Perry Mason The Case of the Murderous Mermaid (1957–1966) watch online HD

This is an above-average episode with sharply etched characters, good acting, and a mystery that really engages. Why is aspiring actress Reggie Lansfield (Jean Hale) being put through the grueling paces of a mysterious hiring process. She's promised considerable money if she just goes along with what looks like a cockamamie plan to swim the 26 mile Catalina Channel.

Actually, my purpose in commenting is to single out ingénue Jean Hale's quite affecting performance as the vulnerable starlet. Mason episodes usually featured a young woman in trouble, usually a blonde. And while most performed capably enough, they were almost interchangeable in looks and style.

Now Hale doesn't look that different from the standard Mason-show blonde, but she does combine toughness and vulnerability to an uncommon degree. Watch her scenes with the equally impressive Richard Erdman as her rather inept agent. They're little gems of frustrated ambition (Hale) and fast-talking bravado (Erdman). I expect they come closer to revealing an unvarnished Hollywood than anything else on that long-running series. It looks like Hale quit acting early on. Probably she got lost in the blonde shuffle. Too bad, because she had real talent. Too bad, also, that the pug-faced Erdman never got an award for his many years of exceptionally fine work. Nonetheless, both performers are on rare display in this much- better-than-average entry.

In this episode it was really not the story that made this a good watch, but the actors which transformed this script into a good show.

The plot of the episode involved an aging famed swimmer named Victoria Dawn (Patrice Wymore). Her star had faded and along with her husband Doug Hamilton (Jess Barker) and her sister Lillian Keely (Nan Leslie) they cook up this publicity stunt where she is to swim the Catalina Channel to in order to put her name back in the papers.

The problem was that Victoria was aged. She was out of shape and my no means able to swim 26 miles. So they cooked up this stunt where they hired a aspiring actress Reggie Lansfield (Jean Hale) to swim most of the way and then Victoria was going to swim the last mile or so.

While the swim was going on in deep fog (this was also planned) Reggie starts to drown and the Victoria's boy-Friday and boats-man jumps in the water to save her right before the boat explodes. The boats-man, Charles Shaw (Bill Williams) and Reggie are picked up by another boat and driven to west coast.

When Reggie believes that Victoria was planning to kill her she goes over to see her. When she enters the home, Victoria is murdered. And now, to make things even worse, she leaps outside a window only to be seen by a male nurse that she has to use her judo skills to get away.

And now she is charge with the murder of Victoria and Perry is there to defend her against Hamilton Burger's complainant.

The story is much more interesting that some of the later shows. But what makes this show come to life is the acting.- Patrice Wymore, who plays Victoria, performs greatly as the aging star. She reminded me of Betty Davis in some of her movies.(Patrice was the last wife of Errol Flynn)-Jean Hale, as Reggie, performance was as beautiful as her looks.- Bill Williams, the boats-man named Charles Shaw, performs his part perhaps better than it could ever had been acted. (Bill Williams is the husband of Barbara Hale (Della))

The acting sets this episode apart from others in season eight. A good watch with an interesting story.

There was no dirtbag shortage in this episode, also, no shortage of acting talent. Jean Hale plays Reggie, a daredevil type acting wannabe who's represented by Richard Erdman, a Ray Sharkey-esque promoter/agent, who Paul and Perry should have easily sidestepped to help this foxy blonde out (so Paul can date her, of course). Both very fine actors.

Bill Williams does an excellent job with this part, although I seem to picture him as more of a western type actor; still, kudos to him and admiration for getting beautiful Barbara Hale to be his wife - a Hollywood marriage that worked.

A couple of points - why are always so many unlocked or open doors to murder rooms? Why does Reggie go from a no-nonsense, skydiving, channel swimming tough cookie to a girl who is embarrassed by a couple making out, even if they are cheaters? It's almost like she's a sixth grade girl just out of the convent, instead of a young woman in a cutthroat business.

One other thing, Perry's not just a genius, and a shark lawyer, he's also a criminal lawyer who MUST know when he's being lied to - no matter who's doing the lying; just thought I'd point it out. Paul gives us a significant detail: he charges $100 a day plus expenses for his services. That's about $800 a day in today's money ....

This episode of Perry Mason had as its protagonist/victim an Esther Williams like movie star. Patrice Wymore is a hard living former swimming and film star who has her own swimming pool company which unlike Esther she's been systematically stealing from.

