Sergeant Brice and Slim Marcus and so very many guns

And so another Halloween season has come and gone. I wanted to write a story as a follow-up to 2012's The Case of the Man-Eating House and have Della, Andy, and Sergeant Brice puzzling over the strange locket Brice brought back and why the little girl stays in the house. That didn't happen, but perhaps I will still write it. After all, creepy house stories aren't just for Halloween. Although, I would doubt whether anyone still remembers the original tale three years later! Usually, if a fanfiction sequel isn't started immediately, it doesn't do so well with its audience.

I've been thinking about Dan Tobin lately. It was his birthdate near the end of October (the 19th). I haven't seen him in anything new, nor have I learned anything more about him, but his performance as Clay is always remembered fondly by me. Clay is certainly a unique and colorful character and, just like all the cast, perfectly captured by his actor. I can't imagine anyone else in the part.

I bought all of season 3 of Perry on DVD several months back and we were watching the uncut versions of the episodes on the nights when MeTV aired them. But we ended up getting a little behind during the Halloween season, so we just got around to see The Mythical Monkeys and The Singing Skirt over the past couple of nights.

The Mythical Monkeys, of course, is the episode from which Pete Kelton hails. I've used him in a couple of stories, but he is most prominent in the one I just finished, The Nefarious Necklace. Being played by William Boyett, he is my favorite of Paul's operatives.

The Singing Skirt is H.M. Wynant's second turn on the series, as gambler and killer Slim Marcus. I still rather like my fleshing out of the calamity on the night of the murder, featuring Vivian Ennis as the one to actually pick up the gun and she and Slim then fight for it. There is vague mention in the epilogue that there was a fight, so my idea doesn't go against canon. That still wouldn't let him off the hook, however, especially with all the nasty things he did to implicate Betty. But I do feature Slim as a minor character in some of my stories for other shows, ironically.

My story goes that he went to prison mainly on charges of tampering with evidence and obstructing justice, since the killing was not deliberate and he was simply trying to protect himself by getting the gun away from Vivian. But then instead of going to the police with what happened, he did all that junk to frame an innocent party, which resulted in most of the charges against him. After his release, he runs a casino of his own and employs a couple of characters from other shows I like to write about. I don't think I've ever actually featured him in a Perry story. He is a dark character due to his past, but he is trying to get past it and live upright now.

Amusingly enough, I went though my posts tagged with The Singing Skirt and saw that I had not originally planned to flesh anything out regarding Slim Marcus's actions. I wonder what made me change my mind.

While I was watching the episode, I came up with some interesting thoughts.

First, I've noticed that even though Sergeant Brice is the main sergeant now, he still isn't always the one around. Tragg still goes to crime scenes with other sergeants or even uniformed officers sometimes. There was a sergeant in The Singing Skirt whom I've never seen before, to my recollection. I was thinking how rather sad it was that it wasn't Brice.

Now I'm starting to think that Brice doesn't become the only sergeant around until season 4, when Hamilton was absent and then later when they tried to give Brice more of the burden of the police character. My memory is that neither Andy nor Steve ever worked with any sergeant except Brice, unlike Tragg. I've always written that Tragg and Brice are especially close, and I imagine they are, but it is interesting to note that Brice was apparently never exclusively Tragg's partner (at least, not until season 4, perhaps).

Actually, that lends credence to the idea in my stories that Brice still works with the other Lieutenants even though he is now Steve's partner. Perhaps during times when Steve is working at the station or off-duty, Brice still partners with Tragg or Andy.

One interesting thing about The Singing Skirt is that it definitely shows Perry's human frailties, instead of trying to make it look like he's never wrong. His screw-up with the guns and his over-confidence really make a mess for both himself and the defendant. There aren't many episodes where Perry seriously flubs as badly as he does here. Even in season 7's The Woeful Widower, where Perry suspects the wrong person for most of the episode, he doesn't actually cause a calamity.

I've always been rather appalled by Perry's fiddling around with those guns, but this time around it occurs to me that he really could have gotten his other client in trouble by using his gun to substitute for the one in Betty's hat box. Note that when the client is on the stand, he says that Perry didn't think he should even be carrying a gun while his civil suit was going on. That was six months ago, yet the gun is still in Perry's possession. I question whether the suit was resolved, since I would think the client would have taken it back once everything was settled. But regardless, what if he had been implicated in a crime because his gun was used? Of course, what actually happened was that Perry got himself implicated, but it seems to me the other could have happened just as easily.

