A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester

The last of the "Perry Mason" mysteries is a real treat. Hal Holbrook once again portrays maverick lawyer Bill McKenzie with style in a tale although formalic to the extreme contains more than one surprising turn. With Holland Taylor joining the cast as McKenzie's assistant, it looks like the producers were hoping to continue the series under a new name.

I'm an Eastwood fan and Holbrook acted in one of the dirty Harry movies I didn't like the character he played and never could get past it. I was hoping this movie had Raymond Burr in it but no such luck.

The last of the contracted Perry Mason television movies is The Case Of The Jealous Jokester where Dyan Cannon plays television mom of Harriet Nelson family values with a comic twist and who is one real hellcat off the stage. Mean, manipulative, and vindictive to all around her, Cannon is probably one woman who really did deserve her fate. The problem is that the perpetrator fixed a good alibi by framing the niece of Wild Bill McKenzie played her by Victoria Jackson.

Hal Holbrook's character was an interesting one and I'm sorry the series wasn't continued with his name on it. I believe that the public just didn't accept him as a Perry Mason lite. Probably because of contracts, the films had to be presented as Perry Mason mysteries. It would have been better had they even just dropped that identifiable theme music, used Barbara Hale and William R. Moses in their characters and simply said that Perry had died.

Barbara Hale was going to retire in any event, in fact you can see she's breaking in Holland Taylor to fill her familiar role. Billy Moses would have no doubt continued as lawyer/investigator Ken Malansky with the Wild Bill McKenzie law firm had they continued the series.

It's not a bad film, but the McKenzie character, maybe because of legal problems was sold wrong.

When sitcom star Dyan Cannon is murdered, co-star Susan Diol is on trial for murder. It's a good thing that her uncle, Hal Holbrook is in town to check up on her in his last appearance in this Perry Mason Mystery TV mystery.

With the death two years earlier of Raymond Burr, producers Fred SIlverman and Dean Hargrove had tried to keep the series going. They kept Barbara Hale and William Moses from the series and insisted that Perry was out of town. In this one, Mr. Moses is around to serve as Holbrook's leg man, but the ailing Miss Hale has only a brief appearance before flying off to join Mr. Burr -- she would live another 22 years to the age of 94. Other well-known actors include Tony Roberts as Miss Cannon co-star and widower, Victoria Jackson and Sal Viscuso.

Although Holbrook is engaging in his homespun character, the series clearly misses Burr. He had played Mason first in 1957 for ten years in the hour-long series, and then in 26 TV movies from 1986 through his death in 1993. Although this is a good mystery, with the usual structure preserved, it just wasn't the same.

Lawyer Bill McKenzie's niece works as an assistant to sitcom star Josie Joplin. He flies to see her when she is accused of having an affair with Josie's husband, Toby. Ivy assures her Uncle that the story and an on-set fight are all part of a PR stunt. However when Ivy is framed for Josie's murder, Bill returns to help defend her. Meanwhile Ken is sent to try and find the driver of a jeep seen speeding away from Josie's hotel just before the murder, aided (and hindered) by a National Informer photographer desperate for a big story.

With the death of burr the series tried to keep the formula alive with the shell of the cast and the same basic stories. For most of the `Wild Bill' episodes it sort of worked. Here the story is reasonable but again it needs to have some link for Bill rather than just have him defend someone like Mason could. The story is OK but the courtroom scenes lack the fireworks (comparatively anyway) that mason brought. Here Bill seems to expose people's weaknesses then the scenes just end in order to keep the person alive as a suspect. The end is a better twist than usual but is no less illogical or out-of-the-blue than others.

Holbrook is good in the lead and makes his own character rather than aping Mason. Moses is his usual self and does all the action stuff reasonably well. Hale has clearly decided enough is enough and not-so-subtly removes herself from the series and hands over to Taylor who does OK (but replacing Della in the movies doesn't mean much in terms of hard work). This casting was of interest to me because Taylor had starred as a different character ten years early in Perry Mason Returns. The support cast is filled with reasonably well known faces who all do a TVM sufficient job. Cannon is good and is supported by the unmistakable Roberts (Annie Hall etc) and, amusingly enough, David Rasche (Sledge Hammer).

Overall this is an average entry to the series and was (at time of writing) the last one they made. It's not that it's bad but the ghost of burr looms large over it. Areas where Mason was weak are forgotten and the parts of the formula that he did well and now made to look weak.