Many episodes over the years have had a tyrannical professor involved. Now a strict educator isn't so bad, even if he is a bit of a philistine, but this guy got personal. There is the theft of tests and a sculptor in love with the cheating guy. Some of the slang and the interactions among the students is rather dated.
7 Reviews
Perry. Big Man on Campus
grogan8126 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Ok Perry returns to his alma mater. They also are celebrating Della's birthday. There is all kinds of cheating going on, on and off campus. You have a professor stealing credit for a research book. Students stealing answers to a test. Said professor is doing weekend " consultations " with the extremely sexy Lee Meriweather. Well he ends up dead with the guy he stole the research credit from standing over his corpse. It is pretty easy to figure out who the killer was. I have to say I loved Ms. Meriweather's performance. She was great when she was questioned by Perry and Paul. She basically told them to get the hell out of there.
Perry, Della, And Paul
CherCee4 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers
One of the reviewers asked the question why would Paul Drake (William Hopper) and Della Street (Barbara Hale) go 100 miles from L. A. with Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) to celebrate Della's birthday. Well, I figure the reason is that Perry had an event at his alma mater (100 miles from L. A.) at the same time as Della's birthday, so Paul and Della decided to go along with Perry so they could all still celebrate Della's birthday together. It was a good, clever episode, and Lee Meriwether never looked better. Michael Walker did a good job, he definitely inherited his talent from his parents, Jennifer Jones and Robert Walker.
College Daze
zsenorsock7 August 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Perry is visiting his alma mater when the new chancellor to be, Stuart Logan (Barry Atwater) is killed. Van Fowler (James Noah) is discovered standing over the body, and since he'd accused Logan of stealing the paper they'd worked on together and dropped his name from it, he becomes the prime suspect.
There's a lot of odd things about this story. For one thing, there's a lot of noirish type shots composed in the darkness of a university building as a security guard investigates who's broken in to Dr. Logan's office. Why doesn't he just TURN ON THE LIGHTS? In fact, why are the lights of the building off when people are still working there in their offices? Was California going through a fiscal crises at the time? The script also suffers from an embarrassing student demonstration and Perry delivering a lecture about today's youth to Bob Hyatt.
Perry discovers Logan was having an affair with the woman who illustrated the book/paper he and Van Fowler wrote. It seems odd that this type of dry publication would have an illustrator of this type. Odder still that a hot young illustrator like Evelyn Wilcox (Lee Meriwether-Catwoman in the "Batman" movie) would be draw to unfunny, uncharismatic, not rich or very attractive Stuart Logan.
Michael Walker is good as the angry student who cheats on a test in a desperate attempt to make the grade. His roommate, and the son of Perry's friend is Bob Hyatt. He's played by Peter Helm, but in listening to his voice and inflections I would have sworn he was Tony Dow's brother. Their voices are remarkably alike. Helm later appeared with Burr again on "Ironside" two seasons later.
Stacey Keach (Sr. the father of Mike Hammer Stacey Keach) gets to play the judge in this, and Louise Latham is fine as Logan's long suffering wife.
While the college is supposed to be about 100 miles away from LA, for some reason Della and Paul join Perry before there's a murder to celebrate Della's birthday. Why they do it way out of town is never explained and it is never referred to again after the celebration is interrupted by murder.
I believe this is also the first time only William Hopper and Barbara Hale are listed in the opening titles, Ray Collins having died that summer and William Talman not in this episode.
There's a lot of odd things about this story. For one thing, there's a lot of noirish type shots composed in the darkness of a university building as a security guard investigates who's broken in to Dr. Logan's office. Why doesn't he just TURN ON THE LIGHTS? In fact, why are the lights of the building off when people are still working there in their offices? Was California going through a fiscal crises at the time? The script also suffers from an embarrassing student demonstration and Perry delivering a lecture about today's youth to Bob Hyatt.
Perry discovers Logan was having an affair with the woman who illustrated the book/paper he and Van Fowler wrote. It seems odd that this type of dry publication would have an illustrator of this type. Odder still that a hot young illustrator like Evelyn Wilcox (Lee Meriwether-Catwoman in the "Batman" movie) would be draw to unfunny, uncharismatic, not rich or very attractive Stuart Logan.
Michael Walker is good as the angry student who cheats on a test in a desperate attempt to make the grade. His roommate, and the son of Perry's friend is Bob Hyatt. He's played by Peter Helm, but in listening to his voice and inflections I would have sworn he was Tony Dow's brother. Their voices are remarkably alike. Helm later appeared with Burr again on "Ironside" two seasons later.
Stacey Keach (Sr. the father of Mike Hammer Stacey Keach) gets to play the judge in this, and Louise Latham is fine as Logan's long suffering wife.
