Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Blind Man's Bluff (1961) User Reviews

He got so good he could do it blindfolded

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 25 October 2012]

Jack Ging is Perry Mason's client in this episode, a young man who wants to get his mother's jewelry on display at a Tiffany like store in Los Angeles, owned by George MacReady and run by John Conte. Conte and a few others have a nice little racket going of selling stolen jewels through the store.

But Conte is having a cash flow problem and he decides on a daring robbery. You've got to have the guts of a burglar for this one. He knows he's going to need eye surgery soon that will leave his eyes bandaged for a week. For weeks he works out a route to a company penthouse next door that he can run blindfolded.

The robbery goes off as planned, but Conte gets himself killed and the stolen jewels are stolen from him. And Ging is on the hot seat for the murder.

Just by the description of Conte's activities, there are any number of possible murderers, sworn enemies and greedy friends. And a lovely female accomplice in Merry Anders.

The murderer in fact is no surprise, mainly because this player has a history of playing some of the slimiest creeps on celluloid. They should have had this one as a red herring, might have worked better in terms of suspense.

Still not a bad episode.

Desperation Leads To Robbery & Death

[DKosty123 · 9/10 · 14 January 2010]

This one involves a jewelry man who has been using the business while the partner is away to sell stolen gems being placed into items being sold to customers. Now his partner who has been out of the country for a year is coming back. He hatches a scheme to try & bail out his problem that he has been stealing money from the business as well as selling hot jewels.

There is an expensive collection of jewels on display, which are insured but belong to a elderly woman. Her younger nephew is in desperate need of money, & wants to sell the collection at a large profit. He enlists Perry Mason to help him find a way to do this.

He rehearses a robbery of the collection so that he can get eye surgery, rob the store when blind, then take the jewels & skip the country. Then when he does it, he get murdered. It goes without saying that it takes Mason to find his killer.

One Fact

[darbski · 10/10 · 13 September 2017]

**SPOILERS** I liked this episode, in spite of the fact that the key to an alternate theory of the crime, and another suspect was in plain view all the time. I'm not talking about it having been hidden in plain sight, but IN THE FACE OBVIOUS. Yeah, the roof entrance. Further, even if it wasn't brought out in court, and it should have been, Whitehead would probably have used the same internal fire stairs to get out; never going into the main hall to use the elevator. Again, however, for all his planning, Whitehead confesses, when all had to do was deny it all, ride out what Tragg may have in store, and, if he's got the stuff stashed well enough, get away later. If he hadn't been such a little sissy, and cried out, he probably could have avoided killing Addison in the first place. So long jewelry store, hello San Quentin. Murder 2.

Even if he had denied it, however, Perry hit the prosecution with enough ordinance to completely wipe out their so-called airtight case with a good alternate theory of the crime and another perpetrator.

I feel sorry for Helen, the Chanteuse; old man Slade probably still won't help her (too bad), and of course, Adele, who is now on the hook for grand theft (class A felony), and maybe hooked up to the murder (accomplice to the original crime, AND she was trying to escape). She didn't want anything to do with the continuing crimes Addison was pulling. Ain't love grand??

I mean, I'm really not a huge Blonde fan, but the casting directors on this series absolutely knew how to pick 'em. Merry Anders was definitely one of them. Very good acting carried it through, in spite of the fact that the escape was obvious.

Another Perfectly Ensembled Episode!

[therealjohnhood · 10/10 · 7 May 2022]

We all know how perfect Mason's main cast fits together, but the show also had a very fit ensemble of perfectly played guest stars. Same with the writers and directors, most who frequently flew with Perry. In this case it was director Arthur Marks, whose dynamic life gets duly praised in this episode's comprehensibly enjoyable IMDb bio. What great fun! Keen too! Whoever wrote it - Thank You!

For a great concept this ended rather bland

[kfo9494 · 6/10 · 24 July 2013]

This started off with a great concept but for some reason just did not have the flair or interest that other episodes have possessed. A very smart idea that was just to bland.

Karl Addison is the manager of a jewelry store that is owned by Charles Slade. Seems that Karl is working at little overtime when some of the jewelry sold at the store is being recognized as containing stolen gems. Well, Karl has this plan of stealing from the store and has a nice alibi. He is going in for eye surgery and will be totally blind for weeks. But that does not stop Karl, he rehearses stealing from the company while blindfolded so that when he is really blind he can perform the robbery. With a little help from the inside, Karl makes his play for the loot.

