Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Long-Legged Models (1958) User Reviews

Guns for everybody!

[kfo9494 · 7/10 · 28 October 2011]

In this episode, George Castle (Joe De Santis) plays a role where he is liken to a 1930's mobster. He is tough, rude and will do anything to advance his bank account even to the means of breaking the law. So when he is murdered I can bet that no tears were shed. I think justifiable homicide is more of a proper charge than murder.

Anyway this shady character is trying to shake down Stephanie Faulkner (Peggy McCay) by making her sell some Las Vegas property for far below value in order to pay for her dead father's debt. (Oh yes, He killed her father).

George Castle finally meets his end at a local motel just minutes before a visit by Stephanie. And for some silly reason, she just happens to have the murder weapon in her apartment when Lt Tragg makes his rounds.

She got the gun from a friend Michael Gavin Sr (Lyle Talbot) when he gave it to her for protection from Mr Castle. But there is a problem. Mr Gavin Sr owns three identical guns that he gives away like penny bubblegum. Thus Perry is left to defend Stephanie from the evidence presented by the district attorney's office.

While watching this episode you have to concentrate on the guns. At times it can be difficult but keep all eyes and ears open or you will not find the ball under the cup.

This episode needs more attention than most so it is not an easy watch. But if you 'hold-the-rope' till the end you will see one of the sweetest courtroom confessions in the entire 'Perry Mason' series. Not to mention the 'Harold and Maude' ending.

Dolls and Guns

[darbski · 9/10 · 24 May 2017]

**SPOILERS** Possible, because two of the women who could be suspects were babes. Junior's wife, and Pop's secretary. Then, of course, the guns. The storytellers do a very good job of shuffling them around. When Perry finally straightens out the granny knot these weapons present, it becomes clear who did it.

Now, Perry's path must be obvious. Eva obviously (that's the way I'd argue it), killed Castle in self defense when she tried to get him to stop bullying her; he gets her off, and then, naturally, Paul starts dating her (kind of like usual). Reason: she's serious babe, the dead guy was a "rattfink", and that's good enough for all clear thinking guys like me.

Della is, as usual, the main babe. Now, occasionally, she has competition from other beautiful babes the studio send over (and they're all really good actresses), but so is she. In this case, according to IMDb, Alix Talton, who played Eva (bad girl) was a Miss Georgia, and it's obvious why.

When Tragg escorts her from the courtroom at the end of this case, although; she has not yet confessed to anything, been advised of her rights, been charged with anything. All she did at that time was say she was sorry to the defendant (miss church mouse of 1958), and wish that her luck had held out just once.

It shouldn't be hard to prove that Castle killed Stephanie's father, he was a really bad guy, and society was done a favor by Eva; I mean, she might have been naughty, but NOT really bad, you know? We, the jury, having taken the time to "understand" her, say she's okay in our book, and she should get a better job.

Disclaimer, here: the word "Rattfink" is actually, in this case, a compliment, compared to what he should have been called. The spelling attaches to the word "Raggmopp", a truly famous musical song, later again used in "Ruggratt". The character Rat Fink is a creation of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and everyone of us guys who were teenagers at that time know just what I'm referring to.

The Deadly Long-Legged Models!

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 29 October 2023]

This film reunites Paul Drake with his costar from "the deadly mantis"... I did not recognize Alix Tilton at first until I recently watched the deadly mantis.

I agree with some of the other people here, and also with Hamilton Burger... "Mr. Mason wants to get us caught up with all these immaterial guns". In fact, this is not the first case where there were multiple guns, The very first Perry Mason episode involved two identical guns. In that instance, Perry knew that if he handed one gun to a suspect that he would be handed a different gun in return. And in doing that helped him figure out who the murderer was.

But in this case the same thing happens, but nobody had told Perry about it, and it looks bad...

Perry tries to handle this case the same way he handled his first televised case, but where that worked out well for him then, it does not work here.

We have to remember the liturgy of things to not do when you come upon a body:

1) never touch anything

2) never take things from the crime scene

3) never lie to your defending lawyer

And in case after case, the defendants always get tripped up with those three things.

And because the defendant was not exactly honest with him, Perry gets himself into a heck of a lot of hot water with Burger, and he has to crawl out from under it.

It is not the best Perry Mason episode, but it does have some interesting things. The cars for one...

But one of the Reviewers was asking what does this have to do with "long legged models?" This was because some of the women all worked at a certain venue in Las Vegas, where they were all modeling clothing, and at least two of these peripheral characters were employees at that venue.

It's too bad there was not some homage to the deadly mantis in this case... but there is an homage to Dick Tracy.

Mistake in timing?

[lnwc-82814 · 10/10 · 14 July 2021]

Mason leaves Garvin as Garvin receives a phone call. Then we see him get in his car and drive around the corner. Stephanie Faulkner is at the bottom of the back stairs and, Trang is already out front! We're the homicide squad and Stephanie lingering outside Garvin's door?

How all this happen in the time it took Mason to get downstairs and get in his car?

Too Many Guns

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 10 December 2021]

I love these old episodes but this one was a bit of a mess. I'm still trying to sort things out. We did get a confession so no one had to explain all of Mason's shenanigans. He's firing guns at people's desks. There's an older man in love with a younger woman. I don't know. On a whole other issue. I know this is Fifties television, but isn't it interesting that a murder can be committed, someone is arrested, and they go on trial for their lives about a week later. Also, there's a lot of gas chamber talk. I'd like to investigate how many people went to the gas chamber in California in the Fifties.

