telepinus1525

Well, I don't know what I can add to all the superlatives from earlier posters! Good, solid direction, excellent acting, a superlative script; the scene where Catherine retrieves the discarded knickknacks of her late charge from the trash was a wonderful bit of foreshadowing.But, at the risk of being called a spoilsport, I have to point out the unmistakable inspiration that writer Ehren Kruger drew on( if only second-hand) from the short story "The Late Mr. Elvesham" by H. G. Wells. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. These days it's almost impossible to know where screenwriters got their inspiration,(firsthand, anyway). Besides, to quote the screenwriter William Goldman from his book, "Adventures in the Screen Trade", "If you're going to steal, steal from the best". Besides, I don't think Mr. Wells would have minded...

I never saw this series until I was a small kid, with the later seasons, early 60's. Now I'm glad that my local station is re-running it in its' entirety. Not only for the great writing, direction, photography, but also for the constant parade of old pros as guest stars! One of my favorite B-movie "bad girls", Marie Windsor,(The Narrow Margin) appears four times in the series; but will she be a victim, client, or killer? When I was a kid I was about the only person I knew that knew who Dabbs Greer(House of Wax) was, or cared! For some reason I loved knowing who such-and-such was, and where they had previously appeared. A friend of mine has the same trivia affliction as I do, so I started taping "Perry Mason" for our mutual entertainment! If there's nothing exciting on TV, we'll sit down for a Perry Mason episode block, have some pizza and beer, and go: "hey! there's Ted De Corsia!"(The Killing) And, "Isn't that Walter Burke?"(All the king's men), "Elisha Cook Jr.!(Also, "The Killing")" or, "Malcolm Atterbury!"(North by northwest) "Arthur Franz!"(The Sniper),Osa Massen!"(Rocketship XM), and there's George Macready!"(Gilda), Yep, I've got character actor trivia bad. How about you?