While the college is supposed to be about 100 miles away from LA, for some reason Della and Paul join Perry before there's a murder to celebrate Della's birthday. Why they do it way out of town is never explained and it is never referred to again after the celebration is interrupted by murder.
I believe this is also the first time only William Hopper and Barbara Hale are listed in the opening titles, Ray Collins having died that summer and William Talman not in this episode.
So much cheating is going on here!
AlsExGal29 October 2023
Dr. Stuart Logan is both cheating on his wife with a younger woman AND he is cheating one of the Ph. D. students and instructors there, Van Fowler, by stealing his ideas and taking credit for his book. To add insult to injury Logan is rude to both his wife and the instructor from whom he is stealing.
In a side plot a young man, Bob Hyatt, is worried he'll not pass his finals and graduate, thus disappointing his father. His roommate offers him the easy way out - the answers to the hardest final exam he'll take - but he turns it down. Dr. Logan finds out about the theft of the answers and tells everybody in the class that he is holding their exams and will expel everybody whose answers align with the stolen answers. Given Dr. Logan's personal and professional behavior I'm surprised he is so devastated by his own cheating students. But he doesn't have time to be shocked because, later that night, he is murdered.
Chance would have it that Perry Mason is on campus for a fund raiser and reunion - this was Perry's alma mater - so he is on the case when cheating educator is killed and Van Fowler is arrested for murder.
This was one of the few Perry Mason episodes to deal with the angst of the younger generation. He has a conversation with young Bob Hyatt, who might be able to shed some light on who did kill the professor, but he'd have to rat out his cheating best friend in the process. Hyatt then enumerates his list of complaints against Perry's generation, which grew up in the Great Depression and fought WWII. Of course getting expelled from college in 1965 has its own problems - primarily that you are likely to find yourself in Vietnam with a rifle slung over your shoulder.
This wasn't a great episode of Mason, partly because Hamilton Burger is not the prosecutor due to the distant jurisdiction.
In a side plot a young man, Bob Hyatt, is worried he'll not pass his finals and graduate, thus disappointing his father. His roommate offers him the easy way out - the answers to the hardest final exam he'll take - but he turns it down. Dr. Logan finds out about the theft of the answers and tells everybody in the class that he is holding their exams and will expel everybody whose answers align with the stolen answers. Given Dr. Logan's personal and professional behavior I'm surprised he is so devastated by his own cheating students. But he doesn't have time to be shocked because, later that night, he is murdered.
Chance would have it that Perry Mason is on campus for a fund raiser and reunion - this was Perry's alma mater - so he is on the case when cheating educator is killed and Van Fowler is arrested for murder.
This was one of the few Perry Mason episodes to deal with the angst of the younger generation. He has a conversation with young Bob Hyatt, who might be able to shed some light on who did kill the professor, but he'd have to rat out his cheating best friend in the process. Hyatt then enumerates his list of complaints against Perry's generation, which grew up in the Great Depression and fought WWII. Of course getting expelled from college in 1965 has its own problems - primarily that you are likely to find yourself in Vietnam with a rifle slung over your shoulder.
This wasn't a great episode of Mason, partly because Hamilton Burger is not the prosecutor due to the distant jurisdiction.
Trying to outguess any lawyer is dangerous
sol121810 January 2013
Warning: Spoilers
****SPOILERS**** Perry Mason,Raymond Burr,going back to his Alma Mata an engineering collage for a quiet reunion just can't keep away from his work in defending murder suspects that he always in the end gets off.
This time around it's teacher not yet professor Van Flower, James Noah, who was found in the dead Chancellor Dr. Stuart Logan's, Barry Atwater, office with the murder weapon,a paper holder spike, in his hand. As we already saw both Logan and Flowler weren't getting along that well with Logan getting all the credit for Flowler's work in a book he was going to have published on the pros and cons of public transportation. What makes Logan even more despicable is his attitude towards his students whom he after finding out that they were cheating on their final exams threatens to kick them out of collage and ruin their future prospects in the labor market for doing exactly what he'd doing! What a creep!
Perry taking on Flower's case soon finds out that young collage student Bob Hyatt, Peter Helms, was at the scene of the crime and has information that can clear Fowler of Logan's murder. The problem for Bob is to do that he'll be forced to rat out his friend Joe Price, Michael walker,as the person responsible of stealing Logan's Q & A sheets for the final exam he was giving his class! A big decision for the confused Bob Hyatt: Get an innocent man from being sent to San Quentin's gas chamber or expose a cheater who's only punishment would be him getting expelled from collage!
***MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS*** Perry hits pay-dirt in finding out that the late Stuart Logan was not only cheating Fowler out of the credit for his long awaiting and soon to be published book on the transportation industry but was cheating on his old lady or wife Shirley, Louise Latham, as well! Not only that he was planning to leave Shirely and marry his secret lover book illustrator Evelyn Wilcox, Lee Meriweather, as soon as his book who Fowler actually wrote is published! And there was also the outraged student body who had earlier hanged Logan in effigy and were about to storm his office when he was found murdered! Could anyone of them have slipped in and did the guy in before Fowler; Who claimed Logan was already dead before he even got there!
P.S As for Bob Haytt he in the end didn't have to finger his friend Joe Price as the person who stole Stuart Logans exam papers. Joe in a fit of moral consciousness did it himself in open court before Bob was to be forced under cross-examination to rat him out!
This time around it's teacher not yet professor Van Flower, James Noah, who was found in the dead Chancellor Dr. Stuart Logan's, Barry Atwater, office with the murder weapon,a paper holder spike, in his hand. As we already saw both Logan and Flowler weren't getting along that well with Logan getting all the credit for Flowler's work in a book he was going to have published on the pros and cons of public transportation. What makes Logan even more despicable is his attitude towards his students whom he after finding out that they were cheating on their final exams threatens to kick them out of collage and ruin their future prospects in the labor market for doing exactly what he'd doing! What a creep!
Perry taking on Flower's case soon finds out that young collage student Bob Hyatt, Peter Helms, was at the scene of the crime and has information that can clear Fowler of Logan's murder. The problem for Bob is to do that he'll be forced to rat out his friend Joe Price, Michael walker,as the person responsible of stealing Logan's Q & A sheets for the final exam he was giving his class! A big decision for the confused Bob Hyatt: Get an innocent man from being sent to San Quentin's gas chamber or expose a cheater who's only punishment would be him getting expelled from collage!
***MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS*** Perry hits pay-dirt in finding out that the late Stuart Logan was not only cheating Fowler out of the credit for his long awaiting and soon to be published book on the transportation industry but was cheating on his old lady or wife Shirley, Louise Latham, as well! Not only that he was planning to leave Shirely and marry his secret lover book illustrator Evelyn Wilcox, Lee Meriweather, as soon as his book who Fowler actually wrote is published! And there was also the outraged student body who had earlier hanged Logan in effigy and were about to storm his office when he was found murdered! Could anyone of them have slipped in and did the guy in before Fowler; Who claimed Logan was already dead before he even got there!
P.S As for Bob Haytt he in the end didn't have to finger his friend Joe Price as the person who stole Stuart Logans exam papers. Joe in a fit of moral consciousness did it himself in open court before Bob was to be forced under cross-examination to rat him out!
To fink or not to fink on a friend
bkoganbing26 April 2013
In this episode of Perry Mason after meeting the victim and title character in the story one can only imagine some of what Barry Atwater probably pulled on the way up the educational ladder. There is a severe difference of opinion as to a book he has claimed to have written. A young instructor without tenure played by James Noah saying he did all the work and was entitled to have at least a collaborative share. But Atwater threatens to kill his Ph'D chances should he fuss.
He's also a cheating dog of a man who has been stepping out on wife Louise Latham with Lee Merweather who is a former Miss America. Finally answers to one of Noah's tests were stolen and Atwater is holding the whole class responsible unless the guilty party confesses or he ferrets out the truth. That sure made him a host of enemies.
But when he's stabbed to death it's Noah who is arrested and is fortunate to have Perry Mason visiting because this Raymond Burr's alma mater. Even luckier to have Della Street and William Hopper along for the ride.
A crisis of conscience on the cheating has got Peter Helm in a bind. He doesn't want to be labeled a fink and it's his roommate Michael Walker who ripped off the answers. Helm does the right thing in the end and it's his testimony that leads to the identity of the real killer. But Michael Walker's border on the unbelievable.
It's the reason I can't rate this as a top Mason story.
He's also a cheating dog of a man who has been stepping out on wife Louise Latham with Lee Merweather who is a former Miss America. Finally answers to one of Noah's tests were stolen and Atwater is holding the whole class responsible unless the guilty party confesses or he ferrets out the truth. That sure made him a host of enemies.
But when he's stabbed to death it's Noah who is arrested and is fortunate to have Perry Mason visiting because this Raymond Burr's alma mater. Even luckier to have Della Street and William Hopper along for the ride.
A crisis of conscience on the cheating has got Peter Helm in a bind. He doesn't want to be labeled a fink and it's his roommate Michael Walker who ripped off the answers. Helm does the right thing in the end and it's his testimony that leads to the identity of the real killer. But Michael Walker's border on the unbelievable.
It's the reason I can't rate this as a top Mason story.
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