Ah, Raymond Burr, a storied Canadian from metro Vancouver, BC !
jh
On 8/28/2015 7:14 PM, Peter Klein wrote:
I've been watching reruns of the original "Perry Mason"
whodunnit/courtroom TV drama. ME-TV, one of the "nostalgia" networks
in the U.S. broadcasts them in episode order. It recently "rewound"
from the very last episode (of 1966) to the very first one (1957). I
remember when things looked like that! I get a kick out of seeing the
"postwar" America of the 1950s slowly morphing towards "The Sixties,"
which exploded just after the series concluded.
*** Warning, spoilers ahead. Since the show is nearly 60 years old, I
hope you won't mind ***
Last night the episode on tap was called "The Case of the Buried
Clock," from 1958. A key element of the plot centered around
photography. One of the characters claims that he inadvertently set
off the trip-wire of a wildlife photographers' camera while walking on
a trail, taking a picture of himself. This gives him the alibi that he
was on that trail at a specific time. The photographer saw the flash
from his residence, and a picture of the man is in the camera, which
seems to corroborate the story.
In a courtroom scene, the photographer demonstrated how he set a
trip-wire across the trail, which, when disturbed, would trip the
shutter and flash bulb of a tripod-mounted 4x5 camera. Perry Mason
asks the photographer if he shoots at a wide aperture. The
photographer responds that yes, the lens is f/3.5 and he usually
shoots at f/4. Does he adjust the focus or aperture between shots? No,
those are pre-set.
Mason then proves that the guilty party actually took a picture of
himself earlier, then swapped film holders on the 4x5 camera and
stopped the lens down to f/22. He triggered the shutter at a
predetermined time by means of a wind-up alarm clock he had set and
buried nearby. Since the lens was stopped way down, the second
exposure was too dim to alter the latent image already on film. Great
fun, and done with careful attention to technical accuracy, down to
the photographer reversing the film holder and pulling the slide to
set up the camera for the next exposure (though he forgets to mention
first putting in the dark slide to protect the original exposure).
See the top photograph:
http://www.perrymasontvseries.com/wiki/index.php/EpisodePages/Show45
I've seen all sorts of old cameras in the "Perry Mason" shows. Speed
Graphics, Rolleiflexes, screw-mount Leicas. Plus enough wonderful old
cars to keep Jim Shulman happy.
--Peter
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