I too remember my dad watching it when I was growing up. Then it was off for a long time in my market until it turned up in syndication. This was right after I started college, and my ex and I used to stay up late at night to watch it together (it on was back-to-back with “Rockford Files” reruns). The thing that struck me back then was that in almost every episode, the person who was established to have seen the victim last was usually the murderer.
Two years ago, I got to watch it for several months on The Alternative Channel in Canada. It had descriptive narration for the visually handicapped, and sometimes I enjoyed that more than what I was seeing on the screen. (It was a whole 'nother experience, believe me!)
This time, I was struck by some of the border-line legal shenanigans Perry used to protect his clients (in one episode, he and Paul actually committed arson to flush out a gang of smugglers). I was also amazed at how much story they were able to cram into each episode (lots of expository dialogue). Shoestring budget? Oh, yeah! (It didn’t take me long to notice that they reused the Rich People’s House interiors over and over again.)
Sometimes there were so many twists and turns, I just ended up confused. The best (or worse) example of this was “The Case of the Terrified Typist,” which hinged entirely on the victim’s fraudulent identity. (I still don’t understand: If you kill someone and it turns out they weren’t really who everyone thought they were, does that mean you have to be tried a second time for murder? )
Another thing I loved was seeing what the producers thought was “hip” back in the early '60s. There was one episode about an aspiring young pop singer that was just unintentionally hilarious. (This was back when surfing and beach parties were all the rage.)
Still, it is a classic show. I’ll watch as many episodes as I can whenever I get the chance.
I know that the actor that played Paul Drake did-everybody smoked! Drake (the coolest private eye on TV) smoked like a fiend.
Another question: was the show ever on TV in the UK? If so, did our British cousins like it? (British courtroom procedures differ from American)-would the show have meant anything to a non-USA audience?
My wife is a huge fan, I’ve seen quite a few eps as a result and what struck me was how well written it was and how good the acting was. While there’s a definite formula, the characterizations tend to be sharp and the plots roll right along. I see Law & Order’s success in its early years through new eyes now: they just returned to the Perry Mason formula.
Funny, TV just keeps getting smarter and smarter, and the movies just keep getting dumber and dumberer.
Drake did. Burger did, back when I was in junior high (1968-ish). Tragg was already quite ill by the early '60s and passed away while the series was still on; I don’t recall what his malady was, other than old age.
Barbara Hale and Raymond Burr both lived to a ripe old age. They were still doing Perry Mason TV movies until the early '90s.
In the shows from the late '50s, Barbara really was quite a dish! If I’m not mistaken, Paul Drake, Jr, was played by her real-life son.
Yes, Barbara Hale’s son was William Katt, who first became famous as the star of ***The Greatest American Hero ***(“believe it or not, I’m walking on air…”). He later played Paul Drake Jr. on the ***Perry Mason ***TV movies.
Ever see Law & Order U.K.? (It played in Canada.) All the plots are the same — literally — as the U.S. version, so for that to work, the courts can’t be that different.
As in the U.S. version, Law & Order U.K. has one lawyer saying something, then the witness says something, then the other lawyer says something and the judge says something, and the judge or the jury decides, all within 25 minutes.
According to Wikipedia, emphesema. So while not lung cancer, I think we can say smoking attributed to his death.
Oh, and I like the show. Mostly very satisfying resolutions, if you can ignore the way a trial is depicted (and if you can’t, what are you doing watching tv?).
I wish they wouldn’t have overused the “incidental character breaks down on the stand and confesses” plot device. Seemed like it was every other episode.
That’s interesting. I haven’t read the books and it always struck me as sort of fishhy that Hamilton “Ham” Burger and Lt. Tragg would have so much animosity for Mason, when he essentially gift-wrapped the actual murderer for them each week.
Also, was Paul Drake cool? I remember him as sort of a buffoon in a badly-cut, ridiculously loud check coat.
Very cool! Ex-USMC bodybuilder with biceps and abs chicks would die for! Big, broad shoulders. Also, going distinguishingly grey. No wonder he was a hot item at the time.
The checked coat, BTW, was very, very cool, back in the '50s. He also drove a flashy convertible and habitually wore dark shades. Showed he was no mere gumshoe.
Seriously? I watched when I was little & we were lucky if we had 3 channels. My Mom loved it , along with Gunsmoke. I mocked them both for being so predictable. Sorry for being a jerk, mom
The character wasn’t buffoonish, though sometimes his sports coats made him look like a used Studebaker salesman.
Drake was played by William Hopper, son of Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and whose credits include character parts in Stage Coach, The Maltese Falcon and Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Natalie Wood’s father in Rebel Without a Cause. He was the cousin of actor Dennis Hopper, of more recent memory, and who was in the flicks Easy Rider, Waterworld (they can’t all be gems) and others.
On of the only other things I ever remember seeing William Hopper in was the awful Fifties monster movie The Deadly Mantis, all about a 200 foot tall praying mantis running amok in Alaska.
Is Joel and the robots DIDN’T cover that movie, they should have.
Agreed. To me, that was part of the courtroom realism you had to give up. I still enjoyed seeing how Mason’s explanation covered all the evidence in a cool way. The defendant’s ‘yeah, you got me’ was just a checkmark.
The guy who played Paul Drake was a Navy frogman … pretty damn dangerous work … in WWII and won a Bronze Star for heroism during his service. Apparently, a cool dude in real life.
One of my absolute favorite Perry Mason endings has him prove that his client couldn’t have committed the crime without ever proving who did. IIRC, he says to Della, “I’m pretty sure it was so-and-so, but proving that is Burger’s problem” or something to that effect.
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