will be a titanic gusher. Trying to make his last bit of money to pay off Jackson, Palmer sells yet another share to gambler Douglas Kennedy.

In the meantime the only non-sleaze in the cast Lori March plays the sister of Palmer's late wife and she's contacted Raymond Burr. She'll need him when Palmer is murdered and she's at the crime scene.

But Perry Mason defends no guilty clients and in this sleazy crowd the murderer is rather obvious.

Just about everyone in this episode is gamey. First, it involves a man who is paying blackmail after being seen pushing his wife's car off a cliff with her in it. Soon we find out that there is an oil well involved and the guy has been selling shares of stock totaling 180 percent. Then the well comes in and there is hell (and money) to pay. But the guy is murdered. The one thing that makes this work is the beautiful Barbara Bain who would go on to star in "Mission Impossible," a few years later.