Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Ruinous Road (1964) User Reviews

Very good episode. Two crimes for one!

[kfo9494 · 10/10 · 23 November 2011]

This episode gives us all and more than we could ask from a 'Perry Mason' Show. This was the final show of 1964 and turned out to be one with a bizarre twist that is fascinating for the viewer.

The story involves a Construction Company that has two employees at odds with each other. Joe Marshall (Bret Freed) is the hands-on foreman that makes sure everything get done in the field. Adam Conrad (Allen Case) in the inside engineer that makes sure all the plans are correct before any construction begin.

There is this old mansion, where an elderly women still lives, that is blocking the most economical way to build a road to a recently purchased property. So Joe,the foreman, wants to bulldoze the house to the ground and the engineer, Adam, wants to keep the house. This puts the two at odds.

When Joe says he has paperwork that Adam is stealing from the company, Adams goes to the work-site to talk with Joe but ends up being accused of Joe's murder when Joe is found dead and the elderly women sees Adam driving away from the scene. Perry is close by to defend Adam for the murder.

Actually that is all the watcher needs to know concerning the story. The ending is a surprise when a grotesque crime, that happen years ago, is linked into the story. I was caught off-guard when, outside the courtroom, Perry, Hamilton Burger and Lt Anderson work together in solving not only the mystery of the week but also an old crime that is more in line with an Edgar Allen Poe story.

This is one of the shows you have to watch to the ending credits. And make sure you follow all the clues along the way. You will still be talking about this long after the episode ends.

This was nicely done from every angle. A very good watch for all viewers. 'Perry Mason' series.

Seemingly Irrelevant

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 30 December 2013]

Elderly spinster Meg Wyllie hires Perry Mason to defend Allen Case a young engineer working on a road through her property. The grand mansion in which she resides is in the path of the road that Case's boss Bert Freed, a rather disagreeable and dishonest individual is building. Freed is killed in Wyllie's mansion and Case will certainly need Raymond Burr's help.

Burr suspects early on that the motive has nothing to do with the road and he has both William Hopper and Barbara Hale investigating things that are seemingly irrelevant. But their labors manage to yield the real murderer and that person has one great motive for not wanting to see Wyllie's house destroyed.

Good one, very original.

Preservationist Fears Dark Secret Road

[DKosty123 · 8/10 · 31 January 2018]

This is really a top notch script. We have a housing development which needs an access road. One of the routes for that road is blocked by a public park development.

The other route is a canyon with a historic house on the way. Joe, the foreman for the developer thinks the house should be torn down. Several people want to preserve it. The developer decides to move the house to a new location. As Joe sizes up the job, someone kills Joe.

There are several suspects in Joes murder. In fact, everyone involved seems to have a motive. The house itself holds the key to the motive, though it takes Perry and Paul Drake to figure out why.

Ruin My Road?

[darbski · 10/10 · 15 February 2018]

***SPOILERS*** You've already got MOST of the story. It's true, that the other reviewers have given you enough to get you interested. I'm jut gonna give you a little more food for thought. It was obvious that Harley Leonard had a serious interest in the development of Osmond Acres. That ties right into Joe Marshall's graft. The self-righteous fraud was doing just what he accused Adam Conrad of, and trying to frame him for it.

My question is this. Leonard is quite at home with bribery. Isn't it a possibility that he'll try it again? What about the original land donation? It should be investigated for evidence of collusion on both the giver (Leonard) and receiver (L.A. County), as a matter of course. If it holds, there is one other avenue of recourse (payback). Osmond and partners should buy up the land immediately on the other side of the new road, thereby denying access by right of ownership to Leonard; when he gets out of jail. He has lots of money, so, he may be able to postpone his punishment long enough to pick up those parcels of land. They need to move on this A.S.A.P., to fix him up for his dirty deeds.

Saddest case is Quince's bride. For all his crusading reportage, he was a complete fraud, too. He really doesn't have a chance with an accidental death, with the cover-up. As far as Marshall's departure, even though he won't be missed, it's a strong first degree case. He had the weapon, did the killing, set up the frame. all behind an attempt to further cover up the original homicide. Next address: the death house at San Quentin.

The fraudulent actions of rats kicked off the ship of Real Estate, as it were. If it hadn't been for them, her fate may have never been revealed. Joan Blackman looked great, as always. Story moved quickly, solid finish. A 10.

Who are you calling "elderly"??

[cpotato1010 · 8/10 · 12 July 2019]

Um, Meg Wyllie was "elderly" at the time this was filmed?

Meg was born in February 1917, making her about 47 when this episode was broadcast.

For a comparison, Raymond Burr was born in May, 1917, three months after Meg.

Do you think anyone would have dared to call Raymond (or Perry!) "elderly" at this point?

Also, William Hopper was born in January, 1915 and William Talman was born in February, 1915, so they were only 49 for this episode. That made Bert Freed, born November 1919, the youngster, right?