Wymore is a little past her prime so she hires young Jean Hale who is an ambitious young actress with some swimming background anxious to do anything to get ahead to impersonate Wymore swimming the 26 miles from Catalina Island to the California coast. But all kinds of things go wrong and its Wymore that winds up dead and Hale held for her murder.

Esther Williams might have sued over this one, but I guess being safely retired for a few years at that point she didn't need the notoriety or publicity. This episode in addition to having the widow of Errol Flynn as the murdered victim also had in the cast Bill Williams who did a few Perry Masons no doubt due to the fact he was married to Barbara Hale who played Della Street.

As for Wymore, Raymond Burr did a few films with Errol Flynn and I'm betting he felt something of a debt to Wymore as Flynn with his high living ways did not leave as much of an estate as you would think a film star would. In any event we have a host of suspects to go through before Perry gets the culprit to confess.

If you've not seen this episode, then read no further!! Generally, I consider episodes of Perry Mason to be 8, 9 or 10 on the IMDb rating scale. Because this program is so exceptionally well-done, whenever there's a flaw in logic, meaning a large flaw not a small inconsequential personality peculiarity, the rating must be much less. Still, Perry Mason is better than most any other Law TV program ever put on the air.

In this case, we have a murdered swim school part-owner, a lady who had embezzled $250,000 from the school corporation, then also attempted insurance fraud and felonious passport forgery. In this case she was to stage her death, run off with her lover, and let the insurance proceeds cover her felony. So to do this, she has to flirt with and kill another admirer in a boating accident to make it look like she dies too, but it goes awry. Then she's murdered and an innocent young lady is accused. It turns out, through Perry's typical cleverness, that the actual killer is the admirer who learns of the felonious activity upon confronting the lady about the failed murder attempt on his life. She laughs at him for being the fool, and he kills her in a fit of rage.

Here's the flaw: This admirer had been presented as a pretty cool-headed person. Why would he risk prison or gas chamber to kill someone he could easily report to the police for attempted murder, embezzlement and other felonies, where she'd be in for 25 yrs to life? Seems pretty far-fetched even for a jilted lover who has legal means for a substantial revenge.

So this one gets only a 5, sorry, Perry fans.

***SPOILERS*** A handicapped Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, with his arm in a sling, very probably the result of an arm wrestling match with his secretary Della Street, takes on the case of pretty aspiring actress Reggie Landsfield, Joan Hale, who's arrested in the bludgeoning murder of actress and former swimming champion Victoria Dawn, Patrice Wymore. Reggie was hired by Victoria's husband Douglas Hamilton, Jess Baker,to impersonate her in a midnight swim from Catalina Island to the California mainland; A distance of 26 miles.

Of course the entire swim was a sham in that Victoria, drunk and overweight, was in no condition to swim the Catalina Channel and Reggie was only to go half way to do it. This was all to get Victoria back in the headlines and give her floundering swimming school that in fact was going bankrupt,or in the red, the publicity to get it into the black. But what no one knew at the time is that Reggie wasn't supposed to survive and be lost at sea with the boat that was following her in the swim, to see nothing went wrong, with it's skipper Charlie Shaw, Bill Williams,was set to explode with everyone, Shaw & Reggie, aboard. A mad as hell Reggie rushes to Victoria's home to confront her about what she tried to do to her & Charles Shaw only to find her murdered! And even worse end up getting arrested by the local police for murdering her!

***SPOILERS*** Perry with one hand tied behind is back or better yet in a sling has no trouble finding out together with the help of his in house private eye Paul Drake,William Hooper,just what exactly was behind the late Victoria's actions that intimately lead to her murder. And even more important for Reggie Landsfield who murdered her!

Victoria was in fact embezzling her swimming school and now with her about to be exposed planned to check out of the country to South America with her secret lover! She also had herself heavily insured and planned together with her lover, who by then would be her husband,to collect the insurance money when she was declared legally dead. Dead in that it that it would really be Reggie, who was impersonating Victoria, who was supposed to be killed in the fatal boat explosion and swept out to sea. What eventually screwed things up for the scheming Victoria was that her supposed lover wasn't the person who thought was her one and only and that she in fact was was only using him. He Victoria's real lover, or lover #2, in fact was entirely someone else! And when lover #1 found that out he exacted bloody revenge on her and had poor and had the innocent Reggie Landsfield take the rap for it!