The BEST episodes of Perry Mason season 4
Every episode of Perry Mason season 4, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Perry Mason season 4!
There are few actors so closely tied to a persona than Raymond Burr as Perry Mason. This long-running series was built upon Erle Stanley Gardner´s many novels about a brilliant defense lawyer and his staff, that solved many a crime with surprise witnesses and stern cross-examinations.It was the first mystery series to feature chalk or tape outlines to mark the spots where bodies were found. Filmed almost exclusively in the Los Angeles area, Raymond Burr had Gardner's seal of approval in the role. The cases were usually won by way of pivotal confessions of witnesses, solicited by Perry Mason (Burr's) surgeon-like examination or with last-minute, key evidence brought into the courtroom by private investigator, Paul Drake (William Hopper). Della Street (Barbara Hale), Perry´s faithful secretary, was always at Perry's side in the courtroom where hapless Hamilton Burger (William Tallman) was the Los Angeles District Attorney who never seemed to win. As to the myth that Perry Mason never lost, there were 2 episodes where it did occur... but you'll have to watch to find out.The show was revived in 1973-74, with other actors in the familiar roles (Monte Markham as Mason), and then again with the some of the original cast, in a string of feature length TV films from 1985 until Raymond Burr´s death in 1993.
#1 - The Case of the Duplicate Daughter
Season 4 - Episode 26 - Aired 5/20/1961
A mixed up mess awaits Perry as he struggles to put all the pieces together. Blackmail, murder, a boyfriend who spent the night, all add up to one great case.
#2 - The Case of the Nine Dolls
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/19/1960
Perry's fishing trip to Scotland is interrupted by seven year old Peggy Smith. Peggy is living at a boarding school and searching for her identity since she has no idea who her real parents are. After searching into the matter, Perry comes to believe that Peggy is the daughter of Clark Lawson and Margaret Jeffers Lawson. Margaret was the daughter of wealthy Courtney Jeffers who disowned her after she eloped with Clark. Both parents died shortly after Peggy was born. Jeffers, a mean and miserable old man, has his heart warmed after meeting Peggy and changes his will to leave everything to her. The next day, he is found dead, killed by a blow from a poker.
#3 - The Case of the Violent Vest
Season 4 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/29/1961
Advertising executive Herman Albright is in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong clothes. These mistakes cost poor Herman his life in a case of mistaken identity. Perry is called on to defend the fashion model charged with the crime. It seems as though horny Herman had been hitting on her for quite a while with no success.
#4 - The Case of the Loquacious Liar
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/3/1960
Lester Martin's life takes a horrible turn for the worse when a man breaks into his apartment, forces him at gun-point to drink half a bottle of Scotch, and then drives him into the country. Lester's circumstances then go from awful to good grief when he's charged with the murder of his step-father who was trying to takeover the family boat company.
#5 - The Case of the Lavender Lipstick
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/15/1960
An heiress to a cosmetics company, innocently caught in the middle of a conspiracy to sabotage a cosmetics company, turns to Mason when she's accused of murdering the company's owner.
#6 - The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather
Season 4 - Episode 27 - Aired 5/27/1961
A young man has his head turned by, whatelse, a woman. In his haste to protect her, and her good name, the source of her pain turns up dead.
#7 - The Case of the Resolute Reformer
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/14/1961
Perry represents a citizen's group in hearings on a proposed aqueduct to be named after county engineer William Harper Caine. Perry gets a stop work order until a section of the proposed location can be checked for an underground spring. Eventually, Caine needs Perry's help when he's accused of murdering Roger Quigley, the project's chief contractor.
#8 - The Case of the Credulous Quarry
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/24/1960
Perry defends Richard Hammond who is charged with killing his former girlfriend by running over her with his car. A shady lawyer and a witness demanding a payoff complicate the defense.
#9 - The Case of the Treacherous Toupee
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/17/1960
Tyrannical company president Hartley Bassett returns from the dead after two years. His first act is to fire Peter Dawson which makes Dawson the prime suspect when Bassett is found dead with two bullet holes in him. Perry thinks he has an ace in the hole this time when Dick Hart and his new wife, Teddi, both swear they saw a different assailant at the scene of the crime. Then Teddi and Dick disappear.
#10 - The Case of the Angry Dead Man
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/25/1961
Willard Nesbitt faked his drowning death in a boating accident so his wife could collect the double indemnity life insurance money. Nesbitt thought he had only a short time to live anyway. When Nesbitt's crooked business partner, James Castle, illegally cuts "widow" Eve Nesbitt out of a protitable deal he must rise from the dead to warn her. Then someone kills the "dead man" for good. The police smell insurance fraud and Eve Nesbitt is their number one suspect.
#11 - The Case of the Provocative Protégé
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/12/1960
Washed up pianist David Carpenter is knocked out and pushed over a cliff for insurance money. Carpenter's beautiful protege, Donna Ross, immediately comes under suspicion by the police.
