As season 3 continues on my local station, I continue to
be quite thrilled with it for the most part. I didn’t remember that there were
so many exceptional episodes.
One I was looking forward to is The Golden
Fraud. I wasn’t that crazy about it last year; I found it depressing when
the solution to the mystery came out. (My goodness, the murderer’s mind is
warped.) But I was anxious to see it again anyway, due to it being one of the
episodes with a cat. I love cats and am always happy to see them appear in movies
or television shows.
I had another reason to be interested. I
remembered there was a scene in Hamilton’s office concerning the infamous tape
that is at the center of everything. I wondered if Leon would be mentioned. He
wasn’t, but it turned out to be one of my most favorite scenes in the episode.
It starts out with Sylvia Welles, the owner of
the kitty, setting up what she claims is a prank for a friend’s 10th
wedding anniversary. She wants a conversation between him and her recorded and
later cut and spliced so it comes out sounding like they’re having an affair.
The guy she’s hired gets the equipment ready to go and then leaves with the
tape running. She proceeds to call the man she wants to see—Richard Vanaman. In
reality she has been doing business with him, claiming to be a client. Although
he and his wife had been going to a gathering at someone’s house, he determines
that he will have to see what Sylvia wants. His wife is unhappy but doesn’t try
to stop him.
During their meeting at her apartment, her
Siamese cat becomes very interested in the reports they’re studying. He then
jumps down and runs across the room to where the microphone is. Richard sees it
and is outraged and bewildered. Sylvia claims her jealous husband must be
bugging her apartment. Richard doesn’t believe it and leaves in anger.
It’s only after he’s back home that he realizes
he lost a very valuable and rare coin that could be easily traced back to him.
He leaves his bemused wife again and rushes to Sylvia’s apartment for the
second time. He discovers in horror that she’s lying dead and the apartment
manager is coming upstairs. He tries to hide, and then to run out, but he is
seen.
He comes to Perry the next day, worried about a
story in the paper concerning a gold coin that someone put into a parking
meter. It sounds just like his coin. He asks if Perry can send someone to pick
it up. It seems that he is seeking a vice president’s position at his place of
work and his boss has an extreme aversion to publicity. (This boss also gave
him the coin.) Perry knows his boss and agrees to have Paul go after the coin.
Along the way, Perry meets the apartment manager,
who idolized Sylvia Welles and considered her an “angel”.
Paul goes to the police station to claim the
coin, but a strange and flirty gal sashays in and claims the coin for herself
after describing its unique features to a tee. She leaves her name and Paul
overhears. Richard is told and goes to the girl’s apartment. Instead he walks
into a trap set up by the apartment manager. He is then arrested by the police,
who have been listening to the confrontation between Richard and the manager,
at the manager’s permission.
Meanwhile, Rip Conners, who made the phony tape,
calls Mrs. Petrie, the wife of the other man who wants the vice presidency in
Richard’s company. She is interested in the tape and makes plans to come get it
and pay him $1,000 for it. Her husband Fred comes home, however, and is
horrified and appalled when she tells him that she’s going to use that tape to
ensure that he becomes the vice president. He refuses to let her go get the
tape. He calls Perry to tell him what’s going on.
The tape eventually falls into the hands of the
police after Della tries to keep the appointment with Rip Conners. Tragg and
Hamilton talk to Conners in Hamilton’s office as the tape is played. Hamilton
is angry instead of grateful. He has heard a strange popping sound on the tape
and has Tragg play it again, at a louder volume. With the noise clearly
audible, Hamilton accuses Conner of splicing the tape and not using
de-magnetized shears to do it. Conners admits it’s true but that adds that the
part where Richard finds the microphone and is angry is also there and hasn’t
been tampered with. Hamilton cools down and he and Tragg listen to that portion
of the tape.
During the hearing Hamilton sees no reason for
the phony part of the tape to be played, but wants the unchanged part heard and
made part of the case. The judge agrees and it’s played.
Perry finds out that Richard’s wife didn’t go for
a walk on the night of the murder, as she claimed, but she went to Sylvia’s
apartment. She didn’t go inside because someone was outside the door, listening
to something inside. She returned home. It’s observed that neither she nor
Richard can give the other an alibi.
It finally comes out that Mrs. Petrie schemed
with Sylvia Welles to make the phony tape because Mrs. Petrie wanted to get
Richard involved in a scandal and discredit him from trying to obtain the vice
presidency. Perry wants to hear the faux part of the tape. Hamilton is
bewildered and protests, but the judge gives his consent and Hamilton goes back
to his table with a bewildered shrug.
The apartment manager is on the witness stand at
the time and there is a very interesting type of shot the show rarely used,
where it shows the tape playing along with his stunned expression superimposed
over it. Perry deduces that he is the mystery man Richard’s wife saw outside
Sylvia’s apartment and that he overheard Conners playing the spliced tape.
Believing it was real, his idolization of Sylvia was shattered and he killed
her.
He says that his mother was the same way, and
that he all but worshiped her as well, before he realized. Oh, not that he
killed his mother, but he did kill Sylvia Welles.
There’s a very nice shot of the courtroom as
Richard and his wife embrace.
The epilogue concerns Perry receiving one of the
rare gold coins from the company president and deducing that he is going to
have Richard and Fred continue to compete for the vice presidency.
Overall it’s quite an intense episode. I previously
found it depressing that Sylvia was killed over something thought about her
that wasn’t even true. I still do, somewhere, but she certainly wasn’t the
“angel” she was thought of as being, even though she wasn’t having an affair
with Richard. I think I mainly feel sorry for her poor kitty, clutching the
chair and meowing in distress as he perched above her dead body. I hope he
found a home with a better person.
Fred Petrie is played by Alan Hewitt, this time
with much hair (a toupee?) and a good, strong set of morals. I believe Fred may
be Alan’s only good guy character on Perry. He is a delight. Alan has
long been one of my favorite character actors due to his roles in assorted
Disney movies such as The Absent-Minded Professor and The Barefoot
Executive. (Also, I see he played a district attorney in the film How to
Murder Your Wife. I bet that’s fun. He would play a good D.A.)
Hamilton is wonderful throughout the episode. It
was awesome that he heard the popping sound on the tape, even when the volume
was low, and knew what it meant. He bawled Conners out for lying about the
tape’s contents and not saying it was spliced.
And he is very congenial in court. Instead of
arguing over the request of playing the phony part of the tape, he simply
presents his confusion but doesn’t seem irritated when the judge decides to let
Perry go ahead.
Another
episode I was thrilled with is the next one, The Bartered Bikini. But it
will have to be discussed next week sometime, at least. I won’t be posting on
Sunday, as I need to post on Monday. This time we celebrate Raymond Burr’s
birthday!
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