Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder

I bought the whole set of Perry Mason movies. I enjoy them. However? In the original series. Perry Mason had a Courteous/Friendly but competitive and adversarial relationship with his DA.(The late William Talman). He had the same kind of relationship with the character played by David Ogden Steirs for 9 episodes. Then they bring in Valerie Mahaffey for a few episodes? They take ZERO time to develop the same type of relationship. In many of the episodes? They waste a TREMENDOUS amount of time with William Moses' character running or driving through the streets. Running through buildings. Running through warehouses. Knocking people down while chasing someone. A waste of time if done too long and too often. There should have been a few short scenes developing the character relationship between Perry Mason and Valarie's DA Character. A talent like her, and it is WASTED..... There would have been personal and professional friction. Maybe even sexual ones like Perry and Della. The point is they had a VERY talented actress for DA and wasted the opportunity. There should have been less running, jumping, car smashing, and more on the characters and their development. Devolving into a "Formula" and not taking chances? They are cheating. I like the show. I will watch all the movies? But they wasted some great Hollywood talent with Valerie Mahaffey!

Perry has been in hospital for a knee operation but, while recovering, he sees Johnny out of the window. Johnny was a ex-stage manager for a musical called Polly in which while the star, film star, Amanda Cody, is scoring a big success, it's director Tony Franken is a right monster and after tearing through the cast and crew fires Johnny after Johnny stands up for himself. That night, Tony gets a phone call, goes down to the theatre and is shot. The police arrest Johnny and when Perry comes forward with the alibi Amanda begs Perry to represent Johnny. While Perry and Della investigate the murder, Ken and his fiancee Amy investigate the theatre's security guard Parker Newton, a huge man who got a very nasty temper but has the key to solving the murder...

Another enjoyable Perry Mason, despite it being a little average and not as engaging as the others. With Perry Mason doing his bit to prove his client didn't kill a horrid musical theatre director ( well played by Dwight Schultz, who almost goes into Murdoch mode), Moses and Alexandra Paul making a good investigating duo and Debbie Reynolds sprinkling her Hollywood charm it's hard not to enjoy.

Back in the original series for the most part Perry Mason took clients on retainer like any other lawyer. The filmed series had him more often than not having some kind of personal relationship that gets him involved with the case.

However in Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder, Raymond Burr is in the hospital for some arthroscopic surgery and after he's taken a sedative he happens to see the accused murderer, three sheets to the wind. But because of the sedative, his alibi testimony at the arraignment hearing is impeached.

Whatever else he is Perry Mason is a man with a conscience. Since he can't get defendant Jim Metzler off with his own testimony, Burr donates his services as defense lawyer.

Metzler is the stage manager of a musical that is in out of town tryouts before reaching Broadway. He has a nasty fight with director Dwight Schultz and Schultz winds up shot to death.

Dwight Schultz in my humble opinion is one of the best actors around today. For those of you who remember him best as Murdock in The A-Team, Schultz has gone on to play an astonishing range of characters. I marvel at the man's versatility. His character as the director might be somewhat based on the late Bob Fosse.

Anyway Schultz as per usual in Mason films is one nasty skunk of a human being and more than Jim Metzler would have liked to kill him. It's up to Perry Mason, Della Street and now his new young associate Ken Malansky to find out the who, why and how.

After getting Billy Moses off in the previous film, Raymond Burr signs him on as an associate. When William Katt as Paul Drake, Jr. was in the series he was in fact a licensed private investigator. Ken Malansky is in fact now a member of the bar. Did he know it wasn't going to be the law library where he'd be spending most of his time when he went to work for Raymond Burr?

This TV film involves the musical stage and we're fortunate enough to have Debbie Reynolds in the cast doing a number. That's always a treat.

I was less impressed though with this Mason than with others. The perpetrator had a good reason for doing in Dwight Schultz. But that this person was willing to frame Metzler for the crime, lessens the audience sympathy for this individual.

Still all the elements for a good Perry Mason story are in The Case of the Musical Murder. And a musical number from Debbie Reynolds. How can you go wrong?

When universally disliked theater director Dwight Schultz is killed, Jim Metzler faces a charge of murder, despite Raymond Burr stating he saw Metzler at the time of the murder. Perry Mason is cross, so he takes the defense case, so you know going in that there are half a dozen good suspects and the killer will confess on the witness chair.

William Katt is gone from the TV movie series as Paul Drake Jr., but his place taken by young attorney William R. Moses and his rich girlfriend, Amanda Cody.

Because the murder centers around a Broadway-bound musical, there are plenty of musical-comedy players, including Debby Reynolds as the diva of the company and Jerry Ohrbach as the producer. It's a typically fine entry in the series of movies starring Burr as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer.

A musical show is in town but all the cast are under heavy criticism from their director. One of the crew gets fired and leaves full of threats. Later that night the director is murdered and the main suspect is the same crew member. However Perry Mason witnessed the man drunk on the other side of town at the time of the murder. He stands up as a witness for the defence but is discredited as he had taken sedatives just before. He decides to defend the man instead and employs Ken Malansky to find out what the night watchman was doing at the time of the murder.

From the opening set-up this feels like it's going to be just the same as all the Mason films - which I don't mind as I like the formula. However soon after this the plot adds lots of things that are different, slightly, from the norm. We have Mason being the suspects' alibi in a scene where he is very rude to a nurse, we have all the other suspect's having overly complicated subplots behind them and we have Amy tagging along (again) on Ken's investigation after watching him defend a guilty pervert in a case from his new law practice.

These different things are the problem here because few of them work. The early scenes with Mason as a witness slow the film down and leaves less room for the full plot. The subplots are too complex (and depressing at times) and don't act as suspects but create other stories that it leaves untold. Mason himself is too grumpy and the final twist is even more unlikely and impossible to see than usual - it is just plain complex here and the final scene loses some impact as a result. Amy is a regular by this stage (being the sidekick for a few other movies) but she doesn't work - and suggestions that she is Ken's `Della' are laughable. And what's with the running gag that no-one can pronounce Malansky? Never had a problem before.

Burr is not his usual self - I don't know why he played it so grumpy here and got frustrated so often but it drags the film down. Hale is OK but has nothing to do. Moses and Paul don't work well at all together here. Her sidekick role has worked the odd time but here it's forced and she is very annoying. The support cast are OK and the `oh, look it's ...' face this time is Jerry Orbach from Law & Order .

Overall this has too many elements that don't work and the film takes one step too many away from the straight simple formula by adding to it unsuccessfully. As a Mason fan even I found this to be way below par for the series.