Note. On the classic TV series the Mason murder victim is usually a scamp doing crimes like blackmail, so detestable that we figure they needed killing, like they say in Texas. And we hope the killer gets the sentence meted out to cops and judges gone wrong.
Shame They Got Kilt
Killed in Error. Poor Flavia is mistakenly poisoned in place of her husband and his lover in The Case of the Madcap Modiste. One of the few on-screen killings in the show, the poisoning scene is uniquely gruesome, complete with death rattle. In The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece, too accommodating for his own good, Uncle Phillip trades bedrooms with a dastard. And thinking it’s the dastard, the cold-blooded killer knifes Uncle Phillip in his sleep. That’ll learn would-be perps, as Mickey Rourke said in Body Heat (1981), “Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you’re a genius - and you ain’t no genius.”
Harmless Geezer Buys the Farm. In The Case of the Sun Bather’s Diary, a nice guy who likes a little potation, George Ballard is uncle to the red-headed beauty of the title. He is murdered with a knife to the back for no motive that I can discern unless maybe it was robbery or to keep him silent or both. When his dog Sandy guards and whimpers over Uncle George’s corpse, it’s pitiful. Just as pitiful is the killing of another Uncle George in The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe. He likes a drink so much that before he goes on a toot he mails his car keys to himself. He was killed to keep him silent and his niece goes all to pieces. Nobody was as adept at sobbing on cue as Margaret O’Brien. She used to ask directors “When I cry, do you want the tears to run all the way or shall I stop halfway down?”
Paragon Meets Unjust Deserts. In The Case of the Sulky Girl, sadly, virtue turns out to be less than its own reward. Not that I’m blaming the victim, mind, but a factor in the motive was Uncle Edward being an uncompromising model of rectitude. Perhaps if Uncle had been less ready to call the cops when he thought a crime was going down, the killer would not have bashed in his skull with a walking stick.
Commendable Motives of a Boss from Hell. A multi-million-dollar space project is six weeks behind schedule in The Case of the Angry Astronaut. James Coburn’s General Addison Brand is brought in to get things on track. Speaking in a hectoring voice, he screws up his belligerent face into a visage of dynamism and purpose. If fulfilling his duty involves kicking ass and blasting complacencies, that’s the way it is going to be. Ironically, he is not murdered for doing his duty in an obsessed fashion. We feel the federal government will miss such a hard-charging can-do manager.
The Worst Case. In The Case of the Nine Dolls, a tyrannical oil baron repudiates a seven-year-old grand-daughter until he meets her. He then sees with his own eyes that she is the exact duplicate of her mother at that age. Naturally the joyful reunion calls for a change in the millionaire’s will in favor of the newly found member of the family. This amendment is not something certain interested parties will tolerate. They kill the old man out of sheer greed and cowardice. They are quite OK with the old man’s niece going the gas chamber in their place. That the heart-warming reunion provokes such a terrible crime is ironic and tragic, making this episode especially melancholy. But as disturbing is another scene: in Perry’s hotel room a mangled doll is left by a note saying, “This can happen to little girls too.” It’s one hell of an episode, certainly in my Top 3 Favorites.
Clearly, being an uncle is a risk factor in Perry Mason
mysteries.
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