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Post by artraveler on Aug 11, 2020 9:49:46 GMT -8
Perry Mason
2020
If you were born in the late 40s or early 50s one of the staples of television was Perry Mason. However, the history of the Earl Stanley Gardner character predates Raymond Burr series which ran on television from 1957 to 1966. I do not remember any of the movies or radio shows. I don’t recall reading any of the books. My sole experience is with the TV show. We all know the formula from TV. An innocent, generally female, is accused of murder and hires Mason to defend. We have Paul Drake the PI, Della Street the legal secretary, DA Hamilton Burger and a long cast of assorted criminals. The trial always ends with a confession in court, either on the stand or in the audience. Mason wins Burger loses, and the police are bewildered. This is the formula we are likely familiar, and it is not the what Gardner wrote.
The new series, in eight parts, from HBO available on Amazon Prime subscription is very different from the TV series. Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) is not a lawyer but a PI working for a lawyer who is on the decline intellectually Elias Birchard (E.B) Jonathon played by John Lithgow. Della Street (Juliet Rylance) is his legal secretary.
The time is 1931 and depression is taking hold of the nation. The time and place, Los Angeles, make this a noir style movie. Mason is separated from his wife and is on the skids, drinking too much and without a lot of prospects as the lawyer he works for is not getting clients. Most of his work is catching errant husbands and wives cheating. We have a kidnapping murder of a baby and the mother charged with the crime by overzealous prosecutor intent on running for mayor. All of the usual suspects for a classic film noir and it fills the bill.
The plot takes Mason the PI to believe the mother, Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) is innocent and is being framed by people unknown. He is assisted by an LA cop, Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) whose ethics are occasionally in question. Over the course of the investigation interest centers on an evangelical church not too different from the Four-Square Gospel Church and the woman preacher. An Amy Simple McPherson look-a-like.
About halfway through EB takes his own life and Mason, at Della’s prodding, and Hamilton Berger’s coaching takes and passes the bar exam and becomes Emily Dodson attorney. During the trial Mason is convinced he knows who is guilty and attempts to break him on the stand. Burger is in the audience and says, “they never break on the stand”. Ultimately Mason makes a compelling closing argument and when the jury returns it is hung. The judge declared a mistrial and Emily goes free. It is counted a victory for Mason, although, he knows she should have been acquitted.
In general, this is a good film noir detective/lawyer show and given the very prolific works of Earl Stanley Gardner could go on for years. There are some concessions to PC culture that I am sure Gardner did not write. Della Street is a lesbian, but not the bra burning in your face kind. She is more of the Tammy Bruce take it or not kind. She is smart and wants to be a lawyer and ultimately Mason’s partner. Paul Drake is Black and leaves the LAPD to be Mason’s PI. In part because of the racism of the LAPD. However, those concessions to PC culture aside, and they are not the obnoxious kind this is an interesting series. I think Gardner would approve.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 11, 2020 10:11:12 GMT -8
I believe her name was Della Boom-Boom Street, but that’s just a technical point.  I get the idea that Perry Mason wasn’t anxious to ask Paul Drake how he got all his information, even in the TV program. So were all these role-reversals in the books? Was Mason a PI? Was Drake a cop? And I think we can be pretty sure Boom-Boom wasn’t a lesbo. I think she and Mason had something going. I’ll see if I can do another free trial of HBO. I haven’t done that since Chernobyl. Maybe I can do it again. |
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Post by timothylane on Aug 11, 2020 11:02:49 GMT -8
Della Street and Perry Mason definitely had a relationship. In fact, once -- I don't recall if it was in a book or on a TV episode -- Mason said the reason he didn't marry Della was that he would then have to replace her as secretary. Making her a bisexual in her younger days probably wouldn't have contradicted the books or TV episodes because they never went into the backstory on any of the characters.
Similarly, it would be possible that Perry was a PI once (he certainly does a lot of detecting), and entirely reasonable that Drake started out as a policeman. As for race, I don't know if Gardner was specific about that. He may simply never have bothered. When Never Say Never Again had a black Felix Leiter, it didn't disturb me (he probably actually portrayed Felix's personality more accurately than most).