I like that Perry is so determined to help Betty when she's being bullied by the gamblers, but somehow it just doesn't sit well with me that he took another client's gun to try to help her. That client trusted Perry too and it seems Perry really let him down. If I was that guy, I think I'd be looking for a new lawyer.

The Singing Skirt: Book vs. Episode

I have been seriously neglecting this blog this month. Part of it is because of my annual October Writing challenge, to write ten or eleven creepy stories in October, and they’re turning out longer than other years, so I’m devoting more time to them on this round.

Another part is that I haven’t been able to think hard enough to come up with a new topic I want to discuss. Unfortunately, I once again didn’t get up a special anniversary post back in September to celebrate the day our show premiered. But after seeing The Singing Skirt again and looking over the book summary, I am intrigued enough to want to muse on the similarities and differences between the two versions.

Most names are different in the book version, as usual. George Anclitas and Slim Marcus retain theirs. Some characters’ names are oddly similar, such as Ellis instead of Ennis. Other characters’ names are completely changed, including the defendant’s.

It’s interesting that Slim Marcus and George Anclitas are working together in the book to cheat Mr. Ellis, instead of Slim doing it behind Anclitas’s back. And the amount of money is much less—$6,000 instead of $60,000.

The basic plot is more or less the same as the episode, including the thing of Anclitas framing people with marijuana cigarettes when he wants them out of the picture and Perry switching guns and causing even more of a problem because of it. But of course, since a little 50-minute episode can’t hold everything, the book is much more fleshed-out than the episode.

Also the same is the defendant not being so squeaky clean, which isn’t as big a deal in the books but is in the episodes. She’s having an affair with Mr. Ellis, which seems to be more pronounced in the book than it was in the episode. In the episode, they still seemed to be trying to tone it down somewhat by it being said that they only went out two or three times (albeit that may have been a lie).

The biggest difference between the two versions, and the one I find most pleasing, is that Slim Marcus is not the murderer in the book. However, it’s kind of sad that in the book it’s actually Mr. Ellis. After the defendant was so crazy about him, he just kills his wife and lets the defendant take the rap. And in addition to dating her, he was also dating her friend Sadie! I guess that’s what she gets for getting involved with a married man.

According to Storrer’s site, the books tried to build up on the tension between Perry and Hamilton by having Hamilton get closer each book to either getting Perry in (probably deserved) trouble or getting the defendant convicted. I suppose that means that was kind of the gimmick of the books, as opposed to the episodes’ gimmick of the wrong person always being arrested. In The Singing Skirt, to make the tension even more pronounced, even Della disbelieves the client is telling the truth.

That is unusual for the episodes too, isn’t it? There’s been quite a few times when Paul has disbelieved, but it seems like Della usually sticks with whatever Perry thinks. Or even times when Perry doesn’t want to take a case because he’s skeptical, Della encourages him to do so. I think about the only time television Della was absolutely not thrilled with Perry’s involvement was in The Velvet Claws, when Della could see how dangerous the client was but Perry kept trying to help her anyway.

That element of Della encouraging Perry to take cases he isn’t that interested in seemed to be a theme running through several mystery series. The same thing happened several times on Mannix, with Peggy encouraging her boss to take certain cases. It seemed very strange and even out-of-character when later on, in season 7, there were two or three occasions where Peggy was convinced that Joe’s theories were baloney and that he should drop the cases because the clients were not worth helping.

Since both Della and Peggy serve as the consciences for their bosses during those rare but human times when they would rather do something other than take on a particular case, it’s odd to see either of the girls being cynical and trying to discourage their bosses instead. Of course, in the case of The Velvet Claws, Della’s objections are understandable, while Peggy’s objections in the season 7 episodes are puzzling. Why those cases any more than any others? They’re not any stranger, nor the clients any more suspicious, than many of the others. Our Velvet-Clawed lady, on the other hand, is extremely unique in her manipulations of and flirting with Perry. I can’t think of another client quite like her in any way, and that is negatively speaking.

