The Case of the Blushing Pearls

Good grief....often the acting on this show is a notch above the writing and direction. On this one, the acting rates at least a notch BELOW these. The regulars are themselves - average actors playing poorly written and directed characters. But the "guests" on this one are bad to the point of laughable. The guy playing Old man Nichols is as bad as it gets - he delivers his lines like he's reading fairy-stories to children.

Actual rating: minus 10.

Perry gets involved with the Japanese culture in LA. A beautiful young woman, in love with a upper class white guy, is set by his father. It is made to look like she stole pearls worth thousands. Perry must wade through the silences that are expected in that culture. It is nice to see George Takei in a pre Star Trek role. He is the voice of reason. One thing we have to guess is how events will play out after the young woman is freed.

An early appearance by George Takei. He plays Toma Sakai who is in love with Mitsuo Kamuri. Her uncle deals in pearls.

Mitsuo has been seeing preppie Grove Nichols, the son of wealthy businessman Hudson Nichols. His dad objects to his son dating and possibly marrying a Japanese woman. When Mitsuo is accused of stealing some valuable pearls belonging to the Nichols family. Hudson agrees to drop the charges if Mitsuo agrees to stop seeing his son.

Later Mitsuo goes to her uncle's office late at night. She sees him dead, it looks like death by harakiri. Only for Mitsuo to be later arrested for murder.

You would learn a lot about pearls in this story. Also Tragg is an expert on harakiri. You would think that if Mitsuo killed her uncle, she would be covered in blood.

It was a nifty story with two incidents for Perry Mason to unravel. Just what was the motive for the theft of the pearls? Who would gain from the death of Mitsuo's uncle? Perry has to succumb to arson to solve the latter.