An extremely eccentric friend of Sally's mother is upset. She's received a ransom demand reading, "We have the one you love." They're demanding $100,000 to return... her Pekingese. Oh, yeah, and they nabbed her husband too. But who cares about HIM? He's not even in the will.
Mac picks up a terrible sneeze, but it takes him 40 minutes into the story before realizes that A)he's allergic to the perfume used on the dog, and, B)he had sneazing fits in the vet's office. Therefore, either the vet or his assistant must be involved.
But then the woman turns up dead, and her lavish penthouse apartment has been ransacked. Yet, the kidnappers still want the money. What's going on here?
This plot, which played out like a screwball comedy on steroids, seemed to defy any logical story structure I've seen before. Yet in the back of my mind, I sensed it might be a variation on the COLUMBO episode, "Ransom For A Dead Man", which involved a fake kidnapping but a real murder. Turns out I was right. (But watch the episode to see how.)
This one featured June Havoc as "Francesca Fairborn", who's madly in love with her dog, but dismisses her husband as a "gold-digger", and stuns Mac & Sally when she tells the kidnappers over the phone she's "not interested" in getting her husband back. I wondered at that moment if she didn't have her husband killed (like in the earlier COLUMBO episode). Her lawyer is such an eccentric crackpot himself, I began to wonder if HE was involved in the crime. Then there's Wally Cox (MR. PEEPERS, UNDERDOG) as the vet, who arrogantly dismisses the cops when they arrive to ask him questions. I have to admit, this thing really kept me guessing for awhile.
Also on hand are Linda Watkins in her 2nd appearance as Sally's mother (who we learn is criminally-awful in the kitchen), and Paul Stewart, making his debut as "Chief of Police Andy Yaekel" (replacing Jack Albertson from the pilot). Enright & Mildred are on hand as usual, adding color commentary.
Mac & Sally remain a gloriously in love couple, the likes of which I bet many (if not most) people wish they were part of in their own lives.
While all this is going on, there is one subplot that distracted and infuriated me for the entire length of the story. It seems Mac has decided, as Police Commissioner, to crack down on traffic problems, by insisting that off-duty policemen get tickets like everyone else. Fair enough. But when, upset because the woman whose husband has been snatched flat out REFUSES to allow the police to be involved, he winds up getting pulled over for speeding, the officer in charge, once he's assured it's okay to give a ticket to THE COMMISSIONER, suddenly becomes very arrogant about confiscating his DRIVER'S LICENSE, which will be returned at his court hearing. WHAT??? I have never heard such an INSANE thing in my life! So Mac is barred from driving until he goes to court, and Sally has to do all his driving for him. But this flies in the face of all logic. For most traffic violations, one has the choice to pay the ticket by mail, or, go to court to FIGHT it. Forcing everyone who gets a ticket to have to go to court would clog up the court system worse than it already is, and even in cases (such as two I was involved in over the years) where you had to go to court, how are you supposed to get there (or to your job) if you're NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE? I cannot believe such a thing was ever the law anywhere, let alone in San Francisco in 1971. I wanted to throttle the writer over this. Otherwise, I might have given this one a higher rating.
The arrogant traffic cop was played by Joey Foreman, who I'll always remember as "Harry Hoo" from GET SMART. One more connection with that show. That and M&W were both from the same production company, and Leonard Stern was GET SMART's executive producer for its first 86 episodes!
It struck me that the title of the story, "The Easy Sunday Murder Case", was a tribute to "The Kennel Murder Case", arguably the single BEST Philo Vance movie ever made. That film starred the best of all the Philo actors, William Powell, who later played "Nick Charles" in 6 movies that clearly were the inspiration for THIS series. And every Vance story had "The whatever Murder Case" as the title, with the whatever being a word with 6 letters (in this case, "Sunday"). But I like Susan Saint James a LOT more than Myrna Loy!
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