PERRY MASON: THE CASE OF THE GRINNING GORILLA

Raymond Burr with special guest-star

PERRY MASON: THE CASE OF THE GRINNING GORILLA. Season 8, episode 28. 1965. Director: Jesse Hibbs.  

Now here's a weird one. Della Street (Barbara Hale) buys the diary at auction of a woman -- the secretary of an eccentric millionaire who keeps various kinds of apes in his home -- who died while at sea during a storm. Della wants her boss, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), to somehow get involved, but he winds up giving advice to Josephine Kempton (Lurene Tuttle), a housekeeper who is suing her former employer -- said millionaire -- for slander after he fired her for stealing. Perry is able to find out who actually stole the items in dispute, but has to defend the peppery and difficult Miss Kempton when she's accused of murder. Did she stab somebody with scissors or was it the "grinning gorilla?"

Perry confers with his client, Lurene Tuttle

Jackson Gillis' script for this twisty and entertaining episode has some strange elements, foremost being that Perry and Della occasionally act out of character. I mean, Della has tripped over plenty of dead bodies accompanying Perry, so it seems strange for her to get hysterical when she sees a gorilla far in the distance, or to worry unduly about Perry going into the millionaire's mansion to meet Josephine. Perry seems very impatient with his secretary throughout most of the episode as well. However, Lurene Tuttle of Psycho fame gives an excellent performance in this, and we've also got Gavin MacLeod from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Victor Buono from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, along with Robert Colbert as a DA and Janos Prohaska as a gorilla. Yes, Perry faces a gorilla-on-the-loose at one point!

Suspects in Grinning Gorilla

There have been better episodes of Perry Mason than Grinning Gorilla, but it is fun and suspenseful and has some clever twists. Perry does not appear in a courtroom at all in this episode, and the whole business is resolved before there even is a trial, something that did not happen too often on the show. Raymond Burr appeared in more than one gorilla-oriented movie, such as Gorilla at Large with Anne Bancroft and Bride of the Gorilla with Barbara Payton, but he was also in such classics as Hitchcock's Rear Window. 

Verdict: Perry has more than one encounter with an adorable chimp! ***