Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Provocative Protege (1960) User Reviews

Good episode with a good plot

[kfo9494 · 8/10 · 21 June 2012]

Here we have a nice refreshing story that is played well by the actors. Comes across very well on the screen and will have the viewer interested till the end.

David Carpenter was concert pianist that was involved in an accident that left one of his hands damaged beyond repair. He was so despondent that he drives in car over the cliff in what the police call suicide.

Before he dies, he calls his young protégé Donna Ross and advised her that he loved her. Seems Donna and Mr Carpenter was having an affair even though Mr Carpenter was married and at least 25 years older.

A few days later a man claims that it was not suicide but instead murder. He says he witnessed someone pushing the car off the cliff. But his story is filled with holes when Lt Tragg discovers that the man was in another state when the accident occurred. But with more investigation the claim of murder was just as the man had stated. So it seems that someone gave the man the story to lead police to murder but not enough to actually be a suspect.

Evidence gather by Lt Tragg points to the young protégé Donna Ross. And with the help of Anita Carpenter, wife of dead man, she retains Perry Mason to defend Donna in court.

This episode is a breath of fresh air for the viewer. A good who-done-it mystery that will have you guessing throughout the show. A good watch with an interesting plot.

Pensive pouty Perry

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 22 January 2023]

A renowned concert pianist, David Carpenter, had his left hand destroyed in an accident and has just found out that medicine can do nothing for him. He leaves his studio and later that day his car crashes into a canyon, presumably a suicide. But the 150000 dollar policy on his life was less than two years old so it would not pay out on suicide.

A little weasel of a man, George Worthington, comes to Mrs. Carpenter and tells her that he witnessed her husband's death, and that it was murder. It turns out that Worthington is lying, but it gets the police looking into the death of David Carpenter in more detail, and they determine that the death was indeed murder. And the guilt gets laid at the feet of Mr. Carpenter's protege, Donna Ross, only twenty. At first Donna does not want Perry to defend her because she cannot afford him, and she says she is tired of others paying her bills.

But the situation haunts Perry. The case bothers his digestion when he is at a lunch counter and he sees the headlines. The same when he is at work and he sees more headlines about the story. Ultimately Perry does handle her case, but still she stays mum about many things. Could it be guilt? Or maybe something else hidden in the title of a piece of music?

I'd say this would have been a pretty average episode if not for the final unexpected twist at the end and the hints towards Perry being perhaps a secret Renaissance Man, and that pulled it to an 8/10. Recommended.

Piano is the key to all of this, Love & Money are the Cause

[DKosty123 · 9/10 · 26 December 2009]

This is a rare case as Mason is actually in front of a jury, though he manages to avoid getting to the verdict in this trial. A pianist is at the end of his career, & in love with his young protégé, ready to leave his wife, & is nearly bankrupt.

Then he appears to commit suicide, only there are some strange circumstances surrounding the murder. There is a phony witness who comes forward & accurately describes the fatal accident, the car going off the cliff, even though he is lying & was no where near the accident. The question is who told him what really happened? The protégé lies to Mason because she doesn't want to hurt the widow of the dead protégé & nearly gets railroaded into jail. Mason gets a confession from who really knows the true story, but has to sort out who that is before he breaks them down on the stand.

Spread it Around

[darbski · 10/10 · 29 August 2017]

**SPOILERS** GO NO further if you haven't seen this episode. I MEAN IT!! Do yourself a big favor and get these stories from Amazon, so you can check them out for yourself, but DON'T read further; GOT IT?? The other reviewers have covered the storyline so well, that I hesitated to say anything, but my big mouth won't let it go, so, I'm gonna say this: there are no murderers in this episode. There is a killer, however, and a slimy scurve who is as snakey as they come; exposed by his own petty greed. I just love it when gossip salesmen get slapped down.

The rest of this story is about the sadness and grief that can make a person crazy with emotional pain. I felt personally sorry for all three of the main characters in this almost Shakespearean opera. The music issue, the beauty of the women, the tragedy of the superstar virtuoso in misplaced love, the classical renderings would make for a fine operatic performance.

As a fine twist in the end, you just HAD to know that Donna (I love that name) was gonna cash in a lot of the gifts that Carpenter had given her in favor of a defense fund for Anita. Perry would defend, of course. He had explained that it wasn't first degree murder. I think Murder 2 is a risk, also; Man 2, maybe; with an emotional break, and I'll bet it could plead down to temporary insanity; she DID try to stop the car, after all. Hell, I felt sorry for her, for Donna, and for the guy who lost everything. Excellent Tragedy.

Fidelio

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 12 January 2022]

When a concert pianist is injured, he loses everything. He puts his hope in a beautiful young phenom and falls in love with her. But he seemingly commits suicide. It is later ruled a homicide and in go Tragg and the police. The young woman is accused based on cockamamy evidence. At the center is a life insurance policy.

Words to Music

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 28 October 2012]

***SPOILERS*** After suffering a career ending accident by busting his left piano playing hand, the one that he tickles the ivory with, famed concert pianist David Carpenter,Gregory Morton, has become a bit depressed and almost suicidal. He also started to get the the hots for his pretty blond and talented protégé Donna Loring, I don't quite know where the middle name came from, Ross played by Katie Browne. Now deep in debt and having nothing to look forward to Carpenter decides to check out via suicide in a car accident before his creditors, whom he's up to his neck in debt to, come looking for him.

As it soon turns out Carpenter didn't in fact kill himself but someone helped him by knocking him out cold and pushing him off a cliff while he's still unconscious in his car. And that person is later identified to be non other that his protégé herself Donna Ross! Or so were lead to believe. That's until Perry Mason,Raymond Burr, at the urging of the late David Carpenter's wife Anita,Virginia Field, takes up her case in court.

***SPOILER*** And what Perry soon finds out is that Donna despite her innocence in his professional opinion is covering up for the person who really killed or murdered David Carpenter. And the reason she's doing it is that the person she's protecting is very unstable to begin with as well as being as close to Donna as a mother is to a daughter! It's obvious to anybody watching that Donna is totally innocent in David Carpenter's, her secret lover, death. But the fact that she does nothing at all to defend herself puzzles Perry who begins to suspect that she has ulterior motives to take the rap for his murder.

Carpeter was so crazy about Donna that he showered her with gifts and presents to the point that he bankrupted himself. But it wasn't his sorry financial dealings that ended up doing him in. It was his making a total fool of himself in him slobbering all over the pretty and both shocked and confused Donna Ross that did it!

Entourage

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 29 August 2019]

The famous love triangle of William Randolph Hearst, Millicent Hearst, and Marion Davies might have been the basis for Perry Mason story. Gregory Morton is a world famous concert pianist who sustains a career ending injury to his wrist.

Morton has a nice entourage who make their living off of him. They want him to start promoting his protege Kathie Browne on the road to keep the money flowing. He who has fallen in love with her and is ready to let go his marriage of 25 years to Virginia Field is adamant about keeping her his own.

One night his car goes over a cliff and Morton is killed. Browne is Raymond Burr's client as the case goes to court.

This one I kind of saw coming. Nevertheless a good story.