But I digress. The Singing Skirt is actually not one of my favorite episodes; were it not for H.M. Wynant taking part, it would probably have been destined to remain as one of my least favorites, due to all the shenanigans with the guns that Perry causes and the resulting problems in court because of them. Also, it is the last episode to feature Hamilton until the last two episodes of the season. And I find myself quite unprepared for the long stretches of Hamilton-less episodes in the remainder of season 3 and much of season 4! Maybe, since now I own most of them on DVD, I’ll watch the uncut versions instead of just seeing the cut versions over once again. I’ve hardly seen any of those episodes uncut, so that will at least be a fun adventure.

And I do look forward to The Crying Cherub in any case, as I think Sergeant Brice and Lieutenant Tragg have some nice interaction in it. I also particularly like The Nimble Nephew. And of course, I always enjoy seeing the Sampson episodes, cut or uncut.

Meanwhile, since The Singing Skirt is one of the books available to read online on that site I found (http://www.e-reading.me/bookbyauthor.php?author=21005), I shall probably read through at least some of it sometime.

The Long-Legged Models and The Singing Skirt

So last night I watched The Long-Legged Models.

A lot of the time I stared blankly at the screen, rather confused. I think I need to watch the uncut again; season 1 episodes are mangled even worse because of their longer running time.

Of course, I could follow the basic plot along alright. And I still spotted those similarities with The Singing Skirt, although now I realize I also have another episode mixed up in my thoughts. I’ve been thinking The Long-Legged Models is the episode that features the real-life spot Gardena, as opposed to The Singing Skirt’s apparently made-up Rowena. But it is not, and now I’m wondering which is the Gardena episode. I’m positive there is one.

There are still enough similarities between the episodes, however, that the parallels run about as good as those between the original versions of the stories and the ones that have announced themselves as remakes (i.e., The Silent Partner versus The Candy Queen, etc).

Gambling does play a part in The Long-Legged Models, albeit it’s more in the background than in The Singing Skirt.

There’s still those pesky three guns that confuse everyone from the defendant to Perry himself. But Hamilton doesn’t make as big a deal out of what Perry does with the guns as he does in The Singing Skirt, even though it seems like what Perry does in The Long-Legged Models is much more blatant.

Perry still tries to use said guns to confuse the issue and make his client look less guilty, but instead everything turns upside-down and the murder gun is discovered in her possession anyway. The difference is that in The Long-Legged Models, she deliberately switches guns to protect someone else, instead of the guns being switched on her without her knowledge as in The Singing Skirt.

A girl whom the defendant thinks of as her friend ends up playing a part in framing her for the murder. In The Long-Legged Models, she’s also the actual murderer. In The Singing Skirt, she is not.

All in all, I definitely still consider the episodes connected, in the same way I notice similarities between The Fugitive Nurse and The Frantic Flyer, even though the latter doesn’t officially claim to be a remake of the former.

One unique difference where The Long-Legged Models and The Singing Skirt are concerned, however, is that both are based on separate stories written by Mr. Gardner, instead of the pseudo-remake being a television-only thing. And I have to wonder why he used the idea of multiple guns more than once. I thought that in general, if there’s such a unique plot point as the confusion over multiple guns and Perry inadvertently making it worse, the author would try not to repeat it. To his credit, he did have Perry do different things with the guns in each case to confuse the issues, but still, it surprises me to have used that plot angle twice.

Scrolling through the plot summary for the book version of The Long-Legged Models, I notice that while the murderer is still the same person as in the episode, she kills in self-defense in the book. In the episode, the implication is that it’s premeditated murder. I much prefer the idea that it was self-defense, especially since (at least in the episode) she’d been trying so hard to turn her life around.

On the series, self-defense killings don’t happen too often, but enough so that I might do a post to gather them together. Those, and the sub-category of when it’s an accident. They’re kind of a refreshing change from it so often being premeditated, although it is amazing how every one of the people who kills accidentally or in self-defense can never seem to speak up until Perry puts the pieces together in court. Some of them say they would never allow the wrong person to be convicted, at least, but they sure let things go on and on before they reveal the truth. Of course, I realize it's that way for the sake of the plot.

