Perry Mason: Season 5, Vol. 1

In a review of another of this series' seasons, I mentioned that later "Perry Mason" scripts adhere to a format as rigid as a sonnet. Perhaps I should explain. In nine out of ten episodes, this is what you may expect. You can set your watch by it. If you've never watched a "Mason" show, here is your checklist.The teaser (about four minutes in length): You're introduced to about three or four people who tee up a problem, suffer embarrassment, threat, or catastrophe. The usual reasons: money, sex, or both. One of these people will end up being the murder victim or the prime suspect.Act I (about fifteen minutes in length): exposition of the teaser's tease with the same group, to which are added four or five more characters. The latter fall into roughly three categories: future suspects, witnesses, and red herrings. Mr. Mason (Raymond Burr) and his ever superlative confidential secretary, Della Street (Barbara Hale), may or may not be consulted by one among this expanding horde.By now you've met, for minutes or seconds, seven to nine characters who are interrelated by kinship, business association, or flimflam. Many are not happy to know one another. Typically one is so unhappy to blurt out, "I could [or will] kill you!" This one will NEVER be the real killer. The outburst is only incriminating evidence for the D.A.'s use later in the show. While you are scrambling to remember who's who, one will have dropped to the floor, murdered. This one you may scratch off your list of suspects.Act II: The detective procedural: searching for evidence and interviews with that week's characters (about fifteen minutes). The interviewers are usually officers of the L.A. police, Lt. Arthur Tragg (Ray Collins) or an assistant; Paul Drake (William Hopper), a P. I. employed by Mason, Mason himself, or Drake and Mason as a team. ALL of the circumstantial evidence points to one suspect, who by now has been arrested and occasionally questioned by Mason in the L.A. County jail.Act III: The trial begins (ten to twelve minutes). D. A. Hamilton Burger (William Talman) is loaded for bear. Witnesses for the prosecution build for him an airtight case against the defendant, Mason's client. All the characters you've met in the teaser or Act I end up in the witness stand. Burger and Mason register objections to each other's questions. The judge overrules or sustains. Usually these are preliminary hearings, saving the producers money from paying twelve silent day-players as jurors. Occasionally the case is tried before a jury, adding a touch of suspense. Were they to find Mason's client guilty, the defendant would be hauled off to the gas chamber. Meanwhile Drake is ferreting out obscure facts about other characters, none of which makes sense to him. Mason's stoic face registers the Swiss watch ticking inside his brain.Act IV: The trial builds to its climax (ten to twelve minutes). ALWAYS there's a twist that no one but the scriptwriter could have seen coming: perjured testimony that backfires, new evidence revealed at the last moment, the appearance of a new witness from out of nowhere that spins the yarn in a different direction. Sometimes Mason has opportunity to perform a fascinating experiment in the courtroom, to which Burger objects and the judge overrules. The last few minutes build to Mason's closing in on the truly guilty party with an intense, relentless burn-away of all his client's incriminating evidence. This leads to the inevitable Mason Moment for which the audience has been waiting since the first second: the real murderer, in defiance of any trial in the history of American jurisprudence, either erupts in rage or bursts into tears, confessing to the crime. The less conscience-stricken button up their emotions while complimenting Mason on his steel-trap mind. In most cases the guilty party is one of the story's most peripheral characters. If someone has breezed in or out of a scene for fewer than five minutes, you can lay odds that he or she will likely be the culprit. The butler didn't do it. It was the butler's wife's great-grand nephew, twice removed.The tag (about three minutes): Usually accompanied by the acquitted, Mr. Drake and Miss Street, acting as audience surrogates, ask, "There's one thing that still puzzles me, Perry. How did you know … ?" The answer will take Mason all of thirty-seconds to answer. It's sensible, and irrelevant. This is a whodunnit, not a how-he's-caught-em. Dozens of loose ends are left dangling. Everyone has a good laugh, often at Drake's expense, then often go out for a nice meal.Here's the kicker. For nine solid years this series' writer-producers filled in this Mad Lib hundreds of times, and audiences kept watching. Sixty years later, we still are. Why? (1) Audiences enjoy being fooled. (2) In a more innocent time Americans liked to believe that justice is usually served in its courtrooms. (3) The weekly actors hired for this show were very good, some becoming stars (see Redford, Robert—but not in Season 5.) (4) The principal, recurring actors were exquisite in their roles. Mr. Burr made unflappability interesting, usually by doing nothing more than thinking, and he gave us an ideal that we want to believe in: a truly honest, honorable lawyer, who demanded that reason and justice prevail for the benefit of all, especially the underdog. Ms. Hale was his most trustworthy friend (and he, hers). Mr. Hopper never made a pass at her; he was her big brother. Mr. Talman played Mason's rival sibling to perfection: no matter how rigid the format, his performances are a masterly blend of suave self-assurance, frustration, astonishment, and admiration. For as long as his health held out, Mr. Collins was the incorruptible, bulldog police lieutenant who had seen it all but was never jaded. Onscreen they were what they said of themselves offscreen: a family.Highlights to look for in Season Five, Volume 1:"The Case of the Missing Melody" (not much of a story, but laced with an original score by jazz guitarist Barney Keseler, who, along with fellow jazz artist Bobby Troup, enjoy cameo roles); "The Pathetic Patient," which features some neat twists that don't defy logic; "The Posthumous Painter" (a classic swindle in which the swindler receives the death he faked); "The Left-Handed Liar" (a crime in a health club, featuring Leslie Parrish in her second of two performances in this volume); perhaps best of all, "The Renegade Refugee," which breathes life into the format by offering a human being who has carried fifteen years of guilt but manages to earn spiritual relief by episode's end.Especially in its earliest of nine seasons, "Perry Mason" episodes are chocolate-covered cherries. I know exactly what they taste like, and I keep wolfing them down.

