Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Startled Stallion (1959) User Reviews

A horse for the Hambletonian

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 29 August 2012]

Young Patricia Hardy becomes Perry Mason's client when a trotting horse she raised and who is a contender for the Hambletonian Stakes is stolen by skinflint Trevor Bardette who is in a wheelchair. The old miser thinks he has a contract for the horse. Raymond Burr is ready to sue him when Bardette winds up dead in the stall of the horse. Eventually murder is charged against young Ms. Hardy and it's good she's already retained Perry Mason.

Seeing Bardette I think most would think he deserved it on general principles. In fact before he died Bardette was being set up quite nicely in a fraudulent scheme that involved Hardy's brother Elliott Reid, Bardette's bookkeeper Melora Conway and a second rate ham actor played by Paul Richards. It's quite a scheme which I won't reveal anything about because you have to see this one. One of the cleverest invented by the Perry Mason television writers.

This Mason episode is definitely worth a look.

Really Horsing Around

[DKosty123 · 8/10 · 25 January 2009]

Even though this is not Erle Stanley Gardener material, this episode hold up as a fairly good episode. It involves a prime 3 year old horse left as a gift to a young woman. There is a crooked secretary and book keeper who arranges a fake marriage with an old wheel chair bound ranch owner. The owner is impersonated by an actor who is demanding blackmail from the phony bride.

While the suspects are plenty in the plot when the wealthy owner turns up dead with the horse in the stable, there is quite a challenge for Mason in pinning down the killer. The Hambletonian, a famous horse race is prominently mentioned as the race the horse was going to run.

This episode can be solved by the viewer by tracking motive, but Mason is already representing his client, the girl who owns the horse before the murder takes place. That is due to a conflict in which the murder victim is trying to steal her horse. That is why Mason's client is accused along with the visit she makes to the stable seeing the victim dead and leaving the scene in a panic.

They should have titled THIS episode "The Case of the Dead Ringer"

[pc-privconfounder · 9/10 · 2 August 2015]

This is a good PM episode in every way, but the casting rose to the level of genius. From the start, we realize that an actor was hired to impersonate an old man. The actor was played by Paul Richards, the old man was played by Trevor Bardette, and except in the matter of age, the two men could not look more alike! Their facial bone structure, their hair, their eye color, the shape of their noses and ears--all were identical. At one point, the actor is made up to look like the old man and brought into the courtroom, and everyone stares at him. All it took was whitening of his hair, a false mustache and some dark lines on his face, and Paul Richards was transformed into Trevor Bardette. We don't doubt for a moment that even people who knew the old man well would have believed the impersonation. This courtroom scene was once chosen as interstitial programming by a popular TV arts channel, and it's no surprise that it was singled out as the exemplary PM moment.

A Rick Brant connection?

[sfs46 · 10/10 · 29 May 2013]

The Rick Brant Science-Adventure books were a series of 24 books written in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. They were somewhat similar to the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift series of books.

The main character was Rick Brant, who lived on Spindrift Island, and the author's pen name was John Blaine. In this episode, there is a character named John (author's first name) Brant (character's last name) and a horse named Spindrift (name of the island home).

The writer of this episode was quite possibly doing an homage to the Rick Brant books, which were written by a contemporary writer of the writer of this episode, Jonathan Latimer.

There are four main mistakes that people commit on Perry Mason...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 18 December 2022]

... those are:

1. Imprudently and rashly marrying the wrong person

2. Coddling morally weak family members

3. Paying blackmail thinking the blackmailer will go away

4. Walking in on a murder scene and thinking the thing to do is just leave and not call the police

Here you have all but the first mistake. But in this episode we have a twist on the first one. In this case we have a deceitful person faking a marriage to a wealthy person, the elderly and disabled John Brant, using an actor known for his skill at impersonations and makeup. That wealthy person would never trust anybody to the point of marrying them, but instead falls prey to identity theft 1960 style.

The "bride" in this case is having an affair with the brother (in this case the weak coddled family member) of Jo Ann Blanchard. At one point you actually hear the pair decide to kill Brant that night, and when Brant is actually found dead the next day, you figure that for once you know who the murderers are. But things are not quite so simple as that.

The previously mentioned Jo Ann Blanchard is the sympathetic guest character of the week, and of course she is the person accused of the murder of John Brant, who has been trying to take her soon to be champion horse away from her.

I'd recommend this interesting episode.

Decently Crafted

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 4 January 2022]

Once again a part of the story involves blackmail. It also has a hardened woman who uses trickery to get her way. We also have a weak link, a bad actor who oversteps his bounds. Still, it is pretty engaging and keeps us guessing as to what the bad folks are doing.

