I'm a big fan of 1930s crime films, I like the serious ones, the noir ones, and the comedic ones. I picked up the 6 movie set because of my recent interest in Perry Mason. I've been watching the Raymond Burr series a season at a time and I was interested in this early series of films. I'd seen all but two of them a few years back, most likely from Turner Classic Movies back when I had cable. I gave up cable more than a year ago but cable had taken the Turner channel away some time before that, it happened when things when digital. I could have nearly doubled my cable bill but I didn't see the point of spending more money on a product that I was watching less and less, eventually that ever increasing monthly charge and my waning interest in the content caused me to give cable the old heave ho.
The Warner Archives are usually made on demand, with the movies burned onto a DVDR, but this three disc set is actual DVDs. The movies look pretty good.
The Case Of The Howling Dog 1934
Written by Ben Markson, based on the Earl Stanley Gardner, directed by Alan Crosland. I really liked the way they used to show pictures of the actors with titles telling you who they played in the film. You can click on the screen caps for a large version of the picture.
Warren William plays Perry Mason in the first of the Warner Bros Pictures films. Millionaire Arthur Cartwright comes to see him and he asks about making a will. He tells Mason his neighbor has a howling dog that is keeping him up all night. Soon there's murder and Perry's right in the middle of it. Perry gets working on the case and he manipulates the evidence to keep a head of the police. The story is familiar to those that have seen the TV show with Raymond Burr. Introduction of the characters, the murder, some detecting and the trial.
I liked some of the actors in the movie. That's Lightning the dog in the picture on the left. He's a good actor. Warren William has 66 films listed on the IMDb, all in the 30s and 40s. He played Philo Vance in a couple of films and The Lone Wolf in 9 films. He died at age 53 in 1948. The local library has a William's bio that I put on my request list. I'm not a big Mary Astor fan but she's usually good in her films. She had quite the life. I am a big fan of Alan Jenkins but not the mustache he wears in the film. Here he plays a tough cop that is always that one step behind Perry. Allan's career started in 1931 and ended when he passed away in 1974. Grant Mitchell is a really good character actor who's been in 125 films. I've seen quite a few of his films over the years.
There's plenty of snappy dialog and interesting characters. The mystery is complex enough and it kept me guessing. I'd already forgotten the story in the several years since seeing the movie for the first time. The movie gets a well deserved 6.9 on the IMDb.
The Case Of The Curious Bride 1935
The Gardner novel was adapted by Tom Reed with additional dialog by Brown Holmes. The movie is directed by Michael Curtiz.
Warren William is still Perry but this time Allen Jenkins is Spudsy Drake. He's a louder and goofier version of the Paul Drake that appears in the novels and TV show. Olin Howland plays the highly entertaining Coroner Wilbur Strong and Errol Flynn, in his first film, plays the dead guy. He gets a scene where he's alive in a flashback.
Perry's ex-girlfriend has a problem, her dead husband shows up demanding money or he'll tell her new husband she never got a divorce. The dead husband turns up dead and the ex gets arrested for murder. Perry gets to work to figure out the mystery. There's no courtroom drama in this movie but the solution works out well.
The Case Of The Lucky Legs 1935
The third of the series was adapted by Jerome Chodorov and the screenplay was written by Brown Holmes and Ben Markson. It's directed by Archie Mayo. Warren Williams returns to play Perry Mason and Allen Jenkins is up to his old tricks as Spudsy Drake. Olin Howland returns as the highly entertaining coroner. He manages to steal more scenes he's in. There's a new Della Street, this time it's Genevieve Tobin. Lyle Talbot plays a doctor and Barton MacLane plays a cop.
This time Perry gets in the middle of a con man and his victims. Perry finds his dead body and has to bring out his big bag of tricks to keep ahead of the police. Again there's no courtroom scene in this movie. Still, there's a good script and plenty of good actors to read the parts. There's even more humor in this film than the previous ones.
The Case Of The Velvet Claws 1936
It's the last of the Perry Mason films for Warren William. This movie is based on the first novel, Tom Reed wrote the screenplay, William Clemens is the director. Two of Clemens' earlier films were the delightful Nancy Drew...Reporter and Nancy Drew...Detective. Claire Dodd once again plays Della Street but sadly Allen Jenkins is gone and Eddie Acuff is playing Spudsy Drake. He's even goofier than Allen.
Olin Howland plays a different coroner but he's still as much fun as his previous appearances in Perry's world. There's marriage in the air as Perry and Della tie the knot. A woman with a gun and $5000 keeps interrupting the nuptials. It's probably the silliest of the films and least like the novel. Still it was fun to watch even though there's no courtroom scene. Funny how they wrote out all the courtroom scenes in these movies. What kind of thinking was that. Popular crime novels with plenty of high powered courtroom scenes and they toss that away. I wonder if that affected the popularity of the series.
The Case Of The Black Cat 1936
Ricardo Cortez is now playing Perry Mason. According to the Wikipedia Earl Stanley Gardner didn't care for Cortez and he was replaced in the last film. Too bad, he's not a fun Perry, as Warren was, but I liked Ricardo who was a great no nonsense Perry Mason. Certainly he's more like the character in the book and the version by Raymond Burr. Ricardo's career started in 1917 and he worked until he retired in 1960.
The movie was written by F Hugh Herbert and directed by William C McGann and an uncredited Alan Crosland. Alan died while directing the film and William finished the work. The story has less humor than the previous films and they finally return to the courtroom. Spudsy Drake is gone and Paul Drake is on the case.
Perry is called out of bed to write a new will for a man. Soon after the man dies in a fire in his bedroom. Then someone else got dead and Perry's got his hands full. It was good enjoyable mystery. I liked it quite a bit.
This film and the last in the series are 15 minute shorter and I read that it might mean that the series hadn't done as well as they might have wanted at Warner Bros so the budgets got cut and the series was moved to the B-movie unit. You can read more about the B-movie on the Wikipedia. The shorter running time means that there isn't much time for anything but story. It moves briskly along and there's usually something interesting in most scenes.
The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop 1937
Donald Woods is now Perry Mason and Ann Dvorak is Della Street. Don's the least interesting Perry of the trio but he's not awful or anything. Ann does OK for the most part. The screenplay is by Kenneth Gamet and Don Ryan with William Clemens directing. Tom Kennedy and Frank Faylen have parts in the film.
A Bishop from Australia comes to Perry to ask him to take on the case of wrongly accused woman. That leads to murder and that poor woman is arrested for that. Perry and Paul Drake, played by Joseph Crehan, get to work investigating. There's a good mystery and some entertaining scenes. It might be my least favorite of the 6 but it's still a fairly good film.
All in all I was quite pleased to see all these films again. I'm glad to have picked up that set and I'll watch them again someday.
I found your comments informative & entertaining.
I’d stumbled across Warren William in the role I’d Perry Mason and I aggregate he was suave and precise almost a Sherlock Holmes.
Posted by: Neil J. Pollicino | January 02, 2019 at 10:14 AM