Perry Mason Season 4, Episode 15: The Case of the Fickle Fortune

1

The Case of the Treacherous Toupee

Tyrannical company president Hartley Bassett returns home after being presumed dead for 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.

52 min

2

The Case of the Credulous Quarry

Perry defends Richard Hammond who is charged with killing his former girlfriend by running over her with his car.

51 min

3

The Case of the Ill-Fated Faker

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.

52 min

4

The Case of the Singular Double

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.

52 min

5

The Case of the Lavender Lipstick

An heiress to a cosmetics company is charged with the murder of the company's owner.

52 min

6

The Case of the Wandering Widow

When a man accused of a murder is freed from prison upon newly discovered eyewitness testimony, it starts a chain reaction of blackmail and murder.

52 min

7

The Case of the Clumsy Clown

A circus clown is charged with the murder of its part owner when a gun is slipped to him during a gun act.

52 min

8

The Case Of The Provocative Protégé

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.

52 min

9

The Case of the Nine Dolls

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.

52 min

10

The Case of the Loquacious Liar

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.

52 min

11

The Case of the Red Riding Boots

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.

52 min

12

The Case of the Larcenous Lady

A suburban town mayor's secretary is accused of murdering the mayor's wife, who was engaging in blackmail to further her husband's career.

52 min

13

The Case of the Envious Editor

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.

52 min

14

The Case of the Resolute Reformer

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.

52 min

15

The Case of the Fickle Fortune

Ralph Duncan is a civil servant whose job is to inventory the estates of wealthy decedants. One day, he returns home with $153,000.00 worth of old greenbacks he discovered while going through a recently deceased old woman's home. Duncan took the money on a lark and was planning to return it the next day but his shifty cousin decides to purloin the bundle. Duncan is then accused of theft and later murder.

52 min

16

The Case of the Waylaid Wolf

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.

52 min

17

The Case of the Wintry Wife

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.

52 min

18

The Case of the Angry Dead Man

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.

52 min

19

The Case of the Blind Man's Bluff

Crooked jewelry store owner Karl Addison learns that he needs an operation which will temporarily blind him. Addison makes plans to rob his own store knowing that his sightlessness will provide him with a perfect alibi. Things go wrong when someone kills the scheming Addison and steals the already pinched jewels. James Kincannon enlists Perry's aid when he's charged with the crime.

52 min

20

The Case of the Barefaced Witness

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.

52 min

21

The Case of the Difficult Detour

Contactor Pete Mallory is charged with the murder of a vacation resort developer.

52 min

22

The Case of the Cowardly Lion

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.

52 min

23

The Case of the Torid Tapestry

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.

52 min

24

The Case of the Violent Vest

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 Herman had been hitting on her for quite a while with no success.

52 min

25

The Case of the Misguided Missile

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.

52 min

26

The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

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.

52 min

27

The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather

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.

51 min

28

The Case of the Guilty Clients

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 .

52 min