A fan

A phrase that has escaped from the vernacular of television production-land to the rest of the English speaking world is "jumping the shark." It refers to the episode on Happy Days in December,1977 when Fonzie, waterskiing in bathing suit and black leather jacket behind a boat driven by Richie Cunningham, avoids a Jaws-like attack by jumping over the Great White. From that moment, Happy Days went from being cutting-edge comedy to something close to self-parody.So as we look at the first part of season five of America's greatest television lawyer, we have to wonder, when did Mason jump the shark?There is a lot to suggest he did. For one thing, there is Karl Held. Held in the mid-1960's plays David , a law student reading in Mason's law library, who muscles in on all of the cases and spews legal maxims like a brownnosing 1L in Contracts class. He has beach boy good looks, and always wears a sports jacket and thin tie. It is not exactly clear why he reads law in Mason's law library. Perhaps they were fumigating the academic law library at UCLA. But on a series which has such an iconic regular cast of Della, Burger, Tragg and Drake, his earnest recitations and pretty boy looks are a total distraction.The writing seems to be slightly off the mark as well. Perry Mason is primarily a legal detective, using the engine of cross-examination to solve crimes and to free the wrongfully accused. The real murderer is generally motivated by lust, greed, jealousy, or disappointment. These plots do not stray from the formula per se but Mason's methodology in exposing true criminals seems off.However, as always, the episodes are filled with the era's finest character actors who do their best to make up for the less than great scripts, and can usually overwhelm the annoying presence of "young David", as Mason oft calls him.I haven't yet seen the episode in which young David clad in bathing suit and sports jacket skis behind a boat driven by Tragg, but if it occurs during the next half season, I am rooting for the shark.

The fifth season of this venerable series, first aired in 1961, gradually begins to reflect the cultural changes since its premiere in the late fifties. In an anticipation of the Perry Mason returns series of the eighties, Perry now has an occasional assistant, a young law student whom he once successfully defended (just like William R. Moses' Ken Malansky). More traveling is going on, reflecting the wider world opening to Americans with the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lt. Tragg is seen less and less often, usually replaced by Wesley Lau's Lt. "Andy" Anderson. Hamilton Burger is also seen only occasionally (fallout from William Talman's arrest on morals charges a couple of years earlier), and other prosecutors go up against Perry with the same zeal and the same results. To us males who entered our teens in the sixties, the cars are one of the obvious tipoffs to the period. One of Perry's clients tools around in a '61 Chevy, and Paul Drake's ride is a '61 T-Bird (presumably red, though we can only guess in black and white). For a while, there's the ubiquitous '61 Buick convertible, serving characters in several episodes. Some reviewers have complained of CBS Video's decision to release the series in half-season packages priced for a full season. This is greedy behavior characteristic of big corporations, and no one should be surprised. Business, with its unerring eye for profit, is the most reliable barometer of what's popular. PM makes the grade, season after season. My wife and I relax almost every night with yet another episode. Though they are somewhat formulaic, there are just enough twists to keep us fascinated. Second half coming up.

This is up to the usual high standard and surprisingly black and white (I normally hate) does not detract.I love the whole series and it holds up well to modern day except for the clothes and cars. The stories are well thought out and written and the dialogue good.It is a program I am collecting for future viewing and thoroughly recommend it to anyone, like me, that enjoys courtroom drama and investigations without the gore!

So far I've purchased about half of the volumes from this long running, seminal series, and this one is equal to all the rest. Strong plots, great fashions, digitally restored - in short, totally unmissable for anyone who likes good quality TV productions, especially from the Fifties and Sixties. Great prints.

Excellent series. DVD reproduction seems a bit better. Good stories if a little bit to the same formula but I still enjoy them. Loads more to collect. Getting a bit expensive but will continue collecting until I have all 9 series.Regards David Barton-Smith

A great quality DVD-full of great episodes at a fantastic price!!

Came on time but i think the disc is not 100% ok as it skips, freezes and jumps. But can be watchable.