Perry Mason (TV Series) The Case of the Tarnished Trademark (1962) User Reviews

A Crooked Game Gets Justice From Murder

[DKosty123 · 9/10 · 20 November 2010]

The writers who teamed up for this episode are both a couple of good TV writers who wrote for a variety of series. This script works out pretty well too.

A wood furniture owner gets involved in a deal to sell his business & donate the money to charity to build a children's hospital. Little does he or his girlfriend who is arranging the deal realize that the party buying his business is not exactly honest.

In fact, his plan is to make knock offs of the trademark furniture line, close the plant, layoff all the workers, & then skim as much money as he can out of the business in 12 months & get out. Then, he turns up murdered one afternoon, & the police suspect that the former owners temper has led to his murder.

Mason gets the job of sorting out the suspects to determine who actually killed the con man. Not an easy project as there are a lot of folks with ulterior motives available.

Love Me Some Marie Windsor......

[barbted1 · 7/10 · 5 May 2022]

As usual, Ms. Windsor plays the heartless, if aging, "femme fetal", getting over on some moronic fella. Brilliantly burning up each scene with her shady wickedness. But, seriously? How is it possible that WE are supposed to have "misunderstood" this sly-bird, now redeemed in the last 2 minutes as some sort of ditzy, over-taxed, do-gooder, actually in love with her victim?! I'm always willing to suspend some of my logic for a smart Perry Mason twist....but, this one, IMHO, was the start of the downhill slope in storytelling for my favorite TV lawyer.

Not for Me

[darbski · 7/10 · 20 October 2017]

**SPOILERS** See, the problem I have with this one is that I actually worked for a furniture company, and several other manufacturing corporations. I had to laugh when I saw they had heat from a wood-burning stove. The entire place looked like it could turn out maybe twenty pieces of crafted furniture a day; that's NOT gonna make anyone rich. So, you see, they made a serious mistake right there. They could have paid someone to let them take stock motion picture sequences of a REAL furniture factory in action, and then used them to show a money maker, but this situation was a joke.

Next, as it was pointed out by Kfo9494, the client was one of the most unlikable individuals ever on this show. Frankly, he is more like the guy that GETS murdered, than the client. It's far from the only time this has happened. Perry gets them like this; they always threaten, bully, yell at people, and then suddenly, they turn into real good guys that everyone loves. Sorry, not here.

How an ornery old bully could get Marie Windsor to love him is off the planet in logic, too. Now, you take a guy like that, and tell me he's gonna have a lot of people that want to work for him, or do business with him.... really? Nope. And, of course, his loyal, hard working, make sure everything works, everybody gets paid, the lights stay on, the business stays in the black secretary? Oh, yeah....SHE'S gonna get screwed, and we should all just understand that the "Lovable Old Water Buffalo" kinda missed that part. I'll bet his employees felt the same way, too. It gets a 7.

Banking on the trademark name for quick profits

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 18 December 2013]

The Perry Mason client for this episode is Karl Swenson who is a manufacturer of high quality furniture. He's been in business for over 30 years and his trademark name stands for quality. But he'd like to get out and enjoy some retirement years. I can identify with that. He and his new socialite girlfriend Marie Windsor have sold the business to Dennis Patrick and another piece of the land of the business for a children's hospital.

Sad to say though Dennis Patrick is a conman who has no intention of doing with the business what Swenson would like. He's buying cheap woods and lowering the quality of the furniture he's selling and banking on the Swenson trademark to make some quick profits. Patrick won the company in a bidding scheme that might not have completely been on the up and up.

Anyway he's found dead and there are a lot of suspects including the men at Swenson's factory all of who would have lost their jobs, other parties who bid on the factory, etc. But it's Swenson who Raymond Burr has to defend.

Swenson is a good manufacturer and boss, but boy is he thick about the ways of the world. He had to be good at his craft because he's so naive in personal matters.

That's all I'll say on this Perry Mason episode.

He offered me a high ball and I said no I'll have a lemonade!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 17 August 2012]

***SPOILERS*** Overly complected script even for a Perry Mason episode involving famous Danish furniture magnet Axel Norstaad played by Brooklyn born and bread Karl Swenson who despite his expertise in making quality tables and chairs etc. has absolutely no business sense at all. In a crazy move on his part Axel sells his stock as well as world famous trademark in his company Alex Furniture Inc to this sleazy ex-used car salesman Martin "limpy" Somers, Dennis Patrick, who plans to milk it for all its worth. Somers' main objective is to bankrupt the company and leaving it's loyal and hard working employees, who worked for it for as long as 30 years, out in the cold by when his scheme is about to be exposed by him checking out in the dead of night and taking all the money along with him!