Interesting how aging is so much different 50+ years later. Maybe it is all of the food preservatives we eat?

btw, Meg Wyllie was one of my favorite character actresses. I know her best as 'The Keeper' from The Menagerie: Part II (1966), but she made a career of playing "old(er) ladies", until she actually became one.

A Good Old Fashioned Mystery

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 21 February 2022]

A young engineer is set up for murder. He has to be innocent because Perry is defending him. A whole bunch of shenanigans take place because of a service road that would prevent prohibitive cost to a development. There is also a beautiful, 100 year old house in the way, full of classic artifacts. One of the men who is playing hardball is killed in that house (a crowbar rather than a fireplace poker this time). There are all the elements of paperback novel here and it works quite well.

The case of the calamitous cabin

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 5 November 2023]

It starts as an old story - Old seasoned civil engineer Joe Marshall does not like being gradually pushed aside by the younger upstart engineer, Adam Conrad, who Marshall considers an office dweller, lacking in field experience.

Into this tension comes two issues. First, a road needs to be built on some land that the engineering firm is developing, but it will need to go through the home of an older woman who holds the place dear and claims it will be torn down "over (her) dead body". Second, it appears somebody has been chiseling a few dollars here and a few there at the engineering firm. Marshall accuses his rival, Conrad, of being said embezzler.

When Conrad hears about these accusations, he goes out to the woman's cabin, where Marshall is determining how to move the cabin somewhere else - a compromise solution that the engineering firm has come to with the consent of the owner. He is hit on the head as he enters the dark house. But after he leaves, his head still hurting, the body of Joe Marshall is found, killed by a blow to the head with a crowbar. Conrad is arrested for the murder and Perry Mason is on the case.

This had a plot that left me wondering - How did Perry solve that one? Apparently, the writers realized there was a bit of a hole there too, so Perry explains his logic at the end in a conversation with Della and Paul.

It's interesting to look back on the relative innocence of 1964 in this episode, with the owner of the remote cabin, Marguerite Keith, allowing young couples to rent out her cabin for honeymoons. I think she was going for an "Enchanted Cottage" motif, but instead she got "The Telltale Heart", even in these less crime ridden times.

The Road to Ruin

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 12 December 2012]

**SPOILERS*** The Perry Mason,Raymond Burr, show ended the 1964 season with a real knockout of an episode in Perry uncovering and solving two not one murders by the time the show as well as year, 1964, was over. This was all done almost by accident in a construction company trying to bulldoze down old lady Marguerite Keith's, Meg Willie, house to make room for a access road to a housing development in the area. With Mrs. Keith refusing to move out it's the local crusading reporter Quincy Davis, Grant Williams, who comes to her aid with a hard hitting story about how she's being forced to move out of her ancestral, that goes back some three generations, home by the greedy land developer Archer Osmond Barton MacLane.

While all this is going on young hot shot engineer Adam Conrad, Allen Case, is accused by the senior engineer on the project Joe Marshall played by Bert Freed, who's been fighting Conrod over demolishing Mrs. Keith's home, of embezzling the construction company of some $1,3000,00. A mad as hell Case goes to meet his accuser Joe Marshall at the Keith home only to get bopped over the head from behind. It's later after a dazed Conrad left that Joe Marshall in found murdered , with his brains bashed out, in the house a few feet from where Canrad was attacked! Arrested for Marshall's murder Case gets Perry Mason to take on his case. It's Perry who comes up with some interesting clues to Marshall's murder that have nothing at all to do with the demolishing of the Keith house. But do have everything to do with what's inside in it!

****SPOILER*** Unknown to everyone even to Mrs. Keith in that Joe Marshall's murderer had to do with the Keith house being situated on "hollowed ground". Grounds that if disturbed will uncover a murder that happened some three years ago. And as the shocking truth comes out it was the decision to uproot wherever was buried under it that lead to Joe Marshall's murder! Not his differences between himself and Adam Conrad! You see Joe Marshall was blackmailing the person whom he knew was behind the secret of what's buried under the Keith House. And in him thinking he was in control of the situation he in fact ended up dead because of it!

Unusual ending, but foreseeable

[ebertip · 6/10 · 24 July 2020]

The story begins with trouble at a construction company, losing money ( through embezzlement) and with some tough issues ahead. There is friction between the senior engineer (Freed) and a younger engineer (Case). Case is accused of murdering Freed. There is an important clue (in the form of a reaction) early on, that points the viewer the right way. Perry did not have this fact to work with. Rather, Perry monetizes murder and dismisses small money amounts as motives and launches two seemingly irrelevant investigations. Perry loses to Berger at the preliminary hearing, although the case against Case is not strong. Perry makes the lieutenant look like a fool on the stand. I have to disagree with the other reviewers. The "surprise" was foreseeable. The characters were all stereotypes with no more depth than Casanova the parrot.