Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Borrowed Brunette (1959) User Reviews

Another fine episode

[kfo9494 · 7/10 · 10 October 2011]

This episode involves a women hired to impersonate someone in order to deceive another. Just by that line we know this is not going to end well for the hired women. Not only for her, but she brings along her aunt that also gets caught up in this spider web of deception.

This episode has a good cast. Beautiful Margaret Fields (also known as Maggie Mahoney after marriage) does a good job casted as the person hired to impersonate Helen Reynolds, played by Paula Raymond. Rounding out the guest actors are Shelia Bromley, who played many bit parts in the 50 and 60's, and John Stephenson, who is Mr voice-over, worked in many roles in the 60's and now is doing voice-overs for cartoons around the world.

Not really much action in this episode other than classic Perry. We do get to see Hamilton Burger's office. (This is a treat that I will leave for the viewer) We also get Lt Tragg at his best when we see him arrest and testify during this episode. And Paul Drake seems to have a lot of face time and more dialog than in other later episodes.

At the end of the show I am left with a feeling that I get many times while watching "Perry Mason"- Why did someone not lawyer up? Anyway I gave this a seven. Not the best of the early shows but one you feel like you did not waste time watching.

PS- If you watch more episodes then get ready to see Paula Raymond and Shelia Bromley again. They each played in five other "Perry Mason" episodes throughout the series run.

Starts Strong...Fizzles a Bit

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 24 December 2021]

The plot starts out with a great premise. Two women are salaried to do things that involve impersonating someone. But they are mostly kept in the dark. Eventually, the man that hired them is murdered and these women are taken into custody. At some point it all gets quite pedestrian. Still, it's a decent episode.

Resemblance???

[darbski · 10/10 · 19 June 2017]

I'm giving this one a "10" because of the clever plot, the legal aspects, and the acting. Now, it's not a great story, but the plot proceeds briskly, and it's interesting to see how the cast tries to convince us that Margaret Fields and Paula Raymond resemble each other. I didn't think so. Beyond the very general description, they didn't. Perry also got set down by Helen (Paula) over an assumption that Slater was blackmailing her. He probably was a guy doing his job, even though he was too cheap to provide adequate money and attention for his own family.

By now, everyone knows that Margaret Fields was the mother of Sally Fields, so I won't bring it up oops, I guess I just did !! Well, nobody else did, and I just wonder why she only did this one episode of Perry. Paula Raymond did several episodes with flair and class, but neither was as pretty as Barbara Hale; Few could be. There was again, in the gallery of the courtroom, a beautiful brunette. Her arms folded, dark hair, dark eyes, good eyebrows, black dress. I've noticed that there is almost always a very pretty brunette seated behind the defense table, and It is curious as to who she is; beyond "beautiful brunette".

It was funny when Aunt Aggie lied to Perry about having a gun, and right then, Tragg comes in and arrests her for stashing the murder gun. Eva (Margaret) then tries to explain to Perry "It's not that she's trying to deceive you, it's" - Perry interrupts to say - "It's just that she's a liar". It was a major chuckle. Also humorous was Tragg referring to the "Garbage can incident". Get this episode from Amazon. Thanks to IMDb for the references .... Acting by minor players as well as principle characters was superb; especially from Joe DeSantis who did a great job being a stressed operator who winds up dead.

More Than A Passing Resemblance

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 11 April 2012]

I found The Case Of The Borrowed Brunette just a little too complex and at the same time the real murderer was rather obvious. And that's always bad with a Perry Mason episode since the paradigm is always that Raymond Burr never defends guilty clients.

And in this case it is correct to use the plural. Joe DeSantis hires Margaret Field to move into an apartment and pose as Paula Raymond. As this is the Fifties and girls weren't into having too much fun yet, Sheila Bromley who is Fields's aunt moves in with her to be chaperon.

It's a simple task, Fields bears more than passing resemblance to Raymond so she moves into the apartment and is wined and dined by DeSantis and gets paid for doing it. That's so Raymond can cheat on her husband with her real boyfriend.

But when DeSantis winds up with a bullet in his forehead, Bromley and Fields are arrested.

I won't go into more, but I was not surprised in the slightest at the outcome.

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

[Prismark10 · 4/10 · 9 April 2023]

Melvin Slater is looking for a double. He thinks he has found her when he sees brunette Eva Martell. She gets a part to impersonate another woman, Helen Reynolds.

Eva will be well paid, stay in a nice apartment. Her Aunt Agnes will stay as a chaperone. Melvin assures them that everything is above board.

However both Eva and Aunt Agnes are nervous about Melvin's motives and just what Helen Reynolds has to gain with all this.

They go to see Perry Mason about the matter. He is intrigued and goes to meet Helen Reynolds who cannot reveal her reasons for such a stunt.

Later Melvin is found dead, Aunt Agnes is arrested. Maybe Helen Reynolds's husband might shed some light as to her wife's deception.

This was a strange episode, there was little resemblance between Eva and Helen. Once Grant Reynolds enters the scene and is open about his wife's perceived infidelities. It is hard not to guess who the murderer might be.

It was a nice move to make Aunt Agnes unreliable and a little shifty. She's a compulsive liar. I noted in the denouement that there was not even a need for Grant Reynolds to break down and admit everything. He revealed himself so much during cross examination.

At the end the fact that Paul Drake could not track down Helen Reynold's lover. Might indicate that he was well hidden or she never had one.

Lawyers like you get me sick!

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 14 August 2013]

***SPOILERS*** What could be called the case of the mysterious garbage can this Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, episode has to do with the murder of Marvin Slater, John De Santis, the man who hired both Eve Martell, Margaret Fields, and her Aunt Agnes Nutly, Shelia Bromley, to impersonate the Lovely Helen Reynolds, Paula Raymond, and live in chaperon. It was the drop dead gorgeous Helen who came up with this bizarre plan to counterbalance her extremely jealous husband Grant, John Stephenson, who was having her followed and checked on by members of the Interstate Detective Agency to see if she was cheating on him. It turned out that the middle man in all this Marvin Slater ended up getting the worst of it in being shot dead and poor Aunt Nutly who's gun was found in a nearby garbage can not far from the murder scene arrested for Slater's murder.

Perry Mason who's defending Mrs. Nulty has to shift through all the garbage in this very puzzling case to get to the bottom or bottom of the garbage can to prove his client's innocent. Whoever murdered Slater dumped the murder weapon, that was later recovered by the police, in the garbage not to really hide it but have it recovered and, with her fingerprints on it, convict Aunt Nutly for Slater's murder. All this garbage comes to a head at trial with Perry Proving that there was no way Aunt Nutly could have planted the murder weapon in the garbage can where it was found! In that it was put there before not after Slater's murder. In fact by leaving it on top of the garbage not bottom where it disrupted the garbage in the can it showed that it was tampered with.

****SPOILERS**** With all the garbage in the case spelled out by Perry it didn't take long for him to reveal who Slater's killer was. He was the person who left a trail of garbage after having murdered Slater that unknowingly lead straight to his front door. And it was Perry Mason who's keen sense of smell lead him to expose Slater's murderer on the witness stand. Getting away from all this garbage the thing that we, the guys watching, were expecting was to find out in this garbage strewn Perry Mason episode just who the lovely and classy Helen was having an affair with. Were told over and over by Helen just what a dreamboat he was and hoped by seeing him we can learn something from the gentleman in how he does it by getting beautiful and and at the same time ice cold, towards us, women like Hellen the wet their panties over him. But sadly enough due to time restrains we were never given a chance to either see or hear from him.