Don't let the door hit ya on yer way in

[darbski · 9/10 · 27 May 2017]

There are no shortage of dirtbags in this tribute to Old Farts who lived too long. It isn't enough to immortalize the rotten old buzzard that treated everyone else like dirt, they had to drag his doppleganger into court. So much for that gripe. Except to say that this guy was an old rat and someone opened up a can of D-Con. That felt good.

Speaking of good; the good girl JoAnn gets Perry to save her horse from a "Cruella DeVille" (someone else used that description of another harridan in another Perry Mason; I like it, and I'll probably use it again, thanx, d.) He does so, and then the inevitable round of missteps and mistakes lead us to the unmasking of the main creep. Yeah, that part's clear. Guess what? Cruella's gonna get a nice long vacation in Tehachapi State for her part; being the instigator of a felony that caused a death by homicide is good for Murder 2 in California, and has been for a long time. Good girl's brother? He was in on it, so he's tarred with the same brush.

Brings me to another small observation: the horses' name; Spindrift. I think someone should at least try to explain how they come up with these names. Why not "Poindexter"? How about "Pothole" and "Pothole two"? Anyway, Tragg spotted the death scene for murder right away, by inspecting the stall door and where the greedy miser was left, so the idea of the horse being destroyed wouldn't have gone any farther than it did. I liked this episode.

Unbelievable

[spuser · 10 September 2021]

Even for Perry Mason plots, the solution to this episode fails to withstand even cursory scrutiny. Consider that the very short time period in which the murderer could have implicated Mason's client was all included in the filming. Although it was night, previous testimony indicated that the full moon afforded good visibility at substantial distance. The only access to the stable was via the bolted door, so the murderer must have already committed the crime and departed the stable from the side fronting the access road. However, Jo Ann Blanchard neither saw anyone as she approached the horse, nor was there any other vehicle in the immediate vicinity. The murderer had no prior knowledge that either his victim or the defendant would be at the stable in the middle of the night. (Which begs the question, why was he looking there instead of the disabled man's room?) The perpetrator also had strong incentive to depart immediately after the deed was done, rather than wait around on the off chance that he could implicate someone else, since he was either unknown or unwelcome to everyone else living there. Finally, if he had hidden the murder weapon as described, it was very likely that Jo Ann would have heard her car door open and close.

Too many extremely unlikely occurrences in way too brief a time for such a crime of opportunity.

Murder by horse

[WilliamJE · 8/10 · 12 April 2022]

Harness racing, blackmail, a murder with lots of possible suspects. The case of the startled stallion is a pretty good Perry Mason episode. La La La. La La La.

If he has another attack he can go at anytime!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 31 August 2012]

***SPOILERS*** In this Perry Mason episode it a horse Spinndrift who's at first the #1 suspect in the murder of his greedy and in your face, in telling those that he don't like what he thinks of them, owner the wheelchair bound John Brent, Trevor Bardette, who was found with his skull cracked in Spindrift's barn.

This couldn't have come at a worse time for Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, and his client Spindrift's previous owner Joann Blanchard, Pat Hardy, who had come up with evidence that Spindrift was,in Joann's father leaving the prized trotter to her before he passed away, legally owned by her not Brent who forcibly had the horse taken away from her. But the bad news for Joann is that now she's become the #1 suspect in Brant's murder in that she was seen hanging around the barn about the time that he was killed! What Perry soon came up with was that it was old man Brent's book-keeper Carla Hammon, Melora Conway, who was was milking the old guy for all he was worth by her faking together with bit actor Paul Mauldin,Paul Richards,to be married to him. Thus be able to get her hands on his money after he crocked or better yet was murdered!

Standered Perry Mason story with the added attraction of actor Morris Ankrum known to his legions of admirers as "The Eternal Colonel", that's because Ankrum always the plays parts of men of authority, as the trial judge. In fact Ankrum was so good playing a judge that he was to play one in over 20, a record, Perry Mason episodes! There's also a very odd moment at the trial when this what looked like boozed up and nutty old man "Pop" Abbott, Harry Tyler, suddenly pop up from the spectator gallery and confessed to killing John Brant! An admission Which later was thrown out of court by DA prosecutor Hamilton "Ham" Burger, William Talman, in proving that "Pop" was completely off his rocker!

***SPOILERS*** Of course Perry didn't for a minute fall for Pop's crazy confession which was probably rehearsed, by paying Pop off with a couple bottles of whiskey, by Brant's killer himself. Perry instead concentrated on the real person who did Old Man Brant in who fell apart like a house of cards on the witness stand, under Perry's cross-examination, before Perry could even get to the evidence that he murdered him!