Perry Mason
Much like with Nancy Drew, my first encounter with Perry Mason was on TV despite not being a regular viewer. While Raymond Burr made a brilliant Hitchcock villain in Rear Window (where he bore a striking resemblance to David O. Selznick), he was arguably better in the role of criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason. Despite his many film roles, Burr is likely best remembered for his TV roles both as Mason and for his subsequent persona, wheelchair-bound detective Ironside.
The character of Perry Mason was inspired by famous Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers, and created by detective fiction writer Erle Stanley Gardner. Beginning in 1933, Mason featured in 82 novels and 4 short stories that were published over the next forty years. Each story featured a client who’d been charged with murder and through the course of a preliminary hearing or jury trial Mason was able to secure an acquittal by revealing the real murderer.
Unlike other film series adaptions, Perry Mason went straight from page to big screen. Warner Bros. took the usual approach of inserting a popular lead and putting the films out in rapid succession in an effort to engage and sustain an audience who would keep coming back for more.
They kicked off the series by choosing Warren William for the lead. His most memorable onscreen roles had coincided with the harshest period of the Depression when he played ruthless, amoral businessmen, crafty lawyers and shameless charlatans. Audiences of the time, who were experiencing very hard times, took great pleasure in jeering the hateful villains William played.
In the same period he was also cast in more sympathetic roles, including in Frank Capra's Lady for a Day, academy award winner Golddiggers of 1933, Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra and in the widely admired Imitation of Life (later remade by Douglas Sirk).
To capitalized on his popularity William was also cast as the lead in series The Lone Wolf (nine films), Philo Vance (two films), and the first four Perry Mason films.
For the fifth film in the series, The Case of the Black Cat, former romantic lead turned character actor Ricardo Cortez was cast as Mason. While the film was praised by critics, Cortez was passed over for B movie star Donald Woods for the last film in the series, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop. In it Perry is asked by an Australian Bishop to take the case of a woman who had been falsely imprisoned for manslaughter 22 years earlier. Bishop William Mallory was played by American actor Edward McWade who had neither a convincing stutter, nor a convincing Australian accent.
In 1940 Warner Bros. released Granny Get Your Gun, which was loosely based on the 1937 Perry Mason novel The Case of the Dangerous Dowager however the film does not feature Perry Mason or any of the other regular characters.
In 1943 Perry Mason was adapted for radio as a 15-minute daily crime series, though it had little in common with previous portrayals of Mason. Around this time the Perry Mason character also began appearing in comic books and a short-lived comic strip that ran from the late 1950s until the middle of 1952.
Meanwhile the radio series ran successfully through until 1955 at which time interest in a TV adaption had developed.
CBS, who were to produce the TV series, wanted Mason to be given a love interest to cater to the tastes of daytime soap opera audiences, but Gardner flatly refused and withdrew his support. This led to the writers and the staff of the Perry Mason radio series being hired to help adapt the show, including renaming the characters and changing the setting.
They shifted the show’s content to incorporate more action and less courtroom drama, in the process mixing elements of mystery with soap opera conventions. They even had Perry Mason exchanging gunfire with criminals on occasion. The show was renamed The Edge of Night and it ended up running on television for 30 years.
CBS also decided to work with Gardner to preserve his vision for Mason, coming to an agreement for an official Perry Mason TV adaptation in 1957. With that version planned for a prime time audience, they could dispense with the soap opera elements and adhere more closely to the format of a conventional courtroom drama. As mentioned Raymond Burr was cast as Perry Mason and remains the most recognisable in the role.
Interestingly, two of the lesser know actors to have played Mason, Bartlett Robinson and John Larkin, appeared in TV series as other characters after having played Perry Mason on the radio.
When the TV series wrapped up production in 1966 Raymond Burr immediately moved on, playing the wheelchair bound, crime-fighting detective Robert T. Ironside. Despite the obvious challenges of using a wheelchair in hilly San Francisco, Ironside seemed to always collar the bad guys.
Burr would however return to play Perry Mason in TV movies through out the 1980s and early 1990s, even returning as Ironside just before his death in 1993.
More recently Perry Mason re-appeared for a stint on HBO, but was cancelled after 2 seasons.
The TV version of Perry Mason is really everybody’s idea of who the character was, what he looked like and how he behaved. But if you’re interested in seeing how the character evolved, The Case of the Howling Dog is the best place to look. It was the first in the movie series, and was covered in Episode 23 of the second series on TV.
They’re both worth a look.