Tue 22 May 2012
A TV Review by Mike Tooney: PERRY MASON “The Case of the Final Fade-Out” (22 May 1966).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[13] Comments
“The Case of the Final Fade-Out.” An episode of Perry Mason (1957-66). Season 9, Episode 30. First broadcast: 22 May 1966. Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, William Hopper, William Talman, Richard Anderson, James Stacy, Estelle Winwood, Jackie Coogan, Denver Pyle, Dick Clark, Gerald Mohr, Marlyn Mason, Kenneth MacDonald, Lee Miller, Gail Patrick (uncredited), Erle Stanley Gardner (uncredited). Executive producer: Gail Patrick. Writers: Ernest Frankel and Orville H. Hampton. Director: Jesse Hibbs.
You’ve probably seen crime dramas centering on a murder during the production of a movie or television show (one installment of Ellery Queen comes to mind), and “The Case of the Final Fade-out” is one of them.
A young and handsome but amoral TV actor (Stacy) is the star of a hit TV crime series. Not content with his success, he’s more than willing to double cross his colleagues to get what he wants — and you just know that when a character in a Perry Mason episode starts throwing his weight around, he is very likely going to end up a corpse.
When filming a hectic shootout scene, Stacy is killed in the confusion; but who pulled the trigger?
Just about everybody this crumb bum knew had a good motive to rub him out, and it’s no small matter for Perry Mason to finally finger the culprit.
This show is special in several ways: (1) It was the final (271st) episode of the original black-and-white Perry Mason series; (2) many of the production crew had a chance to appear on camera (since they were “witnesses” to the crime); and (3) Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner put in his one and only appearance as a judge.
It might also be the only time lawyer Mason defended a dead client — and then went on to defend the person accused of killing him!
When this episode wrapped, everyone thought they were finished with Perry Mason. Raymond Burr (1917-93) went on to what he considered a more interesting character in the Ironside series (196 episodes, 1967-75), but apparently couldn’t resist the money, returning to Perry Mason in 26 made-for-TV films (1985-93).
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Please note the date!
May 22nd, 2012 at 9:53 am
Well, happy anniversary to the last episode of the original Perry Mason! Was that intentional, Steve?
A few months ago I was watching Perry Mason on the rerun network MeTV. Through sheer luck came across the episode with Bette Davis as a hotshot lawyer who subs for Mason. Never knew about that! It was rather good with a great story. At one point Davis reenacts a part of the crime by climbing onto the defense lawyer’s table and reclining. So unlike her refined character and such a surprise I laughed out loud. Next day there was an episode with Michael Rennie as a law professor who is coaxed into taking a criminal case. Raymond Burr made a cameo in that show as he did in a few of the others. Then after checking imdb I realized that MeTV was broadcasting the episodes in the original order. That entire week they showed the episodes in which Perry Mason was recuperating from an accident while guest stars served as the lead lawyer in the courtroom. There was one with Walter Pidgeon, too. Another with Hugh O’Brien had an interesting plot with doubles and spies. It seemed like a pilot for an action TV series.
Does anyone know the reason for these guest appearances? Was Burr really injured or sick? Was the Hugh O’Brien episode intended to introduce another TV series character?
May 22nd, 2012 at 10:49 am
If my memory is correct, Burr was out with a real broken leg.
I have not seen the Hugh O’Brien episode, but the others were too close to the Mason formula to go series (but that doesn’t mean they were not available to go series).
Davis’ role in Mason was in 1963, two years later she would star in a failed TV pilot produced by Aaron Spelling called THE DECORATOR. It was a comedy with Davis as an interior decorator and is available at the usual collector to collector places.
May 22nd, 2012 at 11:11 am
John
Nothing on this blog is happenstance.
Unless it is, but not this time.
— Steve
May 22nd, 2012 at 11:23 am
Part One of “Final Fade-Out” can be found on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFNsYo_8gjg
I tried embedding it in Mike’s review, but this time it didn’t work. I don’t know why.
May 22nd, 2012 at 11:27 am
There is some speculation about the cause of Raymond Burr’s month-long absence on the series here:
http://www.perrymasontvseries.com/wiki/index.php/EpisodePages/Show169
May 22nd, 2012 at 12:38 pm
” … uh-oh, here he goes again …”
It was just last Thursday that MEtv ran this very episode.
I watched, of course, as I always do (I even have it on the Anniversary DVD), and I’m a bit surprised at the sparsity of this write-up.
So For What It’s Worth, here are a few potshots from my own memory bank:
– This being the grand finale, the inside jokes flew thick and fast.
The big TV producer (Denver Pyle) was named Jackson Sidemark – after Gail Patrick Jackson, Art Seid, and Arthur Marks, the Mason showrunners for most of the run. (Personally, I think they missed a bet by not calling Dick Clark’s character “Frank Hampton” or some such, but that’s neither here nor there.)
– The DVD noted a few other cameos besides the obvious ones:
That’s Arthur Marks, the producer and most frequent director, wailing away at the piano in the bar, and a lady CBS exec (can’t recall her name right now *darndarndarndarndarn*) among the barroom customers along with Gail Patrick Jackson (who was still married at that time to Cornwell Jackson, Gardner’s longtime literary agent).
– Side(Seid?) note:
Between the Jacksons and longtime head writer Jackson Gillis, didn’t it ever seem to you that about a fourth of the characters were named Jackson (either first or last)?
– I’ve read several versions of Raymond Burr’s medical leavetaking; if memory serves, he showed up in subsequent episodes with his hand bandaged, still recovering from surgery (correction welcomed).