I’m looking forward to watching The Long-Legged Models uncut soon, to pick up the rest of the episode’s story once again. I just came from watching the uncut Velvet Claws, and it makes so much more sense in its originally intended state!

The upcoming season 9 DVDs

More news: The second half of season 9 is already up for pre-order at Amazon, although there’s no release date listed for it yet. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CL0MCN0?tag=tvshowsondvdcom&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=B00CL0MCN0&creative=373489&camp=211189

Just a little over a month to the release of Part 1! I’m so hyped for it.

I just wish the box art was different. It seems sad to not feature the other characters across the top, like with all the other sets, and instead just have Perry alone. It feels very final and melancholy and makes season 9 feel way different aside from its distinction of being the last season.

And really, it doesn’t start out that different, in spite of new cast members Richard Anderson and Dan Tobin. The early episodes are a lot like what we just left in season 8, which isn’t surprising since I heard 8 and 9 were given continuous production numbers as though they were all part of one big season. It’s only after getting into it a little more that things get quite different.

It’s episode 5’s The Impetuous Imp that brings the first real changes plot-wise, in the form of Hamilton’s assistant Bill Vincent. I certainly would like to know what the writers’ actual intention was with the character. The changes are positive in the respect that they throw more screentime on the district attorney’s office, but when Bill seems so unable to handle himself in court, I wonder if it’s really a positive change. I do enjoy seeing how Hamilton deals with the problems, however.

The Carefree Coronary, episode 6, is probably the first drastically different entry, with one of the main characters actually being at death’s door. Exploring how the others react to it results in, I think, a very positive change. It’s heartbreaking, but encouraging, to see how deeply worried and distraught Perry and Della are over Paul.

I would cite The 12^th Wildcat, episode 8, as being the first episode in season 9 to really be noticeably negatively different in formula. Not explaining the crime is jaw-dropping in any season, including 9. But then there’s the oddity of the court scenes in both this episode and the prior one, The Hasty Honeymooner, being so identical. And The Hasty Honeymooner is so weird as it is that I wonder if I should list it as being the first negative one. It’s not the first oddball episode the series has ever done, though. But The 12^th Wildcat and its gaping plotholes is certainly something new.

Granted, the show has had plotholes before. There’s some rather confusing stuff with that pesky locket in The Romantic Rogue, for one. But that’s still nothing compared to simply refusing to explain the crime. They always did that otherwise, to help the poor confused souls who couldn’t put all the pieces together (and to reveal pieces that no one would have put together).

With the first fifteen episodes (presumably) on the first set, that will also take us through the utter tongue-in-cheek oddity that is The Golden Girls and to The Bogus Buccaneers, an episode I’m particularly anxious to see in its uncut form. I just hope all of its plotholes will be nicely wrapped up, particularly why Clay gets to be one of the baby’s three godfathers.

Other episodes I’m especially excited to see uncut for the first time are The Fatal Fortune, The Wrathful Wraith, and The Runaway Racer. And I am hoping that if nothing else, the missing scene with Hamilton in The 12^th Wildcat will at least help explain his off-the-wall behavior in court. (But since the court scenes are so similar to The Hasty Honeymooner’s, I kind of doubt it.)

Most of the other episodes on the first set I’ve seen uncut, except for the out-of-town episodes The Cheating Chancellor, The Hasty Honeymooner, and The Fugitive Fraulein. But I am very happy that I will get to own all of them uncut, including the ones I’ve seen uncut before. I especially look forward to taking screenshots on The Candy Queen. There’s so many actors I particularly like in that one!

And speaking of The Candy Queen, casino manager Tony Earle briefly wandered into something I was tinkering with concerning Slim Marcus (of The Singing Skirt notoriety). I finally got an idea for how to do a character study on Slim, but it ended up being . . . well, quite a bit different than anything I’d imagined. Slim ends up talking with a fellow from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Japanese anime series. But don’t worry, folks; if anyone wants to take a look, there’s only one throwaway reference to anything really strange. It’s just a conversation between two people each carrying a burden. http://31-days.livejournal.com/2982905.html

Another rather random idea floating through my mind involves Hamilton, Sampson, and maybe Leon on some sort of quest (which quite possibly involves rescuing at least some of the others). It was Village Lantern, a beautiful song by Blackmore’s Night, that sparked that idea. I’ve associated it with Hamilton for over a year, and to me it always has a certain element of both adventure and fantasy to it. It would probably be similar in nature to the Lux Aeterna theme set I wrote on Livejournal. (And it would probably also be posted on Livejournal.) But I don’t know if I’ll actually write it or even to start filling in the details.

