Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Golden Oranges (1963) User Reviews

Raymond Burr is back full speed on this mystery

[kfo9494 · 8/10 · 27 September 2012]

After being absent for the last few episodes, Raymond Burr is back full speed for this interesting mystery. We also get to see Perry in two different courtroom setting as he defends two different people on charges related to this story.

The episode begins as a land developing company needs a minor price of land owned by Spainish-American War veteran and Medal-of-Honor recipient Amos Kenesaw Mountain Keller. Amos's daughter, Sandra Keller, thought she had permission to sell the land to the company's manager Gerald Thornton but Amos changes his mind at the last minute and wants to keep his property where he grows oranges. But without the land Mr Thornton will fault on all his investments since the bank will not lend him any more money.

After Mr Thronton puts pressure on Amos to sell the land, he gets information about Amos's war record. With this information he puts pressure on his daughter, Sandra Keller, which ends in a dispute at the job site late at night.

When Mr Thornton is found dead it is believed that Amos was the murderer. But when Lt Andy Anderson find other evidence it is not long before Sandra Keller is picked up for murder and will be defended by Perry in court.

The writers do a good job of finishing up this story so that Amos is justified by his peer in the end. And with a supporting cast that includes a dog named 'Heart-attack' the mystery ends with utmost satisfaction.

Arbor Day Episode

[bhoover247 · 9/10 · 8 February 2020]

Amos Keller is the kind of guy you don't want as a neighbor. First he agrees to sell his property and then changes his mind and threatens the poor guy on the earth mover in a scene right out of Grapes Of Wrath. He brags about his exploits in the war with Teddy Roosevelt, he lies on the witness stand and can't answer a question without rambling on about himself until the judge or Perry makes him shut up. He is what people today refer to as a drama queen. This episode is amusing and somewhat silly. Even the confession fits the ridiculous atmosphere of this case.

No Pooch

[darbski · 10/10 · 5 December 2017]

**SPOILERS** "Hardtack", the large mutt belonging to Amos, was good looking, gentle and ill-accused in this tale of orange groves, parking lots, and murder. Throw in an unbelievably sexy secretary, Janice Carr (beautifully played by Erin O'Brien), and it looked like Perry's back in business, and ain't we all glad.

Amos was sufficiently grizzled and cantankerous enough to sidebar the main plot about his property being sold for parking lot space for an early shopping mall. Frankly, he had to share credit with the sweet mutt that was inclined to not like rats; the human kind, of course. I'm gonna exclude Janice from this category for obvious reasons. Doyle, well played by Lee Van Cleef, was also not a bad guy. His wife, though was neck deep in an affair, and shady money transfers, with enough dirt on this snake pile to give Mr. Doyle more than adequate grounds for divorce. Community property? You bet she'll pay up.

The killer will no doubt lose a bundle in his investment. You can't profit from a murder. It WAS FIRST degree murder, though, wasn't it? YUP. He stole the dog to set up the scene, took the shotgun to frame Amos, did the actual deed, and stood to make a substantial profit from it. So long respectable life, hello San Quentin (probably not for long, though).

Amos's granddaughter (and Perry's second client, after Hardtack), was a very good looking lady, and I suppose, given the normal desire to slant the conclusions of this show toward "happy endings", she'll wind up with Wheeler (another guy who was getting axed by the dirtbag dead guy). She STILL has charges of evidence tampering, though. As long as Paul turns on the charm and zeros in on the lovely Janice, all will be interesting, don't you think?

One other thing is the C.M.H. that Amos finally was recognized for; Doyle's wife was right about one thing, most guys that brag about medals never earned them, or have the right to wear them. Until recently, these guys would downplay anything they did; typically saying that they wear them only on special occasions, and only for the men who payed with their lives in service to our country. Here, it was a plot device, so it can be excused. More believably, Amos would have never mentioned it.

A real red herring in the credits

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 15 January 2013]

Arthur Hunnicutt who made a career in playing rustic characters plays yet another one in this Perry Mason episode. Ostensibly he's a Spanish American war veteran and that would in 1963 put him in his eighties. Although his hair is grayed up a bit and he does a good job, I couldn't quite believe he was in his eighties.

