The Case of the Nervous Neighbor

When I read the beginning plot, I was disappointed to see another episode with embezzlement as the main plot. Oh ho-hum. Fix me another cup of Sanka cause this is going to be the same old storyline by different actors.

However this episode surprised even me- a regular "Perry Mason" watcher. From the beginning where the first snip of a problem is when we see Charles Fuller (Richard Rust) trying to find his lost mother, Alice Fuller Bradley (Shelia Bromley) by means of the Paul Drake Investigation team. This leads us on a ride where embezzlement is the least of the worries for people in this show.

Not revealing too much of the episode, since it is a must see, but the show is somewhat different from the regular Perry shows. We have a motherly figure being accused of a serious crime only to have a condition that even Hamilton Burger knows that she could never be convicted.

Then a son that wants to protect his mother that he will do anything to stop others from hurting or taking advantage. This leads to conflicts that of course leads to another serious crime.

Then we are back to the embezzling that makes nearly everyone an suspect in this story. Put your seat-belt back because we are going for another ride.

With good acting by the entire cast that includes Ms Bromley, Katherine Squire (the nurse), Jeanne Cooper (Young and Restless fame), Paul Winchell and Francis Bushman (from the silent era) this makes the episode much more enjoyable.

Except for the unexcited ending, this episode is a great watch. Maybe one of the best from 1964.

Before he became a Perry Mason client Richard Rust had retained the service of the Paul Drake Detective Agency to find his mother who has been missing for six months. Good thing because that's an entry into obtaining the services of Raymond Burr and Rust will need them.

What Rust doesn't tell William Hopper is that mother Sheila Bromley is wanted for the murder of his stepfather. Now she's in an apartment in a senior citizen living center, cared for by Katherine Squire with a case of amnesia brought on by a blow to the head.

That was obtained during a violent quarrel with her late husband and because of that even with no memory of the events Raymond Burr gets her off of a murder charge with the unusual cooperation of William Talman.

Later on Paul Winchell playing a serious role and without his wooden companions of Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff gets himself killed and violently. Winchell and Rust were rivals at the brokerage firm that Bromley's late husband was a partner in and he does look good for it. Winchell however is one slimy rat and met a more than likely deserved end.

A bit of Drake detective work and Mason's instincts in these matters uncovers the real culprit and it was a bit of a surprise to me as the perpetrator's role was somewhat subdued until the end.

Good script with good performances all around.

While the underlying cause-and-effect of this story has been far overdone, the writers actually injected a very different plot that is most enjoyable. Circumstances merit a very different approach for Perry, leading him to defend 2 clients (mother and son) in separate cases. The penultimate scene comes in the jail visitation cell, with both Burger and Perry present with defendant Richard Rust. The exchange between Burger & Rust is one of the better acted in the whole series, even if it is brief. Sadly, the set-up is complicated enough to take up so much time that the denouement seems rather rushed and contrived...

Perry defends Fuller's mother via lack of mental capacity; Burger agrees and the case is dismissed. The conniving "bad guy" accountant/junior partner of the episode Clement is murdered and Fuller is charged. In the background, it seems that Fuller's mother wss shortchanged in a partnership dissolution and Perry, acting as an estate lawyer, goes after Dickinson, the crooked lawyer for the partnership, with a show cause order, knowing this will stir the pot. One non-courtroom scene shows the bad behavior of the Brownes and Dickinson. Another non-courtroom scene, an entrapment engineered by Perry, fingers the killer. Fuller never appears in court. Francis X. Bushman (of the 1925 Ben Hur) is about 80 playing the role of the about 70 Philip. There is an over-the-top Burger coming down hard on Fuller, who had many reasons to kill the conniver. But this episode plays out as greedy and greedier.

There are two trials in this episode, and as such, a surplus of time in court--my recollection, within the first 20 minutes. Hamilton Burger gets ample camera time--and this might be his BEST episode--where Perry advises his client, in the presence of Burger offering a plea deal, of how a stern cross-examination of a defendant would proceed--in this episode, Burger "wins" in his role as a prosecutor--Talman can scare sense into the defendant--and Perry Mason viewers will not forget this.

This is not a perfect episode, as we're never clear about Paul Drake's reference to a "nervous neighbor," and there is plenty of attention paid in the early part of to amnesia from brain trauma--which transitions to the actions of an unscrupulous underling that can corrupt the entirety of the firm, here, through undervaluation of the partnership, the problems in probate court for the executor, and the dilemma for the surviving partner. It's an episode I'd watch again.