But ethics are another matter. In both books and TV episodes Drake was very ethical, probably more so than Perry Mason was. Indeed, in one of the novels, a rich woman's secretary notes that in keeping track of her employers money, she has lists of people to consult if needed. When Perry and Paul visit her, she notes that Mason is at the top of their list of lawyers in the event of a major felony charge, and that Paul is at the top of her list in a situation calling for an ethical detective. He notes that this implies that they also have a list of unethical detectives. Her response is, "We keep very complete lists."
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 11, 2020 11:54:20 GMT -8
But it would play hell with my fantasies. Della is like the perfect woman. She's smart, productive, good-looking, go-getting, polite, demure, and doesn’t try to look or act like a man. What’s not to like? Well, it’s good that Paul Drake is known at an ethical detective. But the reality is that’s like saying you are a clean sanitation worker. A little dirt just goes with the territory.
Here's an early 50's shot I found of Della that I thought was interesting:
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 11, 2020 13:37:42 GMT -8
Yes, that's a nice connection of Katt to that Drake role. Here's Barbara showing some boom-boom.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 11, 2020 13:41:21 GMT -8
Here's Jayne Mansfield just because. I'm sure this connects to the subject at hand if you just squint.  You don't dare say "boom-boom" with that one or the dress would fall off completely. Sort of like you don't want to shoot off a gun in avalanche country. |
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Post by timothylane on Aug 11, 2020 15:32:54 GMT -8
Sort of hard to compare Mansfield to Hale given that the latter was wearing clothes. Their hair color is different, and from those photos they both had nice thoracic protuberances.
In the early 70s, there was a new Perry Mason show with different performers (even though Burr and Hale obviously were still available). It failed badly, no doubt because by then Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale were Perry Mason and Della Street. That probably isn't a problem for this series, partly because it's been a long time even since the TV movies (though no doubt many see the show in reruns on channels such as MeTV), Burr and Hale are no longer available, and the ratings standards are different for HBO and a regular broadcast network.
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Post by artraveler on Aug 11, 2020 16:20:41 GMT -8
The reason we had boom boom like this in the 50s is because of the late Howard Hughes. He produced a movie, The Outlaw, with Howard Hawks directing Jane Russell and there was concern that bras of the 40s did not keep a well endowed breast from bouncing. Hughes took up the challenge and had one of his aircraft engineers design a cantilevered bra for Russell. Thus for the next 30 years women had breasts that looked like they had been shot from behind by two very pointy rockets, but they didn't bounce.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 11, 2020 19:56:58 GMT -8
They have the first episode for free on The Roku Channel.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 13, 2020 10:28:47 GMT -8
I watched most of the first episode and didn’t like it. I would say the problem is:
HBO ticks off all the marks for those who are 25 going on 13: Explicit sex, gratuitous language, and cliche’s galore.
It’s almost as if these writers had been living on Mars for the past 40 years and had never seen a gritty crime or detective movie before. They added nothing new, the plot is boring, and much of the action is of the “HBO cinema-signaling” type to let their 25-something (going on 13) viewers know that they’re one of them.
But would it have improved Casablanca if Rick would have said, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a fucking beautiful friendship”?
I find this kind of series/aesthetic to be at the very core of the rot of our culture.
Even if you’re into this sort of thing, it’s so padded with irrelevancies (like I said, plenty of HBO’s equivalent of virtue-signaling) that even the good elements in it (perhaps John Lithgow) are watered down. And it’s possible that Matthew Rhys could, in time, morph into a gritty gumshoe detective. But right now he’s too busy clicking off all the cliches.
Like I said, its as if these writers were completely unaware of previous work in this genre. In the first episode, they add nothing new.
There is something to be said for the general overall look and score of this Noir. But that’s about as far as I can go in praising it.
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Post by timothylane on Aug 13, 2020 10:45:23 GMT -8
In his brief introductory note to The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk noted the heavy use of profane language in the Navy, which he referred to as a billingsgate as I recall. He said that he used such language only when he thought it was actually appropriate (which was rarely).