Arch Johnson is a developer who originally thought that Hunnicutt was going to sell him his orange grove for part of Johnson's project. But Hunnicutt under the influence of granddaughter Natalie Trundy balks at the sale and Johnson's development is in the toilet unless he changes his mind. And Johnson is pretty ruthless in his methods of persuasion.

Which also gives us a host of red herrings in this show. But it's Trundy charged with the crime of murder of Johnson. I will say that I didn't pick out the perpetrator in this episode, always the rule for me whether a Mason episode is good.

In fact the presence of one member of the cast who made a career of playing a lot of nasty villains might lead one to conclude this is the murderer. I'm here to say, it ain't so.

I got him at the time I was trying to cross a stunk with a wildcat

[kapelusznik18 · 16 October 2013]

***SPOILERS*** Wild and crazy Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, episode with Perry defending both man , or woman, and beast and getting both of them off before it finally ended. The beast or dog part was a piece of cake for Perry in getting old man Amos Keller's,Arthur Hunnicutt, beloved mutt Hartack off on an attack charge on unscrupulous land developer Gerald Thornton,Arch Johnson, that if convicted could have had him put to sleep by the local ASPCA.The second case was a bit harder for Perry. Here he was to defend old man Keller's grand daughter Sandra, Natalie Trundy, in the murder of Thornton himself.It's there that Sandra was caught with the smoking gun or shotgun that she had hid in a pile of oranges with her fingerprints on it.

It was Amos who in an attempt to get Sandra off admitted that he himself blew Thornton away which got more laugh by those in the courtroom, including Perry Mason, then a Jackie Mason stand up comedy routine. What wasn't so funny was the exposure of Amos as a fraud in his getting a medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor, at the battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War. What in fact did happen was so off the wall in Amos' heroics that you had to rewind the video tape of the Perry Mason episode to really understand what he did.Something so unbelievable and in a way stupid that it even made Perry Mason, who's seen everything, almost chock on his ham & cheese sandwich.

****SPOILERS**** The ending had one of the most bizarre confessions in all, real or fictional, US court room history. It was then that Thornton's killer completely broke down and confessed not during Perry Mason's cross examination but when Amos mutt Hartack growled and showed his teeth at him. Sacred to death that he may well be Hartack's next meal the killer willingly confessed feeling a life behind bars, or even the San Queinton gas chamber, was far better then what he was facing!

Entertaining but Utterly Ridiculous

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 1 February 2022]

Arthur Hunnicut made a career of playing gnarly old goats. Here he owns an orange grove which he is going to sell to land developers. Perry Mason found loopholes but the land sale was agreed to. You can't blame the people who were victimized. The courtroom scenes, the business with the dog, the granddaughter's role are all so much hokum, including the confession at the end.

Hardtack Steals the Show

[yohnny · 5/10 · 10 June 2022]

Uncredited Hardtack the Dog isn't given much screen time but, given the opportunity, he attacks his small role with energy and professionalism. Hunnicutt/Keller and Hardtack make a likeable and convincing duo. Fans of Sunkist® and Minute Maid® along with dog lovers should paricularly appreciate this quirky episode.

"Talk amongst yourselves." ~ Linda Richman.

The Case of the Golden Oranges

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 27 July 2019]

Amos Keller is a rustic type who owns a nice orange grove that is greedily eyed up by land developer Gerald Thornton and his financial backers.

Keller is behind in his mortgage payments and his granddaughter Sandra does a deal with Thornton but Amos still refuses to leave. At one point Amos's dog Hardtack bites Keller and then later Thornton is found shot dead.

Perry Mason defends Sandra, the dog and Amos's war record.

Lee Van Cleef is one of the guest star's in this episode. I can see why he decided to run off to Europe to try his hand at low budget spaghetti westerns if this was the standard of scripts at the time.

Perry Mason's manages to redeem Amos's bravery as he handily gets a last will & testament in time. Hardtrack's growling in the courtroom induces a last minute confession. It is all hokey and rather hard to believe.