The Case Of The Curious Bride - Dead Again
Luigi lets Perry Mason borrow his restaurant kitchen to cook a crab dinner for friends. Over coffee Wilbur Strong, the local coroner, gets a call about a man, Gregory Moxley, who had died four years ago but was reportedly recently seen on the street. The Grand Jury wants Wilbur to open the coffin. Mason has just heard a similar story from his old friend Rhoda so he invites himself along.
The coffin reveals not a body, but a wooden effigy of an American Indian! The plot thickens …
At a Western Union office Mason discovers that a blackmailing telegram received by Rhoda was sent by Gregory Moxley, residing at 316 Norwalk. He wastes no time going there …
…only to find the police inside investigating Moxley’s murder. This is how Errol Flynn, who plays the Moxley role in this, his first Hollywood movie, made his screen entrance - under the sheet. (He is seen later though in a flashback).
Then … But where was this filmed? The movie address is fictional but this was 1850 Sutter Street in Japantown, revealed by the name C. P. Ocampo on the dentist’s sign at far left in this shot of Mason leaving the house. The dentist’s address was listed in the 1935 city directory as 1852 Sutter.
… and Now, this sidewalk tree is in front of where 1850 Sutter used to be (map). It was demolished during the Western Addition Redevelopment Agency project, created to rid the city of so-called blighted areas. Beginning in 1956 the city used eminent domain to clear the largely African-American Fillmore of property and residents; later the carnage expanded into the Japantown neighborhood. Approximately 880 businesses and 2500 Victorians, including 1850 Sutter, were victims. New buildings now flank the site and, ironically, the building at 1840 Sutter, below on the right, today houses the Japanese Cultural and Community Center.
Here’s the 1935 city directory listing of dentist Conrado P. Ocampo.
Fortunately not all of the Victorians were lost - there are survivors dotted around, like these at 1811, 1815 and 1825 Sutter on the same block as Moxley’s place.