More on Perry Mason

I can't believe I'm writing a second post about Perry Mason, I never even watched this show. But, there's a marathon on the Hallmark Movie channel, so I have it on in the background.

A pleasure in watching old shows is the parade of familiar character actors. Perry Mason though goes so far back I don't even recognize most of the guest stars (though I did catch a very young Louise Fletcher. Who knew she was a hottie at one point?)

Two things common in every episode, Perry always gets the killer to confess on the stand, and the last five minutes is Perry, Della, and one of the police detectives sitting back in Perry's office and explaining everything to the audience. The Denoument.

The killer confessing on the stand thing though is of course thoroughly crazy, killers rarely ever confess and if they do, they never confess on the stand. Ever ever.

So for Perry Mason to grill a suspect and make him confess on the stand, I suppose is OK for '60s audiences. But something like that would never get by modern audiences.

um, nevermind.

The Case of the Beneficial Barrister

They ran a Perry Mason marathon on Encore on Saturday. These were the ‘80s-’90s 2-hour TV movies. They’re a guilty pleasure. They’re bland and there’s lots of filler, but there’s lots of character actors. What I really enjoy is the context behind the show.

Fred Silverman was a television executive and later producer whose success could be summed up this way: Spinoffs, recycling and familiar faces in the mystery genre. 

(Some samples of his spinoffs: Rhoda, Phyllis, the Jeffersons, Maude, Good Times, Laverne and Shirley, all hits, then his unlucky streak at NBC: Hello Larry, Sheriff Lobo.

Some samples of his familiar faces starring in mysteries: Jake and the Fatman, In the Heat of the Night, Matlock, Father Dowling Mysteries, and Diagnosis Murder. Brandon Tartikoff writes in his book “The Last Great Ride” about Silverman sending him to James Arness’ home on the ruse of discussing a new series with him, but actually checking him out to see if he’s too old and craggy for TV. Arness answers the door and says, “Are you here to see if I’m too old and craggy for TV?”)

Silverman first recycled Perry Mason in the early ‘70s at CBS, the Raymond Burr version had only been off the air for seven years when he brought back a version with a new cast. Monte Markham as Mason. (The real Raymond Burr was in the hit “Ironsides” and was unavailable.

It barely ran the season, but in the  ‘80s he recycled it again (this time as producer) with Burr and Barbara Hale reprising their roles from the original series. This time it worked and the series of 2-hour movies (two or three a year) ran for another 7 years. Incredible.

Toward the last few years Burr was in failing health and his weight was increasingly a problem. Look and you’ll see that he’s usually filmed leaning against something. And later when he was especially in failing health..and when he died...they kept making Perry Mason Mysteries! Nothing would stop Fred Silverman. They used Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook to play lawyer pals of Mason’s in town to handle his caseload. Heck they should have gotten Monte Markham!

There’s a good book by Susan Kandel called, “I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason,” it’s one in a series of mysteries about a writer writing biographies of mystery authors and then stumbling onto some kind of mystery herself. In this book the biography topic is Erle Stanley Gardner, so you get some background on Gardner, and a good mystery. This is a  brilliant concept for a series of mysteries and I wish I thought of it.