Perry Mason’s ex-girlfriend, Laura Robertson (Jean Simmons), is about to be appointed to the Senate when blackmailer Pete Dixon (Jonathan Banks) threatens to reveal that she once underwent shock treatment after having a nervous breakdown.  When Dixon is murdered, Laura’s husband (Gene Barry) is arrested.  Laura hires Perry (Raymond Burr) to serve as his attorney.

At first, this movie felt weird to me because it didn’t seem right for Perry to have an ex-girlfriend when we all know that he and Della (Barbara Hale) were in love.  When Laura is at the office waiting to see Perry, she and Della have a conversation and it’s obvious that each is jealous of the other.  When Laura asks, “What about you and Perry?,” Perry shows up before Della can answer.  We all know what the answer was though.  Della loves Perry and, probably because she was so upset over Perry dating Laura, she threw herself at Paul Drake, Sr. and that’s how we got Paul Drake, Jr.

As for Paul Drake, Jr. (William Katt), he flirts with two different women in this movie but he doesn’t get to do as much investigating as he did in the first few films.  This movie is almost all Perry Mason interrogating people.  Raymond Burr uses a cane in this movie and there’s a few scenes where it’s obvious that he was in pain but he still gives a very good performance.  The movie is very talky but it also has the best courtroom confession scene yet and Raymond Burr really sells Perry’s ambivalent feelings.  The identity of the killer actually took me by surprise!

It was weird to see Perry in love with someone oter than Della but this was still an excellent entry in the series.