It's after Axel signed away the company to Somers that he realized what exactly he was up to and threw an hysterical and childish fit. With Axel's lawyer Perry Mason,Raymond Burr, telling the mad as hell Axel to cool off and see what he and the law can do to straighten this problem out Somers in found beaten to death at the local Windmill Inn with Axel, who discovered the body, being the #1 suspect in his murder! It's seems that among other things Somers was not only interested in getting his hands n Axel's furniture company but the land that it's on that Axel planned to build a children hospital. And as we soon find out it's the land not the furniture company who the person who murdered Somers was really after!

Meanwhile a strange love triangle developed with Alex, who really had no part in it, being in the middle of it. This all has to do with Axel's long suffering personal secretary Lisa Padersen played by former Danish beauty queen Osa Massen and the mystery women who set up the whole deal, by getting Alex to sell out to Somers and building the children hospital, Beverly Hill socialite Edie Morrow played by 1950's film noir femme fetal sensation Marie Windsor! Even though at first this seemed to have nothing to do with Somers' murder! In the two love sick womens desperate attempt to win over Axel, who was more interested in his furniture then any love and romance, who may have gone out of their way to do Somers, who planned to destroy Axel's furniture company, in by having a grateful Axel marry one of them!

***SPOILERS*** The ending of this episode happened totally unexpectedly before Perry Mason was even able to work up a sweat in the court room with the killer popping up in the spectator gallery and admitting his crime and the reasons behind it! It's as if he or she were so bored to tears in how slow the story was going for a one hour TV episode he had to put an end to it before time ran out and it had to be shelved, by the producers and their sponsors, from ever being broadcast!

Typical Perry Mason Thriller, but Plot is Illogical

[flazatty · 7/10 · 27 May 2013]

The plot in this case is completely illogical. Axel sells his business to someone who plans to use the profits to build a children's hospital. When Axel finds out that is not the case, he gets so mad he publicly threatens to murder the buyer, and of course, when the buyer is found dead, Axel is the one arrested. But let's think about this. If the business is so profitable that there are enough profits to build a children's hospital, why didn't Axel keep the business and apply the profits himself? Why is it okay for Axel to sell the business (presumably at a profit) and then criticize the buyer for attempting to do the same? What reasonable buyer would purchase a business merely to give away the profits?

Oh well, the lead in does not have to make sense. As long as someone gets killed, and Perry's client is accused of the murder, we get to see Perry do his stuff. Will he be able to get Axel off? Or will this be the case that Perry loses? Watch the show yourself and find out!

At least the client should be likable.

[kfo9494 · 5/10 · 14 October 2016]

In this rather odd situation, a head-strong Danish man named Axel Norstaad is a proud owner of a furniture maker business that is well know for their hand-crafted items. The business and the name is worth much money in the markets and it is time for the long time bachelor, Axel, to retire. And it just so happens that he has meet a beautiful Beverly Hills woman, Edith Morrow, that he plans to settle plus open a children's hospital in the community.

Here is where it gets odd as Axel sells his business, with very little protection, to a the highest bidder Martin Somers. It just so happens that Martin Somers has a history with Edith Morrow and it appears they are in a scheme together to buy the company. Things get suspicious when Somer's check does not clear the bank and even more and when Somers plans on flooding the market with low cost furniture with the Norstaad name-- Axel becomes upset and threatens Somers. When Somers ends up dead the police arrest Axel and Perry is set to defend the gentlemen on the count of murder.

For me, things started getting confusing when the writer put so much suspicion on one character that it caused the entire situation to become irritating when another was arrested for the crime. Plus the fact that Perry was defending a client that was annoying and loud to the point of being 'bully-like' in nature does help the program. And when you cannot warm up to the client - it makes the entire program less than desirable.

I Couldn't Stand Axel

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 24 January 2022]

This is one of those stories where the defendant is so stupid, it's hard to have any sympathy for him. I'm not talking about his being charged with murder but the idiotic way he ran his business. Are we to believe that someone as clueless as he could have produced such quality and kept the business financially sound.

...a bevy of yelling...

[gclarkbloom · 4/10 · 28 May 2022]

...episode director Jerry Hopper must have been raised in a sawmill...

...and Swedish-born Karl Swenson, who is as belicose as a pissed off Brahma Bull in portraying the retiring Axel Norstaad....

...apparently, Jerry felt that "the louder the better"... but Karl knew, as do I that ALL Scandinavians tend to be very doft spoken...even taciturn...

...the upshot, all the yelling quickly overehelmed any real character development...overall a jangling, annoying episode...and dimply way below the standards of this premier series...