I have plans for the next chapter of The Malevolent Mugging, which I intend to start writing this week. It would be very nice if I could get all the rest of the story written before it’s been up for a whole year!

Art Episodes! (At Last.)

Well, that was one more epic fail to add to the list. I am so sorry. Once again I wasn’t feeling well. I think March is my bad luck month where health is concerned. (Maybe it’s those pesky Ides.)

One bad thing about watching the uncut of something and then seeing the cut version, if you don’t own the uncut: It gets very frustrating seeing exactly what the extent is of everything that’s suddenly missing!

Last night my local station had The Singing Skirt. Well, since it’s the only Perry episode with H.M. Wynant that I don’t own, I of course have been anxious for it to air so I could finally get a copy for myself. I knew things were missing, but I didn’t remember that any of his scenes were gone. All I recalled was not seeing that scene between Mr. and Mrs. Ennis, their only scene together.

But they also clipped this scene: 

And this scene: 

I’m especially annoyed by the former scene being missing, because from the way the characters converse, I get the feeling that they are at least on somewhat friendly terms. Although that’s a moot point, since Marcus later tried to incriminate the girl for the murder.

And I’m particularly confused by the latter scene being absent. I was sure I’d seen it before I watched it in the uncut! Maybe it’s a case of my local station having two copies and sometimes airing one and sometimes the other. It’s very strange, but I’ve seen it happen, with the Stand-In Sister as one recent example.

But I’ve definitely decided I’ll be buying the last half of season 3 now, possibly before any other Perry-related purchases. (Unless season 9 starts releasing in the meantime!) I want to have all those scenes at my beck and call! Plus, an uncut copy of The Prudent Prosecutor would be nice. (Albeit thankfully the cut version leaves in all the Perry and Hamilton awesomeness.)

I think I had something else in mind that I was going to say before getting to the main body of the entry, but now I’m not sure what it was! Aurgh.

The arts have always been a common theme on Perry. And, as we know, artists are very often portrayed as eccentric. A lot of the time, we get both elements in the same episode. Sometimes we don’t, and I think during those times, we get variations on the idea.

It seems like almost every season had one art-themed episode, but now I can’t think what season 1’s is, if any. But picking up on season 2, we have one of my most favorite episodes ever, The Purple Woman. It deals with art dealers, old paintings, and yes, an eccentric artist. This one is making forgeries and ends up being the murderer. He goes on a rant in court (one Perry coerces him into) about what an amazing artist he is and eventually gets around to confessing to the murder.

Season 3 has The Crying Cherub, the first of the non-Hamilton episodes. What really gets me is they did film at least some scenes with William Talman. I would love to know if that footage still exists somewhere! If it does, it should totally be released, maybe as a bonus feature on one of the season 9 sets.

The Crying Cherub deals with paintings and crooked art dealers again, with the intriguing idea of one painting being painted over another to hide it. The slightly eccentric person here is a woman buying the paintings and not making sure they’re genuine first.

I can’t recall if season 4 did an art episode either. I suppose the closest they came is The Torrid Tapestry, the titular object of which isn’t a painting but is certainly art.

Season 5 has The Posthumous Painter, wherein a crooked artist decides to fake his death so his paintings will go up in value. He also continues to paint in secret to make more to sell. This is one of the David episodes, and one of the ones where David has an idea to help advance the case, that of using the device to track heat in the paintings and determine when they were painted.

I’ve never really been bothered by David knowing about certain things to help the episodes along. I imagine that the other characters (or at least Perry and sometimes Paul) would know about at least some of those things as well, instead of David telling them things they don’t know, but giving the spotlight to David in those cases at least allows him something to do.

Season 5 also has The Absent Artist, featuring a man leading a double life: one as a stereotypical artist in an older apartment, and the other as a high-profile cartoon creator in Hollywood. The kook here is played by Victor Buono, so that immediately tells us that we’re in for a fun and amusing ride. He kind of behaves as a stereotypical artist himself, including insisting that he isn’t interested in money. But he’s really very interested in it!

