8.9/10405 votesLoading...#1 - The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 11/14/1959
Donna Kress, a singer, is preparing a demo for a recording contract. She has been carrying on a long term affair with a married man, Frank Thatcher. That night Frank Thatcher is involved in a hit-and-run accident but does not report the incident. He is the son-in-law of Henry W. Dameron, a very wealthy businessman. To avoid publicity, Henry Dameron instructs Frank Thatcher to pay off the dead man's family anonymously. Frank uses Paul Drake to take care of the details. After Paul Drake speaks to the widow he uncovers the fact of the hit-and-run accident which Frank did not reveal. Later he confronts Frank Thatcher, a fistfight ensues, and Paul Drake is knocked unconscious. Later Frank Thatcher is found dead in the same apartment with Paul Drake after he wakes up. Paul Drake is accused of the murder when his gun is found to be the murder weapon.
Director: William D. Russell
Writer: N/A
8.9/10398 votesLoading...#2 - The Case of the Nebulous Nephew
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 9/26/1963
Con artist John Brooks comes up with a new twist to convince Sophia and Ninevah Stone that he's the rightful heir to their fortune. Perry ends up reluctantly defending Brooks when he's charged with murder.
Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: N/A
8.9/10462 votesLoading...#3 - The Case of the Deadly Verdict
Season 7 Episode 4 - Aired 10/17/1963
Janice Barton is found guilty of the murder of her wealthy relative and sentenced to death. Can Perry find the evidence to clear her of the crime before the pellets in the gas chamber fall?
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: N/A
8.9/10563 votesLoading...#4 - The Case of the Final Fadeout
Season 9 Episode 30 - Aired 5/22/1966
A nasty actor with a lot of enemies is murdered. Perry gets his accused killer off the hook but then HE turns up dead and an aging, eccentric actress is blamed for that one. Are there two murderers on the loose or are both the work of one person?
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: Orville H. Hampton, Ernest Frankel, Erle Stanley Gardner
8.8/10337 votesLoading...#5 - The Case of the Shapely Shadow
Season 5 Episode 16 - Aired 1/6/1962
Naive secretary Janice Wainwright carries out boss Morley Thielman's orders and places a briefcase containing more than $100,000.00 in a train station locker. Then she waits for the arrival of Thielman's ex-wife but Lt. Tragg arrives instead with an arrest warrant for Janice on the charge of murdering her boss. It seems as though witness Fred Carlyle saw a woman's shapely shadow through the shades of Thielman's office window shortly before the murder occurred.Carlyle believes the silhuette belonged to Janice. Perry manages to get to the bottom of things once the courtroom proceedings begin.
Director: Christian Nyby
Writer: N/A
8.8/10375 votesLoading...#6 - The Case of the Weary Watchdog
Season 6 Episode 9 - Aired 11/29/1962
Della asks Perry for $25,000 for her friend Janet Brent, who is being blackmailed. Edward Franklin, an employee of Janet's husband, has staged compromising photos of her in a motel. At a party, Janet confronts Franklin and hits him with a small statue of a "weary watchdog." The police arrest Della when they find her driving Janet's car from the scene of the argument. Franklin is dead, struck three times on the head with the statue. Perry defends Janet knowing that if he loses, Della will go to prison as an accessory.
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: N/A
8.7/10437 votesLoading...#7 - The Case of the Nine Dolls
Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 11/19/1960
Perry's fishing trip to Scotland is interrupted by seven year old Peggy Smith. Peggy is living at a boarding school and searching for her identity since she has no idea who her real parents are. After searching into the matter, Perry comes to believe that Peggy is the daughter of Clark Lawson and Margaret Jeffers Lawson. Margaret was the daughter of wealthy Courtney Jeffers who disowned her after she eloped with Clark. Both parents died shortly after Peggy was born. Jeffers, a mean and miserable old man, has his heart warmed after meeting Peggy and changes his will to leave everything to her. The next day, he is found dead, killed by a blow from a poker.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.6/10582 votesLoading...#8 - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 12/14/1957
Restrauteur Morey Allen, a friend of Perry and Della's, has a problem: his waitress, Dixie Dayton, was struck by a car while fleeing the restaurant after spotting a man stalking her. The only item she left behind was a moth-eaten mink. When the stalker is found murdered, Morey and Dixie are both strong suspects and eventually get arrested for the murder. The case also ties in with the murder of a young policeman several months before.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: N/A
8.6/10365 votesLoading...#9 - The Case of the Wayward Wife
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 1/23/1960
Ben Sutton is listed as the author of a best-selling book describing his experiences in a Korean POW camp. When the real author is released from an Army hospital, Sutton is slain before he can tell the truth and his widow is arrested for the murder.
Director: Walter Grauman
Writer: N/A
8.6/10282 votesLoading...#10 - The Case of the Nervous Neighbor
Season 7 Episode 18 - Aired 2/13/1964
Mason's client: an amnesia victim on trial for the murder of her husband.
Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: Robert C. Dennis
8.6/10274 votesLoading...#11 - The Case of the Ruinous Road
Season 8 Episode 14 - Aired 12/31/1964
The foundations of a large company are shaken when the chief engineer uncovers evidence of budget tampering.
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: Bob Mitchell, Esther Mitchell
8.6/10285 votesLoading...#12 - The Case of the Carefree Coronary
Season 9 Episode 6 - Aired 10/17/1965
The Safeline Insurance Company notices an increase in heart attacks among their policy holders. The company suspects fraud and hires Perry and Paul to investigate. When Paul goes undercover as a construction worker, he almost doesn't survive the assignment.