But things to not go as planned and Karl is killed and the jewelry he stole is missing. All the evidence points to a young man named Jim Kincannon. His mother has valuable jewelry stored at store and Jim is in desperate need of money. And when he is seen at Karl's penthouse pad at the time of the murder, Perry will make an appearance to save Jim from the gas chamber.

Even with the nice plot, no one in this episode seemed enthusiastic about the story. There's a lot of misleading information that has the viewer guessing but nothing that made this show stand out from others. Not really a bad episode but one that looked so promising and then ended like fat-free milk.

Way Too Far Past Incredulity

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 15 January 2022]

A man plans to steal jewels by rehearsing as a blind man. He is due an operation and feels if he is "blind," he can get away with the theft. With a couple of glitches, he manages, but ends up falling several stories off a roof. Of course, another young guy gets tapped for the murder.

I See Nothink!

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 25 July 2013]

****SPOILERS**** Jeweller Karl Addison, John Conte, has been fencing stolen jewelry through his bosses Old Man Charles Slade, George "Greedy" MacReady, jewelry exchange business for over a year while he was on vacation in Europe. With Slade now coming back to the states to check on how his business is doing Addison is desperate to check out of the country with his lover Slade's secretary the gorgeous blond Adele Bentley, Mary Anders, to South America before Slade finds out what he's been up to. At the same time Addison is scheduled to have an eye operation that he, in his unbalanced mind, plans to use as cover for his crime and intended escape from the long arm of the law. Addison plans to break into Slade's office apartment and steal the jewels while , after the eye operation, him being blind as a bat by practicing to do it blindfolded for weeks in advance to get the feel of the place. Now who can suspect a blind man to do something like that Addison as well as Adele rightly figures.

What they didn't figure is the hot under the collar James Kincannon, Jack Ging, who's mother's jewelry collection Addison is displaying and who's at the same time desperate for ready cash to make up a for $20,000.00 loss at his firm. The loss had to do with James covering for Charles Slade's son Harry who embezzled the money. Before Harry could pay James back the money he loaned or stole for him he himself was later killed in a car crash. Now it's the kind hearted and at the same time screwed James that's stuck with being charged with the crime. But things get even worse when Addison in trying to pull off his hair brained scheme of stealing Slade's jewels ends up falling or being pushed, blindfolded, to his death as he tried to break into Slade's apartment. It's there where Slade kept most of his business or jewelry. And just who gets the credit or blame for Addison's death or murder? The #1 fall guy in all this the luckless James Kincannon who just happened to have been seen leaving Slade's apartment at the time of Addidson's fall from grace or from the apartment patio!

***SPOILERS**** With Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, defending James Kincannon he gets stuck in how to explain why a person so off the wall like Addison could have been murdered by his client even if he wanted to do it! When that lunatic Addison was doing a pretty job doing it himself! That by him walking or tip toeing over ledges three stories high totally blindfolded and with no sense of direction at all. The trick to Addison's murder is not what he saw which was nothing but what or who he heard! And by recognizing his potential murderer's voice who in fact at the same time was trying to raid Salde's jewelry box like Addison was that had him , by being pushed to his death, killed!

Confusing, labored, and dissapointing story.

[mrgoodvibrationsmichigan · 3/10 · 5 March 2021]

So far the lowest rated "Mason" episode since the start of the series, a rather dull, far fetched story that has more characters just to make a complex story, but ends up with a confused boring nonsense episode. The only high point is its a episode after Ham Burger returned to the series. My lowest rated PM with only 3 stars. Seems the writer had high hopes for a complex twisting saga and ended up with a running pile of diarrhea.

plot summary (spoiler)

[jwstephens · 12 April 2006]

This episode involves a man who plots to be blind when a burglary takes place so he has an alibi.

The theft is of a jewel collection that it in a store accessible in a store in an adjoining building. He practices walking the course to the store while still sighted, and when

he has an eye operation and is blind, uses this to steal the jewels.

He is the victim as he is observed by someone he did not expect when he

enters and opens the safe to take the jewels. the killer follows him

silently back to his penthouse, and when is caught stealing the jewels

from the original thief is killed.