Customer Reviews

The Case of the Sulky Girl

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3 star:		(1)
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Love this! This is a very exciting CD set. Colonial Radio Theater does a great job with this story. I have read Perry Mason stories for years and Perry is just like the book...Sorry Paymond Burr! CRT never disappoints. All the dramatizations from Colonial Radio Theater are the best-you can listen to them many, many times If I could I would rate this 10 stars!

A young woman visits Perry Mason to inquire about a will; this will probably result in a court trial. Fran Celane's father's will would disinherit her if she married before age 27. Her uncle was the trustee; but if he died Fran would inherit everything. The secret is that Fran got married, and could lose a fortune when this was revealed. Mason rides with Fran to their country home, and talks with her uncle, Edward Norton. Uncle Edward is obstinate in preventing Fran from getting her inheritance. "Great riches, with the wrong temperament, frequently lead to great suffering."

In Chapter V Perry gets a call from Fran late at night; her Uncle Edward has just been murdered! Norton's business partner had just left the house when Don Graves looked back and saw someone hit Norton; just a glance out of the rear window of a car. They turned back and found the body. As in other stories, people reveal their character through their statements. Chapter X provides an example of how a criminal lawyer could sell out his client for the right price. Paul Drake explains how private detectives use a "rough shadow" (Chapter XII). Chapter XIV tells how the police can lock up a material witness to prevent testimony to a defense attorney! Chapter XVI explains how news photographs are made. Chapter XVII tells how statements made right after the murder "disappeared". "The way to get to the bottom of a murder is to ... find the real explanation of that fact." Chapter XVIII tells how a prisoner can be manipulated into telling a false and incriminating confession! The trial of Fran and Rob starts in Chapter XIX. Chapter XXIII tells how newspapers reports are made for publicity. Chapter XXV explains the significance of having the spectators watching the defendants. Once again, Perry Mason vindicates his clients. Chapter XXVI tells of his successful attempt to raise a doubt in the mind of a key witness. Fran's unpleasant experience was educational and moral; it helped cure her temper. Mason was able to theoretically reconstruct the murder and solve the crime. [I suspected this conclusion in Chapter V, because of an eyewitness who had no corroboration for what was a self-serving statement.]

This is the first Perry Mason story written by Erle Stanley Gardner, published in 1933. This is the first and only Perry Mason story I have read. I've heard that the tone of these earlier works are a little 'tougher' than the stories written in the following decades. The first half of the book certainly follows the hard-boiled tradition, as Mason acts a more like a private dick than a lawyer. But a lawyer he is, and the second half settles into a court-room drama. What does Perry Mason have up his sleeve that will rescue a young lady and her new husband from charges of murdering her uncle to ensure her inheritance?

An enjoyable, light read, although Gardner's writing is a little pedestrian and the build-up to the court case is a little long, with the trial itself resolved a little perfunctorily.

Frances was accustomed to doing things her way. However, under the terms of her father's spendthrift trust, she was powerless to marry until age 25 unless she risked being cut out completely. She retained Perry Mason to break the will, despite it's iron-clad terms which gave her uncle absolute power over the fortune in the trust.

The will did leave a loophole - if her uncle died before the terms expired, Frances would get the money absolutely. So it was completely in her favor when Frances's uncle was murdered - until she found herself as the prime suspect.

This was Mason's first recorded trial, though not the first book (The Case of the Velvet Claws was the first, and had no trial scene). He handles it expertly, but it all comes down to a typical Perry Mason trick to confuse a witness. It works, but not as well as some of his later works.

When an actor so well defines a character, it's easy to forget the character predated him. Such is the case with Raymond Burr and Perry Mason. Before Perry Mason came to television, the character was in Erle Stanley Gardener's novels and in six movies.

In their adaptations of Perry Mason for the radio, the Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air seeks to faithfully recreate the novels from the 1930s rather than the Television program. The first to be released is Perry Mason and the Case of the Sulky Girl.

A 23-year old spoiled rich heiress (Kimberly McCord) whose father left everything to her and put it in a spendthrift trust managed by her tightwad Uncle and with a prohibition on marrying before turns to Perry Mason (Jerry Robbins) to get help breaking the trust. Mason suspects that she's not telling him everything and learns she's been secretly married which could give her uncle reason to cut off the trust immediately and leave her with only $5,000. Without telling the uncle about the marriage, Perry tries to reason with him but to no avail.

Then, that same night, the uncle is murdered and his client lies to him and the police, giving her a false alibi. His client is charged with murder, along with her secret husband. Mason has to prove she's innocent and find what really happened.

This was a very good murder mystery with a lot of twists and a focus that rested almost completely on Mason, who was in nearly every scene.

The story is well-paced and a bit more hard boiled than Burr's portrayal. This Perry Mason does bend the rules, having his client fake a nervous breakdown to send her to a sanitarium, so he can have time to plan. His client also stupidly took $38,000 off of her uncle's body to pay off a blackmailing and to give Perry a retainer. Mason stuffs the $10,000 retainer in an envelope and mails it to a fictitious address.

However, Mason is in a tough game against lawyers who are very seedy. The murderer makes a clumsy effort to frame a chauffeur who was passed out drunk by planting $2,000 on him. The chauffeur's lawyer offers to get his client to plead guilty to manslaughter--in exchange for a $50,000 fee. Rather than the ethical Hamilton Burger (who would not be introduced for four more novels), Mason draws the crookedest prosecutor around.

Against such odds, Robbins' Mason is tough and smart, as he tries to represent the interests of his client. Robbins' is supported by a solid cast, McCord in particular does a great job as the bratty heiress. The Courtroom scenes are slightly stiff by everyone but Mason, but I think this was to create a sense of realism.

A young woman visits Perry Mason to inquire about a will; this will probably result in a court trial. Fran Celane's father's will would disinherit her if she married before age 27. Her uncle was the trustee; but if he died Fran would inherit everything. The secret is that Fran got married, and could lose a fortune when this was revealed. Mason rides with Fran to their country home, and talks with her uncle, Edward Norton. Uncle Edward is obstinate in preventing Fran from getting her inheritance. "Great riches, with the wrong temperament, frequently lead to great suffering."

In Chapter V Perry gets a call from Fran late at night; her Uncle Edward has just been murdered! Norton's business partner had just left the house when Don Graves looked back and saw someone hit Norton; just a glance out of the rear window of a car. They

turned back and found the body. As in other stories, people reveal their character through their statements. Chapter X provides an example of how a criminal lawyer could sell out his client for the right price. Paul Drake explains how private detectives use a "rough shadow" (Chapter XII). Chapter XIV tells how the police can lock up a material witness to prevent testimony to a defense attorney! Chapter XVI explains how news photographs are made. Chapter XVII tells how statements made right after the murder "disappeared". "The way to get to the bottom of a murder is to ... find the real explanation of that fact." Chapter XVIII tells how a prisoner can be manipulated into telling a false and incriminating confession! The trial of Fran and Rob starts in Chapter XIX. Chapter XXIII tells how newspapers reports are made for publicity. Chapter XXV explains the significance of having the spectators watching the defendants. Once again, Perry Mason vindicates his clients. Chapter XXVI tells of his successful attempt to raise a doubt in the mind of a key witness. Fran's unpleasant experience was educational and moral; it helped cure her temper. Mason was able to theoretically reconstruct the murder and solve the crime. [I suspected this conclusion in Chapter V, because of an eyewitness who had no corroboration for what was a self-serving statement.]