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: Orville H. Hampton
8.6/10273 votesLoading...#13 - The Case of the Sausalito Sunrise
Season 9 Episode 19 - Aired 2/13/1966
An art dealer and his girlfriend are arrested for a two murders related to a series of hijacks. Paul goes undercover to ferret out the hijacking ring and Perry finds himself staring face down the barrel of a gun pointed by a killer even he never considered.
Director: Jesse Hibbs
Writer: Orville H. Hampton, Ernest Frankel
8.5/10468 votesLoading...#14 - The Case of the Screaming Woman
Season 1 Episode 30 - Aired 4/26/1958
Gossip columnist Mary K. Davis is found murdered and it seems there is no shortage of suspects. There was her politician-husband to whom she refused to grant a divorce. There was her timid secretary whom she bullied. There was the secretary's boyfriend who had some secrets in his past. There was the doctor running an illegal baby-selling scheme whom Mary threatened to expose if he didn't give her a child. Leona Walsh, the doctor's nurse, ends up being charged with the crime and this time Perry has to tamper with some evidence in order to clear his client.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: N/A
8.5/10439 votesLoading...#15 - The Case of the Lucky Loser
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 9/27/1958
Perry has all kinds of troubles in this one when a murder brings him into the tangled financial and personal affairs of the wealthy Balfour family.
Director: William D. Russell
Writer: N/A
8.5/10371 votesLoading...#16 - The Case of the Violent Village
Season 3 Episode 11 - Aired 1/2/1960
Perry goes on a fishing trip in a small Sierra Nevada town with his old friend, Sheriff Gene Norris but as usual manages to get sidetracked into another murder case when Phil Beecher returns from jail. It seems as though Phil did time for negligent homicide for the car accident which killed the daughter of Sheriff Norris. Charlotte Norris, sister of the decedant, wants revenge and frames Phil for a robbery but is herself killed. Can Perry prevent things from getting out of hand in the village?
Director: William D. Russell
Writer: N/A
8.5/10362 votesLoading...#17 - The Case of the Prudent Proecutor
Season 3 Episode 14 - Aired 1/30/1960
DA Hamilton Burger asks Perry to defend an old friend who once saved his life in a boating accident ten years before. The old friend of Burger's is now facing a murder charge.
Director: Robert Ellis Miller
Writer: N/A
8.5/10397 votesLoading...#18 - The Case of the Ill-Fated Faker
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 10/1/1960
Jim Ferris is having an affair with his uncle's bored young wife. They concoct a scheme to finagle $80,000.00 from the uncle by faking a kidnapping. Things go horribly wrong when secretary Betty Wilkins, acting as a go-between, is charged with the murder of Jim Ferris.
Director: Charles F. Haas
Writer: Edward J. Lakso
8.5/10338 votesLoading...#19 - The Case of the Renegade Refugee
Season 5 Episode 13 - Aired 12/9/1961
A journalist is murdered while tracking an ex-Nazi war criminal who may be posing as an executive at a company called Space Associates, Ltd.
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Writer: N/A
8.5/10332 votesLoading...#20 - The Case of the Unwelcome Bride
Season 5 Episode 14 - Aired 12/16/1961
Wealthy Walter Frazer has always blamed his daughter-in-law Sue Ellen for his son Gregson's failures. You can only imagine how he feels when Sue Ellen is accused of Gregson's murder.
Director: Gilbert Kay
Writer: N/A
8.5/10352 votesLoading...#21 - The Case of the Glamorous Ghost
Season 5 Episode 19 - Aired 2/3/1962
Eleanor Corbin pleads amnesia after police find her running and screaming through the woods near her apartment building. Her loss of memory is of little help to her when she is later charged with murder.
Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: N/A
8.5/10296 votesLoading...#22 - The Case of the Mystified Miner
Season 5 Episode 21 - Aired 2/24/1962
Mason tries to clear his young, naive woman client, a corporate executive secretary, as a twisting and wheeling plot of murder, kidnapping, and embezzlement unfolds.
Director: Francis D. Lyon
Writer: N/A
8.5/10292 votesLoading...#23 - The Case of the Witless Witness
Season 6 Episode 28 - Aired 5/16/1963
A judge is accused of murdering a government witness who planned to expose him as a crook.
Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: N/A
8.5/10276 votesLoading...#24 - The Case of the Antic Angel
Season 7 Episode 26 - Aired 4/16/1964
A recovering alcoholic takes to the bottle after he sees his wife, who's supposedly been dead for five years. Then she turns up dead for real and he's arrested for her murder.
Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: Robert C. Dennis
8.4/10499 votesLoading...#25 - The Case of the Haunted Husband
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 1/25/1958
Claire Olger is hitchhiking because her purse was stolen at the bus station and is picked up by Michael Greeley. He loses control of the car and has an accident due to his being intoxicated. Arriving at the scene of the accident, the police find Claire in the driver's seat. The district attorney's office questions her but do not believe her story about another driver. Her friend, Doris Stephanak, asks Perry Mason to help. When Perry is unable to contact Claire at her hotel, he goes there and finds Michael Greeley dead in her room. The police accuse Claire Olger of murder, realizing Michael Greeley fits the description of the man she claimed was driving the car and believe she had motive and opportunity.
Director: Lewis Allen
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Perry Mason
Every episode of Perry Mason ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Perry Mason!
The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
Genres:MysteryDramaCrime
Network:CBS
Best Episodes Summary
"The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma" is the best rated episode of "Perry Mason". It scored 8.9/10 based on 405 votes. Directed by William D. Russell and written by N/A, it aired on 11/14/1959. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Case of the Nebulous Nephew".