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Post by timothylane on Aug 13, 2020 14:25:35 GMT -8
It occurs to me that the better grammar would be "beautiful fucking friendship", though I agree that the original version was better anyway. Of course, in 1942 such language would probably have run afoul of the Motion Picture Code. In today's more "enlightened" times, we don't have such standards, or any standards at all.
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Post by artraveler on Aug 13, 2020 14:36:16 GMT -8
In his brief introductory note to The Caine Mutiny, I doubt that he every spent any time with Marines. My father, the old gunny, once got so mad at one of my stunts that he swore at me for what seemed like an hour without ever repeating himself and in several languages. Good swearing is creative, almost an art form. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 13, 2020 16:25:55 GMT -8
Henceforth they shall be known as "FUFs."
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Post by timothylane on Aug 13, 2020 16:38:06 GMT -8
Wouk served in the Navy, though presumably there would have been at least a few Marines aboard. In fact, his service was aboard various destroyer-minesweepers. Like as not the same class as the fictional Caine. As a Jew, he had some problems with a diet heavy on pork, and probably also mixing meat and dairy foods in the same dish.
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Post by artraveler on Aug 13, 2020 18:33:47 GMT -8
My father was on the USS Nevada in the mid 30s. Tradition is that Marines serve on Capital ships and depending on the size and the status of the ship. A BB like Nevada would have as much as a company, about 125 marines, just enough to man one turret. Another function was to provide sentries for flag officers. The unspoken reason was to provide an armed force to prevent mutiny. The BBs are gone but marines still serve sea duty on everything from light cruisers to carriers.
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Post by artraveler on Aug 14, 2020 10:47:24 GMT -8
I am about half way through Perry Mason, The Case of the Lazy Lover. None of the memes in the HBO version seem present. The writing is verrrrrryyyyy 1930/40s detective style. Short declarative sentences that remind me of Raymond Chandler. There is not a hint that Della is a lesbian or that Paul Drake is Black, or that Mason has been a PI. Perhaps Mason's history is in another novel. I just picked one at random. However, most of the actual work a PI would do for an attorney is done by Mason himself. Drake is used to do the legwork Mason does not have time for.
I can understand the attraction for these books in the 30s and 40s on radio. A lot of the dialogue reads like a screenplay. I think I saw that Gardner turned out about 80 of these and most of them in one form or another ended up on radio, TV or both. This is entertaining reading, much more then the HBO show. It is the kind of book you take with you to read under a tree after a good hike.
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Post by timothylane on Aug 14, 2020 12:13:06 GMT -8
My father had a large collection of them, and we watched the show regularly. The books no doubt got left behind on one our moves, but later I started collecting them and probably got (and read) all of them. Most were probably used in the Burr series; in fact, in the first year most of the episodes were based on the books. This continued on a declining scale through the series.
Incidentally, one book (The Case of the Waylaid Wolf) actually included the standard last-minute confession by the actual killer. Since the victim had by then been exposed as pretty much a rapist taking advantage of the peculiarities of California rape laws (Gardner was himself a defense lawyer), she wasn't expected to face any legal charge as a result.
The first novel I read, as I recall, was The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister, which I enjoyed. (The TV episode based on it was more "inspired by it" than "based on it".) Another very good one was The Case of the Rolling Bones. I mentioned the one with the secretary who kept complete lists of consultants (such as felony lawyers and ethical detectives), but I'm not sure which one that was. Maybe The Case of the Mischievous Doll, but don't hold me to that.
Incidentally, in "The Curious Case of the Countless Clues", John Steed and Tara King are working with a Home Office detective named Sir Arthur Doyle investigating crimes committed by 3 murderers working together to frame rich people for murder in order to blackmail them. Their names were Earle, Stanley, and Gardiner.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 14, 2020 18:09:15 GMT -8
That's a good sign. But that first episode was very HBO-ish. If these episodes were on a service I was already subscribed to, I might check out another one.
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