User Reviews

In an episode that had everything going its way- the ending seemed to dampen the spirit of the entire show. I know that the writers are trying to find different ways to bring an exciting end to the stories conclusion but having someone get up from the witness-stand and ramble around while confessing seemed a poor way to end a rather nice mystery.

The story involves Clem 'Sandy Sandover that works as an accountant in what appears to be a investment company. He is so stingy that he even counts every pen and pencil in his office. The rest of the office believes that Sandover is a strange unwise person that would never take anything from the company- not even a paper clip. However Sandover has them fooled.

Over the 20 years of his employment, he has embezzled a large amount of money from the company where even an audit of the company's books appear to be in order. Now he is ready to take the money and leave his wife for a life with a young secretary of the office. However when he leaves someone has set-him-up when he discoverers the daily money intake of the company in one of his suitcases. And he knows that they will trace that money back to him.

He is able to get the money back to the company safe before the detection but it is clear that someone wants him fired. When he visits the secretary, Lita Krail, she is with another man which inflames Sandover.

It will not be long before Lita Krail is found dead and the evidence points not to Mr Sandover- but to his wife as the murderer. Perry, an old friend, will defend Ms Sandover in court.

By the time the court proceeding end, people in the courtroom will find out that Clem 'Sandy' Sandover is not a dumb as people believe. In fact, perhaps too smart.

A nice show with a good mystery.

**SPOILERS** Don't forget that Clem, "Sandy" Sandover WAS mean, small, petty, cheap, and rotten to his wife. SHE'S the one I couldn't understand. For all her smarts, she married this guy? What for? Also, even though he successfully made off with the funds, he didn't have the brains to either invest the dough in secured accounts, or have a safe deposit box. If he's the bookkeeper he surely knows how to hide pilfered monies. Then to let his emotions control him like a teenager in heat... well...

The scenes of Sandy returning the money to the safe, and his knife-edge control of his panic are just great. He (Stuart Erwin) did a terrific job of acting; managing to translate that raw fear across very well. It's easy to see why he HAD to confess. NOT that he felt particularly guilty, but after so many years of people thinking he was just a bug on the wall, he HAD to tell someone. The smart thing to do, of course, would have been to put the frame-up money into Lita's desk, and then engineer a way for somebody else to "find" it. He was too emotionally controlled to think that far. He'll get Murder 2 (he didn't actually plan to kill Lita), but he did try to frame Enos.

The scene with Della in the blonde Mink stole and platinum wig was fabulous; the way Perry finally got Banks to tip his hand, and then knew for certain that Lita HAD to be the blackmailer, and the scheming scoundrel.Barbara Hale ALWAYS looks beautiful in Mink. The company will get it's money back, Perry's client (Mrs. Olson), will get her job back, etc. ... Paul's last line was great.

Terrific episode shot in part at the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles, this features a very good performance by Stuart Erwin as Clay P. "Sandy" Sandover, a accountant who's embezzled $201,000. He's ready to leave his wife and run off with hotty Lita Krail (Kathleen Hughes). On his way to meet her in Arizona, he discovers someone has loaded his briefcase with another $45,000 in cash. Realizing he's been set up, he hastens to get the money back to LA before its loss is discovered. His wife, Perry's good friend Beth Sandover, is accused of killing Krail and Perry goes to work proving she did not.

Erwin is great and the lighting for the early scenes is even better as they make good use of the Bradbury building. "Superman" fans should keep their eyes open for George Reeves' brother Richard, who shows up in a small part as a truck driver. The script by Jackson Gillis (who also wrote for "Superman" as well as "Columbo") is terrific, only falling down a bit at the very end when Erwin goes over the top in his confession, bragging he was smart enough to embezzle all that dough. Allen Miner did a great job directing most of this episode, but he really needed to reign Erwin in at the end.

***SPOILERS*** Off the wall Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, episode has to do with a double murder where the murder victim secretary Lita Krail, Kathleen Hughes, is first murdered and then some half hour later murdered again after she's already dead! It turned out that her murderer wanted to make sure that not only is Lita dead but the second time around that he murdered her and wanted to be caught red handed to prove in a court of law that he in fact did it! Believe it or not!

This insane action was also done in proving that Lita's killer also embezzled from his company, that he worked for 20 years, of $201,000.00 in order to accomplish his what seemed like his mission in life: To pull off the perfect crime. That after he purposely lets himself get caught by the police.

It bothered Lita's murder that it was another person the innocent as the morning snow Beth Sandover, Virginia Christione, who was indited for his crime that made him go completely nuts. So nuts that at her trial he makes a complete spectacle of himself in not quite knowing how to convince the jury as well as Mrs. Sanderover's defense attorney Perry Mason that he not her committed the crime. You just felt sorry for the guy in that the things in life that he so desperately wanted to accomplish, embezzlement & murder, and get caught in doing it he despite leaving all the clues to convict him couldn't get himself arrested!

Perry Mason who had trouble keeping a straight face during the entire episode did in fact exposed Lita's killer, as well as his former bosses murder, in just not really doing anything but letting her killer do all the talking and expose himself for the murderous psycho that he is. That took some time in that the guy was so completely insane that it's a wonder that any jury on earth would have for one minute believed him. In the end he was given the sentence that he so rightfully deserved a stay at the local mental institution for the criminally insane where he could spend all his time writing the great American Novel about the so-called perfect crime that he committed. A crime that got him committed for the rest of his natural life!