The Kalends of Perry Mason 97

In Tribute to Hugh Marlowe

This well-respected actor with a rich baritone worked in radio before he broke into the movies. He appeared in TCM perrennials such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), All About Eve (1950), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). He appeared in six – really five – episodes of Perry Mason, one of a dozen actors who played what Perry fandom calls the trifecta - the victim, the defendant, and the culprit.

The Case of the Fraudulent Foto (1959)

In serious horn-rimmed glasses, Hugh plays an idealistic DA aiming to battle graft in the awarding of construction contracts in small city. The dedicated DA is so focused on his goal that he doesn’t see big trouble coming his way from an obvious direction. The bad guys sic the comely Leora Matthews on him to lure him into a compromising position, complete with photographer. Hugh’s DA is arrested on a charge of murder when the blackmailer ends up killed on the floor, where many other blackmailers in Mason stories land.

However, the real star of his episode is the noir look of this season two episode. It is cool beyond belief. Black, white, and shades of grey never looked better in stock shots of cars old even in 1959. The city and the police station at night are made to look huge, cold, harsh, and pitiless, like places you enter as yourself but you come out not yourself any more. The 1890s hotel has incredible woodwork that looks great in monochrome. Mason drives a black 1959 Cadillac convertible. Hugh wears a trench coat that makes us think of fedoras, fog and Nelson Riddle’s theme for The Untouchables. It’s weird because director Arthur Marks did not have an impressive noir history on his resume until the 1970s.

The Case of the Slandered Submarine (1960)

Often cast as a military man, Hugh was the commander of the good sub U.S.S. Moray in this one. He ends up with a screwdriver in his chest so he did not get a chance to make that baritone resonate.

The Case of the Borrowed Baby (1962)

Somebody who trusts Perry and Della to do the right thing leaves a four-week-old baby in a basket on Perry’s office desk. The mother finally surfaces but ends up in trouble deep after she is arrested for murder. The baby in fact may be the heir to a fortune. Hugh is just okay in not a big part as a business manager. The focus on Barbara Hale bonding with the infant was the centerpiece in this episode. Not aging real well is game and savvy Della Street regretting her choice to be a career woman having adventures with Perry Mason.

The Case of the Nebulous Nephew (1963)

Season 7 was kicked off with one of the better scripted episodes. Hugh plays one of two scamsters who aim to con two harmless old ladies. But after living with the two women for a little while, Hugh’s partner in fraud becomes fond of the aunties and puts the argument to Hugh for abandoning their nefarious plan. But greedy calculating Hugh objects and ends up murdered. Besides the stellar acting, the long set-up is about perfect, without a wasted word or scene. The writers make points about staying in touch with your core values, feeling family loyalty, atoning for past sins, admiring the colorblindness of children, and using love and faith as guides. Up there with The Case of the Perjured Parrot and The Case of the Nine Dolls, this may be my favorite episode ever.

The Case of the Sleepy Slayer (1964)

“How much is it worth,” wonders an exhausted caregiver, “to be a sick, empty creature, drained of every drop of the joy of life?” Poor Rachel Gordon has been driven to distraction by providing care to her tyrant uncle for many years. At the end of her tether she puts a couple of rounds into Uncle as he sleeps. The investigation reveals that the tyrant was poisoned before Rachel shot him. Hugh has a small part as a doctor who says of the miser, “even death despises him” and that the old buzzard’s heart, driven by a jolt of adrenaline “would have been like running a transistor radio on a fifty million volt generator.” Hugh is overshadowed by Phyllis Hill as the hard-pressed caregiver who in her loneliness gets involved with a louse; Robert Brown who plays her user BF persuasively; and finally he of the screaming skull,  Richard Hale, who often played the crooked businessman, sickly pawpaw, and sinister miser. 

The Case of the Hasty Honeymooner (1965)

I detest spoilers so I can only say that Hugh again plays the bounder and dastard as he did in Nebulous Nephew. Oddly enough, in this episode his TV wife is his real-life wife K.T. Stevens.  Noah Beery, Jr. puts in a rip-roaring performance as Lucas Tolliver of Oklahoma. He wants Perry Mason to draw up a will for a future wife. This weird request spurs Perry to send Paul Drake on a quest for information about down-home Luke. Paul finds Luke a man unlucky in marriage, having lost not one but two wives, one to a salad of baneful greens and the other to a passing train. Set in 1965, the story has elements based on the new tech of computer dating and newfound concern for PR fallout. Playing true to his usual good old boy, Strother Martin puts in a great turn as a Bible-thumping tattletale.