This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2015) |
"The Case of the Restless Redhead" | |
---|---|
Perry Mason episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
Directed by | William D. Russell |
Teleplay by | Russell S. Hughes |
Based on | The Case of the Restless Redhead by Erle Stanley Gardner |
Editing by | Richard W. Farrell |
Original air date | September 21, 1957 |
Running time | 50 min |
Guest appearances | |
| |
"The Case of the Restless Redhead" is the premiere episode of the CBS television series Perry Mason . [1] Adapted from the 1954 novel of the same title by Erle Stanley Gardner, this episode marked the beginning of Raymond Burr's long-running portrayal of the famous fictional lawyer.
Red-headed waitress Evelyn Bagby (Whitney Blake) comes home to her apartment one night and is shocked to find a revolver, which she'd never seen before, in her cigarette box. Having once been accused, then acquitted, of stealing jewelry from a famous movie star, Evelyn calls defense attorney Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) to ask for his advice. He advises her to leave her San Fernando Valley apartment and check into a hotel in Hollywood for the night. As she drives to Hollywood, a driver with a hood over his head tries to force her off the road; panicking, she fires the revolver twice in his direction, causing him to drive off the road.
Evelyn brings the gun to Mason's office and tells him what had happened. Mason goes to the scene of the incident, and finds that the homicide police are already there; the hooded driver was killed by a bullet to the head. He's identified as a man who had cheated Evelyn out of $1500 when she first came to Hollywood, and there's no bullet hole in the man's hood—which turns out to be a pillowcase from the apartment house where Evelyn lives. The police refuse to believe her story, and she's arrested for murder.
After a great many twists and turns (including Mason using an identical gun to fire two bullets into a tree and a post at the crash site), Mason, with help from private investigator Paul Drake (William Hopper), exposes the true killer in the courtroom; as a result, Evelyn is cleared of all charges.
Raymond William Stacy Burr was a Canadian actor who had a lengthy Hollywood film career and portrayed the title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.
Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a client being charged with murder, usually involving a preliminary hearing or jury trial. Typically, Mason establishes his client's innocence by finding the real murderer. The character was inspired by famed Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers.
Matlock is an American mystery legal drama television series created by Dean Hargrove and starring Andy Griffith in the title role of criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock. The show, produced by Intermedia Entertainment Company, The Fred Silverman Company, Dean Hargrove Productions and Viacom Productions, originally aired from March 3, 1986, to May 8, 1992, on NBC, then on ABC from November 5, 1992, to May 7, 1995.
Ironside is an American television crime drama that aired on NBC over eight seasons from 1967 to 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as Robert T. Ironside, a consultant to the San Francisco police department, who was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot while on vacation. The character debuted on March 28, 1967, in a TV movie entitled Ironside. When the series was broadcast in the United Kingdom, from late 1967 onward, it was broadcast as A Man Called Ironside. The show earned Burr six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.
William DeWolf Hopper Jr. was an American stage, film, and television actor. The only child of actor DeWolf Hopper and actress and Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, he appeared in more than 80 feature films in the 1930s and 1940s. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he left acting, but was persuaded by director William Wellman in the 1950s to resume his film career. He’s perhaps best known for his portrayal of private detective Paul Drake in the CBS television series Perry Mason.
Arlene Martel was an American actress. Before 1964, she was frequently billed as Arline Sax or Arlene Sax. Casting directors, among other Hollywood insiders, called Martel the Chameleon because her appearance and her proficiency with accents and dialects enabled her to portray characters of a wide range of races and ethnicities.
Barbara Hale was an American actress who portrayed legal secretary Della Street in the dramatic television series Perry Mason (1957–1966), earning her a 1959 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason made-for-television movies (1985–1995).
William Whitney Talman Jr. was an American television and movie actor, best known for playing Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger in the television series Perry Mason.
Diagnosis: Murder is an American mystery medical crime drama television series starring Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes with the help of his son Steve, a homicide detective played by Van Dyke's real-life son Barry. The series began as a spin-off of Jake and the Fatman, became a series of three television films, and then a weekly television series that premiered on CBS on October 29, 1993. Joyce Burditt, who created the show, wrote the Jake and the Fatman episode.
Wilma Jeanne Cooper was an American actress, best known for her role as Katherine Chancellor on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973–2013). At the time of her death, she had played Katherine for over 40 years, and her name appears on the list of longest-serving soap opera actors in the United States.
Hamilton Burger is the fictional Los Angeles County District Attorney (D.A.) in the series of novels, films, and radio and television programs featuring Perry Mason, the fictional defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Whitney Blake was an American film and television actress, director, and producer. She is known for her four seasons portraying Dorothy Baxter, the mother, on the 1960s sitcom Hazel, and as co-creator and writer of the sitcom One Day at a Time. With her first husband she had three children, including actress Meredith Baxter.
Kathleen Crowley was an American actress. She appeared in over 100 movies and television series in the 1950s and 1960s, almost always as a leading lady.
Richard Norman Anderson was an American film and television actor. One of his best-known roles was his portrayal of Oscar Goldman, the boss of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers in both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman television series between 1974 and 1978 and their subsequent television movies: The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989) and Bionic Ever After? (1994).
Perry Mason is an American legal drama series originally broadcast on CBS television from September 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Many episodes are based on stories written by Gardner.
The Case of the Howling Dog is a 1934 American mystery film directed by Alan Crosland, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Erle Stanley Gardner. It is first in a series of six Perry Mason films Warner Bros. made between the years 1934 and 1937.
Kyle Abbott is a fictional character from The Young and the Restless, an American soap opera on the CBS network. Introduced on January 8, 2001, the character is the son of businessman Jack Abbott and Diane Jenkins. For the character's first three-year run, he was portrayed by a series of infant toddler actors. In 2010, the character returned, portrayed as slightly older by child actor Garrett Ryan. After two years, he was rapidly aged to an adult, with Blake Hood stepping into the role in April 2012. Upon his return, Kyle began dating Eden Baldwin.
John Larkin was an American actor whose nearly 30-year career was capped by his 1950s portrayal of two fictional criminal attorneys – Perry Mason on radio and Mike Karr on television daytime drama The Edge of Night. After having acted in an estimated 7,500 dramatic shows on radio, he devoted his final decade to television and, from April 1962 to January 1965, was a key member of the supporting cast in two prime-time series and made at least twenty major guest-starring appearances in many of the top drama series of the period.
A series of 30 Perry Mason television films aired on NBC from 1985 to 1995 as sequels to the CBS TV series Perry Mason. After a hiatus of nearly 20 years, Raymond Burr reprised his role as Los Angeles defense attorney Mason in 26 of the television films. Following Burr's death in 1993, Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook starred in the remaining four television films that aired from 1993 to 1995, with Sorvino playing lawyer Anthony Caruso in the first of these and Holbrook playing "Wild Bill" McKenzie in the last three.