Title

Teleplay

Below is a transcription of the teleplay of the Perry Mason TV episode The Case of the Mystified Miner.

[Page 21 Blue page]
DISSOLVE:
40. EXT. DESERT, NEAR MOJAVE — FULL VIEW — (STOCK) — DAY 40.
DISSOLVE:
41. EXT. ABANDONED GOLD MINE, DESERT — CLOSE SHOT — DAY 41.
42. CLOSER SHOT
The man is Ken Lowry, burly and ordinarily friendly and open — but right now he is very upset.
LOWRY
I got not time, I tell you!
DRAKE
You’ve got time to keep out of the penitentiary, haven’t you?
Lowry stops.
LOWRY
See here, Mr. Craik —
DRAKE (reaching for wallet)
Drake —

[Page 22 white page]
LOWRY
I don’t know what you think you’re talking about but— (checks himself as he sees Drake’s ID) Oh —
DRAKE
(quickly pocketing the wallet, glancing around) Your name is Ken Lowry. You’re the
manager of this mine, supposedly. Only it doesn’t seem tot be much of a mine anymore, does it.
LOWRY
Police or just private?
DRAKE
I’m trying to help a girl in the Corning Company who’s in trouble. To me you like the guy responsible.
LOWRY
Oh, no, I’m not! I work for a living, brother, I just follow instructions!
DRAKE
Whose? Mr. Campbell’s?
LOWRY
(beat) I never met that bird. Never met Amelia Corning, either, as a matter of fact—she hired me like she hires everybody, from South America — but that don’t mean there’s anything wrong with what I done!
DRAKE
Every month you’ve been sending in a
Payroll bill for almost thirty thousand dollars. The Corning office sends you the money. Who do you pat it to, gophers?
LOWRY
You’re not funny. Get out of my way —
DRAKE (not moving)
—Not until you answer me!

[Page 23]
43. NEW ANGLE 43.
Lowry turns, angry but sweating and worried about what he’s mixed up in.
LOWRY
(beat, then rapidly) Look, about a year and a half ago, Just after Miss Corning hired me to run this place, the vein faulted out. I wrote and she wrote back saying let the Los Angeles office handle it - only then a couple of days later she telephoned, long distance. Said for tax reasons she just couldn’t afford to close down the mine.
DRAKE
Go on, Mr. Lowry.
LOWRY
Well, on the books, I mean! So every month I’m supposed to send in a payroll, just the same as when we were operating - then I cash the company check, take my own pay out and send the rest back.
DRAKE
In cash? Send it where?
LOWRY
Corning Affiliated. Subsidiary company, I guess. They got a post office box in L.A.
DRAKE
And to date you’ve forwarded over two hundred thousand dollars in cash that way. Right?
LOWRY
Well, I always figured it was just a tax thing, some kind of write-off, maybe.

[Page 24 blue page]
DRAKE For tax things that are too fancy, you get Alcatraz.
LOWRY
(worriedly, directly) I know it, mister. That’s why I’m telling you all this.
DRAKE
What do you mean?
LOWRY
Well, how do you think I’ve been feeling? A job’s a job and all that. But when this bird says for me to keep my mouth shut-
DRAKE
—What bird?
LOWRY
Campbell, of course! Calls me up not two hours ago and says don’t answer any questions, don’t tell anybody anything! Well, now I know there’s something wrong, friend, and I aim to correct it! I aim to tell plenty of people!
And he strides off to his truck as —
DISSOLVE:

Della Street and Perry Mason have been written out of this scene in the teleplay.¹⁹ They are no longer at the mine in the desert talking to Lowry. Instead, Mason sends his private investigator Paul Drake to do the talking. An examination of the teleplay highlights Drake’s fast, aggressive style. He doesn’t have to ask who Lowry is, as Mason does. Rather, Drake tells Lowry who he is. “Your name is Ken Lowry. You’re the manager of this mine, supposedly. Only it doesn’t seem to be much of a mine anymore, does it.”²⁰ Notice this last sentence is not punctuated with a question mark in the script, even though it ends with the conventionally interrogative “does it?” When Lowry inquires about the authority underwriting his badge, Drake ignores his question. There is little time for questions. The teleplay of this scene is a mere four pages. The dictation of this chapter was more than 40 minutes and the printed chapter comprised twelve and a half pages. In the book chapter there are lots of questions, and not just direct questions to Lowry. Mason asks a gas station attendant “Do you happen to know a man named Lowry? Ken Lowry?”²¹ When the attendant points out Lowry, Mason goes over to him. When Lowry is reluctant to talk Mason asks, “if you don’t talk, will you listen?” A few lines later, Street asks, “How do you do, Mr. Lowry?” and then Mason asks, “Will you give us a few minutes?” and “Where can we talk?” When Street suggests they get into the car to talk, she does so in the form of a

question, “Why can’t we get in the car with Mr. Lowry and talk there?”²² But with only Lowry and Drake in the scene in the TV version, the questions, pleasantries, and suggestions that come with polite conversation are replaced by confrontation and accusation. Lowry says “You’re not funny. Get out of my way,” to which Drake “(not moving)” replies, “Not until you answer me!” Dictation was, in the book, the most overt display of power in the whole scene. But the teleplay reveals a more threatening, physically coercive power in which Drake refuses to let Lowry pass without talking.