I also recall that about a year later, Burr sat out a couple of shows as part of a contract tussle with CBS; Burr was telling people that he wanted to leave the Mason role for another series (coincidence? You decide), and CBS countered by bringing in other actors to star in episodes (Mike Connors and Barry Sullivan).
Anyway, it all became moot when Burr agreed to re-up as Mason for another season.
– In the Walter Pidgeon episode, there’s a young blond guy who’s billed as “John Siegfried”. Every time this show runs, I get bug-eyed looking at this guy; I’m about three-quarters convinced that he is in fact Siegfried Fischbacher, later of Siegfried & Roy, but I can’t find any confirmation.
Anybody out there want to take this one?
– And while I’m asking, just who is the director we see at the beginning of TCOT Final Fade-Out? Is it the credited director of the actual episode, Jesse Hibbs? I’ve always thought it was, but I don’t know for sure.
When I get home tonight, I think I’ll look at the DVD again so that tomorrow I’ll have even more stuff for the pile.
Can’t hardly wait, can you?
May 22nd, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Thanks, Michael. I was trusting you as the resident TV expert to answer my questions.
The speculation about Burr’s surgery runs the gamut from dentistry to intestinal polyps! Oh, that ever-grinding celebrity rumor mill. Knowing now of his private life and his reluctance to discuss the surgery in detail I’m sure it may have been way too private and that one of those stories was a P.R. cover.
May 22nd, 2012 at 12:47 pm
” … uh-oh, here he goes again …”
It was just last Thursday that MEtv ran this very episode.
I watched, of course, as I always do (I even have it on the Anniversary DVD), and I’m a bit surprised at the sparsity of this write-up.
So For What It’s Worth, here are a few potshots from my own memory bank:
– This being the grand finale, the inside jokes flew thick and fast.
The big TV producer (Denver Pyle) was named Jackson Sidemark – after Gail Patrick Jackson, Art Seid, and Arthur Marks, the Mason showrunners for most of the run. (Personally, I think they missed a bet by not calling Dick Clark’s character “Frank Hampton” or some such, but that’s neither here nor there.)
– The DVD noted a few other cameos besides the obvious ones:
That’s Arthur Marks, the producer and most frequent director, wailing away at the piano in the bar, and a lady CBS exec (can’t recall her name right now *darndarndarndarndarn*) among the barroom customers along with Gail Patrick Jackson (who was still married at that time to Cornwell Jackson, Gardner’s longtime literary agent).
– Side(Seid?) note:
Between the Jacksons and longtime head writer Jackson Gillis, didn’t it ever seem to you that about a fourth of the characters were named Jackson (either first or last)?
– I’ve read several versions of Raymond Burr’s medical leavetaking; if memory serves, he showed up in subsequent episodes with his hand bandaged, still recovering from surgery (correction welcomed).
I also recall that about a year later, Burr sat out a couple of shows as part of a contract tussle with CBS; Burr was telling people that he wanted to leave the Mason role for another series (coincidence? You decide), and CBS countered by bringing in other actors to star in episodes (Mike Connors and Barry Sullivan).
Anyway, it all became moot when Burr agreed to re-up as Mason for another season.
– In the Walter Pidgeon episode, there’s a young blond guy who’s billed as “John Siegfried”. Every time this show runs, I get bug-eyed looking at this guy; I’m about three-quarters convinced that he is in fact Siegfried Fischbacher, later of Siegfried & Roy, but I can’t find any confirmation.
Anybody out there want to take this one?
– And while I’m asking, just who is the director we see at the beginning of TCOT Final Fade-Out? Is it the credited director of the actual episode, Jesse Hibbs? I’ve always thought it was, but I don’t know for sure.
When I get home tonight, I think I’ll look at the DVD again so that tomorrow I’ll have even more stuff for the pile.
Can’t hardly wait, can you?
May 22nd, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Mike, Thanks for letting us in on some of the fun that was going on in that episode.
One of the things I have always enjoyed about the PERRY MASON show is the list of performers for each episode and trying to identify them. Today IMDB makes that easy, or easier, since the names of many of the bit players never made it onscreen.
But over the years they used lots of radio stars that I could identify by voice but not by face, and lots of stars who were no longer stars, and stars who weren’t stars yet.
Even though PERRY MASON was one of my favorite shows, I missed a lot of episodes when they first aired by being away at school, and they never showed all of them over the summer. It’s just another reason I’m so thankful for DVDs today. Even the ones I saw then I can enjoy all over again, because who can remember who did it anyway?
May 22nd, 2012 at 1:24 pm
I had a friend tell me he made a lot of money betting on who the guilty character was every week in PERRY MASON. He claimed the TV GUIDE always listed the actor of the guilty character in the same billing location (second if I remember correct).
May 22nd, 2012 at 10:49 pm
I absolutely love Perry Mason and Burr, especially in the orginal five seasons. The selling point is the rapport between the players, stories matter but are secondary. As I understand it, Burr required stomach surgery of some kind. He shot the inserts prior to hospitalization, and these relatively busy people were contracted to substitute. I don’t believe it had anything to do with sexual preference or dentistry. He had a problem and it was addressed. The bandaged hand represented an injury sustained in an earlier season.
March 19th, 2015 at 10:57 am
Saw the Final Fade out…Old Hamilton Burger nearly hysterical as he thinks Mason advised a witness to perjury…and was wrong as usual!
By the way Jackie Coogan can be seen at right in the above photo of the stage “shoot” {Sorry I cant resist that pun!}. Mason uses Leif Early own lies to expose him as the double killer!
July 27th, 2017 at 11:43 pm
Hugh O’Brian!