Interesting sidenote: while all of Victor’s Perry characters are involved in shady dealings to some extent, this fellow is probably the most harmless. The worst that he does is to drive the dead body out to Hollywood to try to keep the double life a secret. Oh yeah, and I think he asks for $500. Compare that with two murderers and a guy running a car-theft ring.

Along the same lines as the season 4 episode, with something different than paintings, the season 6 art-themed episode is The Greek Goddess, about a sculptor and the model he falls in love with. The sculptor’s eccentricities seem to have mostly been present before the time of the episode. According to his journalist friend, his clothes always looked rumpled and wrinkled like they’d been slept in and worn for days, he didn’t like hats (I think), and he said soap was for dishes. (Um, ewww, if he really never used soap!) When he brings back the model and her “mother”, however, he seems to abandon a lot of those eccentricities, upsetting his friend.

Actually, I’d say his friend ends up the real kook in this episode. He’s so upset over the sculptor changing his ways and falling in love with Theba, the model, that he goes to massive lengths to break up the couple. He finally says that the gods chose John Kenyon to portray love in his works but to never get to experience it himself. Um, gee. What a great friend. And he’s got seemingly no qualms about letting Kenyon take the fall for the murder.

Season 7’s The Reluctant Model, also one of my favorite episodes ever, gets us back to paintings. There’s an eccentric beatnik painter, whose beatnik dialogue is an act if the gallery owner is to be believed, and a husband and wife quarreling over where a painting they both like gets to hang. And said husband is played by John Larkin, who played the sculptor in The Greek Goddess!

This is one of the book adaptions, but I imagine the book version is vastly different. And I imagine it doesn’t have any of the awesomeness of Perry and Hamilton investigating the case together. It’s also one of the few episodes to feature both Andy and Tragg, but they sadly don’t share any scenes (except when they sit silently in court).

It’s back to sculpting in season 8’s The Scandalous Sculptor. In this case, both the sculptor and his model are kind of kooky. Sue Ane Langdon plays one of her classic ditzy girls (who isn’t adverse to posing just in her birthday suit, shocking two elderly visitors to the house). But she’s both smarter and darker than she appears to be.

The sculptor is cheerful, bad with money, and a bit scandalous in his attitude and actions, yes. But he doesn’t mean any harm. And he’s really sweet and genuinely loves his wife. They’re one of my most favorite couples in the series. It’s always nice to see a marriage that’s really working out!

Season 9’s art-themed episode is the remake of The Moth-Eaten Mink, The Sausalito Sunrise. The kooky artist is not a main plot point, but he’s an amusing one. Della runs into him at an art exhibit and they study a bizarre sculpture that looks like feet sticking out of a tub of water (if I remember right). The artist proclaims that it’s obvious that it’s depicting a naked soul, to which Della answers that she’s never seen a naked soul.

Other art-related goings-on are some comments Perry makes about modern art and the fact that paintings are being stolen and smuggled. Without seeing the uncut version, I still don’t know the significance of the one particular painting mentioned in the episode title.

Of the art-themed episodes, The Reluctant Model is probably my favorite overall, but The Sausalito Sunrise is definitely #2. I find the character exploration of Steve very intense and intriguing. And I must admit, my favorite thing about my third choice, The Purple Woman, is the epilogue. But all three episodes have exciting plots in general, as well as character interactions that I adore.

The Singing Skirt

First, some news, courtesy of Amazon.com. This week only, through Saturday the 12^th, they’re having some incredible sales on Perry DVD sets (all except part 2 of season 8)! Most are $10.99, with a few later ones at $17.99 and a couple at $24.99. This is an excellent time to start collecting, or to pick up installments you don’t yet have! If you’ve only ever seen Perry on television, you’re missing a lot of scenes that were cut out.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_196050_27628120_pe_button/?docId=1000946611&ie=UTF8

Speaking of cut scenes, I ordered the disc with The Singing Skirt from Netflix, as I wanted to see if anything involving H.M. Wynant’s character had been cut. The problem is, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I couldn’t fully remember. I recognized one scene towards the beginning as being new, featuring the Ennises in their one and only scene together, but other than that I just wasn’t sure.

