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The TV Episode

That physical power is even more evident on the small screen. In most of the solo shots of Drake, William Hopper’s wide shoulders disturb both the left and right edges of the frame.²³ In contrast, shots of Lowry (Michael Harvey) are pulled back slightly, and both of his shoulders never touch the edges of the frame at the same time, making him seem smaller. Instead of squaring up to the camera like Drake, Lowry—in his solo shots—seems to be leaning on the right side of the frame. Near the end of the scene, he shifts his weight and wobbles from the right to the left edge and back, but he never fills up the screen. The blocking for the scene has Drake and Lowry coming out of a shack near the mine. As Lowry charges off, saying he doesn’t have time to talk, Drake pursues, threatening him with jail time. “You got time to stay out of jail, haven’t you?”²⁴ Drake says.

Drake follows up his sarcastic remark with the authority obtained by the flash of a badge and a recitation of facts. Drake doesn’t need to coax the information out of Lowry. He already has it. Drake proceeds with an accusation. “To me you look like the guy responsible.” Drake switches back to sarcasm when he says, “Every month you’ve been sending in a payroll bill of almost thirty thousand dollars. Then the Corning company sends you the money. Who do you pay it to, gophers?” The sarcasm is answered by Lowry, “You’re not funny, mister. Now, get off my back.” The line has changed from the teleplay so that the private investigator is no longer blocking the miner’s path. Now he is literally behind him, and figuratively on top of him. Drake’s answer doesn’t change from “Not until you answer me!” At this point, Lowry tells him everything he knows. The whole scene takes about 1/40th the time it took Gardner to dictate originally. Gone is Street’s “quick flash of generously displayed nylon.” Gone are the psychological insinuations about Lowry’s independence. Gone is the dictation for the record that establishes the true facts.

In the place of these subtle displays of power that unfold over a relatively long period of time is a large, pushy, fast-talking, sarcastic private investigator who already knows all he needs to know. As the scene moves from print to screen, the power of dictation present in the book is not gone; something still has to get Lowry to talk. But that power has been transferred. On TV we have the power of aggressive physicality and aggressive dialog. By the end of the book chapter, Lowry is saying, “I’m awfully glad I met you, and this secretary of yours. I think you’ve given me some pretty darn good advice. I’m feeling just a lot better right now than I have been feeling all day.”²⁵ But by the end of the TV show, we see Lowry practically threatening Drake, saying, “I aim to tell plenty of people” with a particularly plosive “p” in plenty. His words are punctuated by the sound of the distinctive Perry Mason horns. The four pages of script translate to about two and a half minutes on the screen.