- Title: Perry Mason – The Case of the Nervous Accomplice
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Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the courtroom of Perry Mason. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is in good form in “The Case of the Nervous Accomplice” as he’s able smartly outthink the prosecution in a murder case long enough to prove his client (Margaret Hayes), who he was helping attempt to salvage her marriage, is innocent of murder. First, with the help of the defendant’s best friend, Mason is able to cloud the testimony of the taxi driver who picked up the woman from the crime scene. Next, he’s able to prove his theory of how the victim was killed providing doubt about the murder weapon. And finally, with more pizazz than the judge (Morris Ankrum) deems necessary, he’s able to stage a recreation in the courtroom to force a confession of the nervous accomplice (Greta Thyssen) to the murder who helped dispose of evidence after the fact.
Although the early scenes involving how Mason gets hired are a bit awkward, involving buying stock in the man’s company to halt a deal that his client thinks will sink her husband’s affair if falls apart, things pick up quickly after the murder all the way into the show’s trademark confession on the stand. What’s of interest here is Mason puts all his hopes into a gambit he doesn’t know the outcome of (as he hopes his display will force the murder into self-incriminating himself) before he has a clue as the true identity of the killer. As with the first two episodes of the series, the plot from this episode came directly from one of Erle Stanley Gardner‘s stories.