Not one of the better mysteries

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 29 July 2014]

An unusual opening for this Perry Mason where gambler/racketeer Joe DeSantis murders Russell Thorson. Raymond Burr's eventual client Peggy McCay suspects DeSantis of killing her father and when DeSantis winds up dead it's only natural that the police suspect McCay. They even find a gun in her possession. Plus the fact that DeSantis was squeezing Thorson pretty heavily for gambling losses in Las Vegas.

It's pretty obvious who murdered DeSantis as a motive is given with the character that's clear as a bell. The real trick here is that the weapon used was one of three identical revolvers that car dealer Lyle Talbot has in his possession. When we figure out who has the weapon and how one of them came to murder Thorson the mystery is solved.

But not one of the better mysteries.

Illogical, Immaterial, & Incompetent

[WYAdams · 1/10 · 24 May 2017]

Warning, this review contains spoilers.

1) I'll call Michael Garvin Sr., Senior.

2) I'll call Michael Garvin Jr., Junior.

Now, the guns. Using Hamilton Burger's labels:

1) The "Junior Gun" gun is the gun owned by Junior.

2) The "Holster Gun" is the gun Senior carries in his holster.

3) The "Vault Gun" is the gun Senior keeps in his locked vault.

Perry takes a gun that has one shot fired from it from his client who will be accused of the murder. He takes her to the office of Junior. He asks to see the "Junior Gun" which he supposedly accidentally shoots, causing the bullet to hit the desk. He gives it back to Junior and has him give it to his client in exchange for the gun she has.

It all backfires because the "Junior Gun" his client has turns out to be the actual murder weapon.

This is where the whole plot is derailed. At the trial it comes out that the weapon his client had (the murder weapon) was the "Junior Gun" which she got from Junior the morning AFTER the murder. We know for a fact that it is the "Junior Gun", because Junior scratched his initials on it. Since she got the murder gun AFTER the murder, it is impossible for her to have committed the murder. No one, including Perry realizes this, so the trial continues.

To make the plot even more illogical, it turns out that the weapon that Perry's client had was the "Holster Gun" given to her by Senior. After giving away his "Holster Gun", Senior replaced it with his "Vault Gun." The night of the murder, he took a shower and changed his clothes taking about 30 minutes. During that time, his secretary, who has the combination, took the "Vault Gun", went to the nearby murder victim's house, shot him, returned, and replaced the gun. So the actual murder weapon was the "Vault Gun" which Senior now had in his holster.

If the vault gun was the murder weapon, which only Senior and his secretary had possession of on the night of the murder, then the "Junior Gun" could not have been the murder weapon as proved by the police lab.

I gave this episode, ONE STAR, rating it AWFUL, because of the sloppy illogical plot line.

1) The wrong weapon was proved to be the murder weapon.

2) The defendant did not have the murder weapon at the time of the murder, but the trial proceeded as if she did.

3) Since Senior had already given away his "Holster Gun" and replaced with his "Vault Gun" before the murder, it would not have been locked in the vault for the secretary to steal and use.

4) Perry had no reason to focus on the "Vault Gun" as the murder weapon.

5) The secretary's confession was illogical because the "Vault Gun" was not the murder gun according to the police lab.

The Case of the Long-Legged Models

[Prismark10 · 4/10 · 6 January 2021]

Thankfully the real killer confessed at court. At least it ended the muddle.

It really is find the lady in this episode. Just substitute the cards with 3 identical guns.

George Castle is a shady businessman who kills Glenn Falkner. He owed Castle some money and refuses to sell Castle some valuable property that he owned.

Now Castle is trying to pressurise Falkner's daughter to sell. When Castle is later found murdered, the daughter is charged.

This was needlessly convoluted with three identicals guns being swapped about and one of them being the murder weapon.

Gunplay

[jqdoe · 1/10 · 12 November 2020]

Whoever wrote this script never thought that years later folks would be able to play these episodes back over and over to carefully examine the plot. And when we do, we see how they played around with the three guns which are at the heart of the story in contradictory ways that made the "solution" to the murder totally impossible: namely, it was impossible for the murderer to have committed the murder with the gun which the police lab identified as the murder weapon.

Another reviewer here tried to address all this, but unfortunately there are some omissions/errors in the explanation in that review. And the script (especially new elements added in the postlogue) makes it essentially impossible to follow the various guns anyway, because of all the contradictions. So don't even try.

Fortunately, trying to follow the writer's three card monty game with the guns is unnecessary anyway, since we DO know three things for absolute certain and these three things are totally inconsistent with each other. ONE, we know who the murderer is. TWO, we know which gun the police lab identified as the murder weapon. THREE, we know that the murder weapon was the ONLY one of the three guns which the murderer never possibly had access to. It was completely impossible for the murderer to have committed the murder with the one of these three guns which the police lab said was the murder weapon - and which was shown in court to have initials scratched on it to easily distinguish it from the other two guns.

Lazy writing, or just thinking that a 1958 audience watching it once in "real time" would never be able to see the fast ones the writer was pulling? Who knows? But today we can play it back over and over just to make sure we don't miss any details. And when we do, we clearly see that the story has a giant hole in it that cannot be filled by any sleight of hand.

Nobody likes negative reviews, and they always generate downvotes, but I don't care - I'm calling it like it is. Most embarrassing Mason ever.

Exactly Where are the Long-Legged Models?

[ToryCorner · 4/10 · 14 July 2021]

This show, as enjoyable as it is, has a problem with women's legs. Here we have an episode with a title suggesting a line-up of leggy models and it winds up only as a toss-away line that the daughter-in-law had modeled in a dress shop in Vegas. This weirdness continued with The Case of the Lucky Legs in which a contest scam is held to determine the nicest pair of women's legs. The only problem is that none of the women---especially the winner of that contest---has nice legs! It's not a time-period perception. Look at pin-ups from the 1940s and 1950s and you'll see that nice legs are nice legs regardless of the decade.