The Case of the Two-Faced Turn-a-bout

With all the odd names in this program, it was hard to keep up with which character. When on the witness stand it was so easy to get confused as each witness would be talking about someone with a Eastern European name that the viewer could not keep each person apart. For me, it was nearly a complete mess. Plus you thrown-in a character that was playing two parts and you can see trouble was afoot.

An Eastern European government bureaucrat visits Los Angles with some papers that will expose some secrets within the government. The papers, called Volney papers, is suppose to be delivered by Franz Schreck to Eilhu Laban in a rather strange way. On an amusement park ride of all things. However, the trade does not go well and ends up with Schreck dead and Laban knocked out by an former OSS agent. Laban is charged with murder.

From then on the story gets strange, Laban is given a lawyer, Bruce Jason. Then Laban claims his lawyer was the person that knocked him out in the amusement park. Now from this point, no Judge in the world would let a defendant be represented by a person that was claimed to be at the murder scene, yet the show continues.

From then on I could not get into the story. Between the lawyer having a double character and the names that could not be understood, losing interest was easy. The ending was rather nice as someone cons a few people into revealing the true murderer but the episode has already been lost. Even though the concept was not a bad idea, just did not play well.

We can see the strings in he puppet show as people are moved around and saying just what they need to say. The thing is that since this isn't really a Perry Mason episode, we have pretty boy Hugh O'Brien (Wyatt Earp) filling in and being at the center of a ludicrous story, having to do with intrigue during the war. Is Perry ever coming back or is there another guy on his way.

It's hard when guest stars come and ruin the dynamic of Perry, Della and Paul. The lead actor who is supposed to have been a war hero and german agent was 20 when the war was over. Very unbelievable. The studios did this to promote actor's careers, and the show was very popular, so.....here they all came to ruin the show. Sad and disappointing.

This is not a review, as much as some observations. Some great location shots of an amusement park - wonder which one it was with the "Laff" ride - The Pike in Long Beach or the one in Santa Monica (when it had more rides). I'm surprised that Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is not in this episode? The above review said he was home recovering from an operation. Wonder why they shot the episode without him - perhaps in the day the production schedule and b'cast schedule of shows required them to shoot one without the main actor? Interesting? These shows are gems, with some really great character actors, like the German guy who was also in The Great Escape, and/or Stalag 17.

I actually found the whole question of identity (addressed in some of the spoiler reviews) to be interestingly handled; however, I just want to address the idea that a killer Commie would want to go to an American amusement park. At the time, that plot beat would have carried unmistakable echoes of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev being locked out of Disneyland for security reasons in 1959. Everybody knew about that, there was a picture of a crying Khrushchev in Life Magazine and TV shows referenced it for the next ten years. So, Commie leader on good-will tour wants to check out a Tunnel of Love in Los Angeles? Sure. In 1963 it would have been realistic, not ridiculous.