Is it just me or is the episode’s plot very similar to The Long-Legged Models? Both are based on books of Gardner’s, according to the opening credits, and there’s no indication that they’re based on the same book, so I have to wonder if he really wrote two books with such similar elements.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen The Long-Legged Models too, but from what I recall, there’s a deal over a legal gambling joint in an area either in L.A. or nearby, a girl who knows too much and is being threatened by the gamblers, and a series of identical guns admitted as evidence. Perry initially tries to confuse the issue with the guns and only makes everything worse.

That plot could describe either episode.

You know, the funny thing is, from what little I do recall, I thought Perry’s actions with mixing up the guns were more shocking in The Long-Legged Models than in The Singing Skirt, yet Hamilton never learns about what Perry did in The Long-Legged Models.

I really felt sorry for Perry in The Singing Skirt, trying so hard to help the girl by switching the guns (before any of them were used in a crime) and being so confident that everything would be alright, only to later discover that the one he put in place of the other was the (first) murder weapon. He ended up getting himself as well as the defendant into quite a mess.

H.M.’s character is quite a nasty fellow all the way along, plotting with Mrs. Ennis to take her husband’s money in a crooked poker game. And he shouldn’t have been dating her in the first place, although as far as that point is concerned, the defendant shouldn’t have been going out with Mr. Ennis. This episode is interesting for being one of the few where the defendant really isn’t just squeaky-clean and misunderstood.

I couldn’t remember how the confession scene was done, and I couldn’t imagine H.M. doing one of the really cheesy ones, so I was gratified by the intensity of it. George Anclitas, the owner of the gambling joint (and not such a nice guy either, really), suddenly realizes that H.M.’s character Slim Marcus must be the guilty one. He snaps and grabs for him, while Slim tries to get away, and ends up throttling him right there in the gallery. The bailiff struggles to separate them and finally succeeds, and in a fit of hysteria over nearly being killed, Slim blurts out, “I’ll tell you how I did it! I’ll tell you how I killed her!”

Every now and then the show does an episode where the killing is an accident, and I have to admit, I wished it would have been that way in this one. But the only thing that’s said is that Slim and Mrs. Ennis fought over control of the money and he shot her. Since there’s no mention of a specific fight for the gun, I suppose there probably wasn’t one and he just picked up the gun and did it. I think that would be Second Degree Murder, if it wasn’t premeditated and was committed in the heat of the moment.

Of course, if I really wanted, since there’s so little information, I could say that Mrs. Ennis picked up the gun and they struggled and it went off. But it wouldn’t change Slim’s nasty behavior throughout the episode or what he did to implicate the defendant. I don’t particularly have any intention of tinkering with a story to try to cast him in any kind of slightly better light.

Then again, I never intended to do that with Tobin Wade either, and that happened. In Tobin Wade’s case, however, what fascinated me most was that he apparently really had been friends with the Stuarts and then let his greed and desperation take over so that he turned against them. And I wondered if he would ever regret what he did to them.

Slim doesn’t have anyone he’s close to, unless I were to say that once upon a time he had been close to George Anclitas. And somehow I can’t picture either of them ever having been a genuine friend to the other. They were probably always in it for the money. But again, with so little information, it could likely be written any way someone wanted.

One thing that was instantly apparent to me: I could see why they wanted H.M. to play a character nicknamed Slim! He really was impressively slender and trim then, as both he and Richard Anderson have always been.

And as always, he delivers an amazing and fully believable performance. He can play any part, good or bad, to perfection.

Funny thing: I do remember that the last time I watched The Singing Skirt before this, whenever that was, I couldn’t remember who the guilty party was and I hoped it wasn’t him (even though at that time, I wasn’t really up on recognizing him whenever he popped up in something). I was disappointed that his character was guilty, despite the fellow’s nastiness. When that happens, I like to think that I’m more interested in the actor and that somehow his real goodness is coming through to me, rather than that I’m just shallowly thinking the character is cute. Although another part of it is that because I’ve found something I like in an apparently roguish character, I’m hoping he turns out to not be as bad as he seems. Sometimes it works (such as in an epically awesome episode of The Virginian I saw part of last night). Other times, such as here, it doesn’t.