Perry Mason The Case of the Libelous Locket (1957–1966) watch online HD

Law professor Michael Rennie is not a believer in that philosophy, in fact from his academic ivory tower he's of the belief he's somewhat superior to those grubby ambulance chaser types who make a living practicing the law. But when his student Patricia Manning needs help with a blackmailer whom she thinks she has killed and later turns up really dead he calls for help.

The help here is William Hopper who while Perry Mason is out with illness gets a shot at some independent case work which he seems only rarely to do with the Drake Detective Agency. The blackmailer is Carlos Romero, part time dance instructor, full time gigolo and all heel. He and partner in dance Ruta Lee are a pair of heels actually.

Manning and Rennie find that her father John Hoyt and stepmother Patrice Wymore have some connections to Romero as well. And there are a few other suspects as well. In fact Rennie himself has a connection that could torpedo Manning's chances in court.

In a previous guest lawyer episode Bette Davis beat William Talman, now law professor Rennie without trial experience takes out Hamilton Burger. How do they keep electing this guy in Los Angeles County?

Raymond Burr was out for this episode, and only appears in three brief scenes, two of them on the phone. So law professor Lindley (Michael Rennie) takes the reigns when one of his students--Janice Norland (Patricia Manning) is blackmailed and then charged with murder.

Norland turns to Lindley to help. Why she doesn't get a trial attorney to help her is a unsolved mystery, but at least she has Della and Paul to help the Professor out.

While I generally like Rennie as an actor, he's colorless and uninteresting in this. Frequent Mason guests like Harry Von Zell as Sidney Hawes and John Hoyt as Janice's father Norland go through the motions, but none more than Dan Seymour who is cast as the Hispanic Pedro Dias. All his dialog consists of the word "Si"! You would think he might have some fun with that, but no, he is lifeless and unconvincing. Perhaps he needed to work a little with Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales brother Jose, who makes a brief appearance as a taxi driver.

This show s the second in a little run where Perry Mason is for all practical purposes, not in it as Burr recovers from his injury. The previous episode where Bette Davis takes over is better, since she commands attention, but I think is also better written. In this one the murderer confesses with only the flimsiest evidence against them. There's no way even Mason would have gotten a conviction without this one confessing, and there's no strong reason for him to confess.

This episode is only interesting as a curiosity--what does a hit show do when its star is out?

No Martians in this Perry. This review's title is a reference to a line repeated a few times in this episode that points to a suspect who turns out to be the murderer in this somewhat convoluted though watchable Perry Mason entry. A decent supporting cast helps this one along, as does as livelier than usual performance from William Hopper as Paul Drake.

Maybe the most memorable thing about this episode is pinch hitting guest star Michael Rennie, playing a law professor who gets involved in the case because a student of his is a suspect, is that nine foot Martian line. A guess here: this is maybe a thinly veiled reference to Rennie's most famous film role as space alien, though not Martian, Klaatu, in the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still.

In that film Klaatu has a giant android robot as his helper,--or is he Master?--named Gort, who is capable of killing with a death ray. Gort may well have been at least nine feet tall, maybe taller, and Klaatu's famous order to him ("Klaatu barada nikto!") is a key line in the film, as is the bit about the nine foot Martian in The Case Of The Libelous Locket. I'm guessing that someone involved in the making of the episode added this as an in-joke, whether for Michael Rennie's sake or to remind the viewer of Rennie's best remembered film role.

Michael Rennie is the special guest star as he plays Professor Edward Lindley who is a law teacher in a prestigious school. One of his students, Janice Norland, comes to him for help after she believes she killed Raul Perez with a fire-place poker after a struggle. When Professor Lindley and Janice go to the apartment where the murder was to have happened- everything was in place and Perez body was no where to be found.

Later Janice receives a photo in the mail standing over the body of Perez with the poker in her hand. She is going to be blackmailed for $10,000 or the photo will be exposed to the police.

When Janice agrees to pay the blackmail, she returns to the apartment. She finds Perez's body in the same position as when she did when she hit him over the head. Now Janice will need an attorney for the charge of murder that Hamilton Burger's office files. But with Perry in the hospital it will be Professor Lindley, with the help of Paul and Della, that defends Janice in court on the charges.

During testimony in court we learn that most the information given was incorrect. We will have to reevaluate the entire mystery as it makes many twist along the way.

With the story getting amusing - we then get one of those cheap confessions that make you want to pull on your hair. Without any suspicion someone from the gallery confesses without the slightest bit of evidence. The viewer feels cheated for the way this mystery comes crashing down.

Other than William Hopper, the rest of the cast seemed almost robotic in their performance. Michael Rennie, a fine actor, make his guest appearance seem stuffy and boring. I do not think he changed facial expressions the entire time.- The defendant Janice, played by Patricia Manning, seemed more suited to play character #8 - 'woman on sidewalk'- than to be given a lead part on this show. Her performance was lacking in emotion and interest that tend to make the show almost unwatchable.

Here is to Perry making a quick recovery.

***SPOILERS*** It seems that after five years on the air the "Perry Mason" series has started to run out of any meaningful stories. That by watching this "Perry Mason" episode about the usual murder and how Perry ends up solving it in court by defending his innocent client who's accused and tried for it. But this time around Perry,Raymond Burr, in seeing the awful and terribly plot holes and inconsistencies in the script must have decided to take the day or show off and end up in the hospital with what were told is an undisclosed illness! Which in fact was the best thing he could do to keep from being part of this confusing mess of an episode.

The person who's murdered calypso and rumba dancer Raul Perez, Carlos Romero, is such a sleazy and slimy character that he's in fact murdered twice not once! The second time around it's for keeps. Coming to pinch hit for Perry is law professor Edward Lindley played by Michael Rennie,remember him from "The Day the Earth Stood Still", who's to defend his best student Janice Norland, Patricia Manning, who in fact confessed to Perez's murder. As we and the professor soon finds out that there's a lot more then whats meets the eye in this very strange and confusing case and non of it makes any sense at all!

Yes Perez was indeed murdered but the circumstances were far more different then what we were lead on to believe. It all had to do with a locket that he got back south of the border in Mexico where he came from that he's using to blackmail Maureen Norland, Patrice Wymore, Janice's mom in an affair she had with a man other then her husband Darwin,John Hoyt.

***SPOILERS*** With he story really going nowhere and putting all of us watching quickly to sleep were suddenly and unexpectedly saved by the bell when the real killer of Carlos Perez finally as he's about to be called to the witness stand brakes down and confesses. What was so ridicules about his or her tearful confession is that it made no sense, like the entire episode, at all and confused matters, if they weren't confused enough already, even more!