#12 - The Case of the Misguided Missile
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 5/6/1961
Jerry Reynolds, an old war buddy of Perry's, is accused of killing an officer at Vandenburg Air Force Base during the investigation into some mysterious missile crashes.
#13 - The Case of the Envious Editor
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/7/1961
Slimy publishing tycoon Donald Fletcher buys controlling interest in a respectable but financially troubled publishing house. Fletcher turns things upside down by turning the publications into scandal sheet featuring photographs of scantily clad women. Edmond Aitken, whose family once owned the publishing house, wants to oust Fletcher but Perry tells him he has no legal basis on which to do so. Not to worry. Fletcher is found murdered in his apartment but the prime suspect is Aitken's wife, Alyce, whom Fletcher had been blackmailing over lurid photos Alyce made during her younger days.
#14 - The Case of the Larcenous Lady
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/17/1960
A mayor's political career is jeopardized when his conniving wife goes too far. Mason's defense of a murder suspect hinges on untangling a net of intrigue involving political rivalries and extortion
#15 - The Case of the Wintry Wife
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/18/1961
Inventor Walter Randall wants a divorce from his cold-blooded wife Laura in order to be with Phyllis Hudson. Laura decides to get back at Walter by blackmailing one of his assistants into building a bomb that will destroy Walter's underwater sounding invention. While checking on the bomb in the warehouse, Laura is discovered by Phyllis and takes advantage of the situation by knocking her rival out. Phyllis manages to survive the explosion but she is later charged with Laura's murder.
#16 - The Case of the Guilty Clients
Season 4 - Episode 28 - Aired 6/10/1961
Lola and Jeff Bronson are going through a divorce and can't wait to be rid of each other until Bill Ryder sabotages Jeff's business and makes a play for Lola. Ryder is then found dead with three bullet holes in his body and Jeff and Lola are the two prime suspects. Now they battle to cover for each other .
#17 - The Case of the Waylaid Wolf
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/4/1961
Womanizing playboy Loring Lamont has his sights set on Arlene Ferris, his father's shapely secretary. He lures her to his beachfront bachelor pad with seduction on his mind. Arlene slaps the rotter and flees taking Loring's car back into town. Things then go from awful to good grief for poor Arlene. After her departure someone stabs Loring to death and she's suspect number one.
#18 - The Case of the Difficult Detour
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/25/1961
Contactor Pete Mallory is charged with the murder of a vacation resort developer.
#19 - The Case of the Ill-Fated Faker
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/1/1960
Jim Ferris is having an affair with his uncle's bored young wife. They concoct a scheme to finagle $80,000.00 from the uncle by faking a kidnapping. Things go horribly wrong when secretary Betty Wilkins, acting as a go-between, is charged with the murder of Jim Ferris.
#20 - The Case of the Cowardly Lion
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 4/8/1961
Hilde Fursten and Tony Osgood work at the San Diego Zoo. When a new baby monkey is found missing, Hilde Fursten is blamed by Dr. Walther Braun, a visiting dentist. Boris Zelbowski also works at the zoo and is dating Frieda Crawson, Dr. Braun's nurse. That evening, Dr. Braun arrives at the zoo to perform oral surgery on a lion and is found dead in the lion's cage. Tony Osgood is accused of the murder when a witness sees someone wearing Tony's blue sportcoat near the lion's cage at the time.
#21 - The Case of the Clumsy Clown
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/5/1960
A circus clown is charged with the murder of its part owner when a gun is slipped to him during a gun act.
#22 - The Case of the Singular Double
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/8/1960
Perry is accused of obstructing justice in this case when he defends a woman who had previously faked her own suicide by running her empty car off a cliff. It seems as though the police found the body of another woman in the wreckage.
#23 - The Case of the Barefaced Witness
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/18/1961
The setting in this episode is a small California town where because of a festival all men must wear beards. Paul Drake travels there to try to locate missing money which a former bank president embezzled. Paul eventually finds the money but he also finds a dead body as well. Perry arrives on the scene in order to straighten things out.
#24 - The Case of the Red Riding Boots
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/10/1960
Ann Farwell is miserable over the separation of her parents. Things aren't made any better when her father starts seeing Rita Conover, a scheming woman half his age. When Rita turns up dead both Ann and her mother think the other committed the crime which causes Perry great difficulty in defending the ranch hand who's been charged.
#25 - The Case of the Torrid Tapestry
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 4/22/1961
Hard luck Claude Demay was sent up for six years in prison for starting a fire in a warehouse containing the valuable Nathan Claver art collection. After his release, Demay devises a plan to expose the real criminal, Leonard Voss, and prove his innocence. He tediously weaves a perfect imitation of a valuable tapestry supposedly lost in the fire and barters this tapestry to Voss in exchange for an original Buddah statue. Demay knows that the statue will prove that the collection was not destroyed in the fire and will expose Voss as the real criminal. Unfortunately, Voss is murdered before the trade takes place and Demay is arrested for another crime he didn't commit.