A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Wicked Wives

I have been binge-watching the Perry Mason movies on Youtube. Sadly there are nine missing. DVDs are expensive or "unavailable". It was lovely while it lasted. Perry and Della are their old selves, Paul Drake II (Barbara Hale's son William Katt) is excellent. The script cleverly leaves it unclear whether Perry and Della are an item, but they behave pretty affectionately. At the end of one episode Perry hugs her, saying "It's just you and me now".

There's an in-joke about Burr's expertise as an orchid-breeder (he named a variety after Barbara).

And the clothes! The glamour! The settings! The mansions!

I've loved it.

Sadly, this episode was the first to be filmed after Burr's death, putting in Paul Sorvino as a similar character. But he has to be given "quirks" like singing opera (he's not bad, but should take voice lessons) and cooking (that veal sounds nice). He is no substitute.

The story is weak, the script is weak. I found it not worth watching, even for the clothes. One commentator opined that Caruso is funny, unlike Mason. I didn't laugh at the opera or any of it. Mason frequently comes out with witty one-lines, as does Della once the client has left. (Of one she says, "I could learn to loathe him".)

I shall just have to watch the old series as I wait for those missing TV films to become "available". RIP Raymond and Barbara.

Stepping into the place of Raymond Burr after his demise is Paul Sorvino who made his one and only appearance as opera loving gourmet attorney Anthony Caruso. As we see in the opening he operates like Perry Mason as he gets a confession and the evidence on the real murderer.

Right after that Caruso is retained by Kathy Ireland the fifth and current wife of Eric Braeden who is a world famous fashion photographer who has seen his better days. But Braeden is planning a comeback and he's going to shoot a new show with five models whom he made world famous icons. Like Ireland, the other four have been his wives as well.

But when Braeden is murdered it's Ireland who Detective James McEachin of the Denver PD arrests. Now Sorvino is Ireland's attorney and he gets the use of Perry Mason's office along with Barbara Hale and William R. Moses. There's never any explanation of what happened to Perry Mason.

William R. Moses has an especially bad time in this story trying to track down a witness whose relationship to one of the ex-wives is the key to the whole case. He has to go into the Brokeback Mountain country and be at the mercy of some cowboys who are definitely not Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Although I liked Sorvino apparently either he did not want to do a series or the viewers didn't take to him because Hal Holbrook came in with a different character.

Probably folks would accept no other in Perry Mason's shoes.

I thought this movie was OK. The cast seemed to be doing their best but in my opinion they were missing someone essential! Raymond Burr who would usually play the main character of Perry Mason died before this movie was made. It's still an OK story but having seen other TV movies with Burr in, I don't think this one is quite so good.

With the passing of Raymond Burr, Paul Sorvino stepped into the brilliant lawyer's part with interesting results. Sorvino proved his resourcefulness here but did we have to have the opera singing? We know that Sorvino, in real life, could hit the operatic notes but good, but that wasn't necessary here.

Still, we have a very good story with 4 ex-wives of a real cad coming together to work with the latter. Naturally, when the cad, played with relish by Eric Braeden, is murdered, suspicion falls on each of the women. Since his current wife was arguing with him over his latest flirtation, she is the one who is arrested.

That ending, as always, was totally unexpected but had the real Mason touch.

Barbara Hale looked like she was grieving here in her brief stint as Della Street. William R. Moses, Ken Malansky, had plenty of physical footwork here and is to be commended for great physical dexterity. Or, what there a stuntman involved?

Surprisingly, McEachin, who played the black detective always sarcastically involved in words with Mr. Mason, has none of that here and that is missed.

Perry is away in Washington so Anthony Caruso covers his practice for him for a short while. Anthony is busy helping out his friend David Morrison to bring together al his old models for a retrospective photography collection. However David's ex-models are all his ex-wives and the animosity between them is very clear. On the first night of the shoot a witness sees David's current wife kill him and flee the scene. Anthony believes she is innocent and steps in to defend her. Meanwhile Ken goes after another woman who may have been having an affair with David and has since vanished.

Perry is `in Washington' for this film, which sounds like something you'd tell a child instead of having to explain that Granny has died. Indeed that is the case as Burr was dead and never made another Mason movie. However rather than have the taste and sense to finish the series, the producers decided to spin it out. In this instance that decision was ill-advised. The plot doesn't work. In order to get Anthony involved in a big case, it as to be with people he knows – thus the tortuous opening where he gets all the ex-wives together. This makes the film feel ill at ease with itself – Anthony never really rips into or exposes the suspects as they are all friends – plus none of the group seem to struggle with this at all, making it seem like they are strangers. Malansky's investigation is long and dull with moments thrown in just to try and liven things up a bit.

The conclusion is silly even by the standards of this series. Would you take something from the murder scene? Would you have it on you when you are in the witness box? No? Well the guilty party does and it is this that traps them – it's daft and he/she is totally unbelievable and it feels so very lame that it's hard to really care!

Sorvino is an interesting choice to play in the lead but he doesn't work. It doesn't feel natural having him walk round singing while one of his friends is a murderer and too much is made of him being an Italian. Aside from that I found it very hard to shake the image of Goodfella's Paulie from my brain and half expected him to order Ken to whack somebody! Sorvino struggles with a role that ties him into a case emotionally but doesn't allow him to express anything – I suspect he didn't want a second try and he didn't return for another role in the series. Moses is OK as is Hale but they are exposes without Burr and Hale has little to do. The support cast are OK but none are as interesting as the usual array of red-herrings etc. They are only good as eye candy as they are a few models etc – Johnson standing out cause she looks a lot better here than she has recently!

Overall this is a pretty poor film and it highlights how good burr was in holding everything together in a familiar way. This has a plot that is a bit of a mess, characters who don't ring true in a silly situation and the whole thing just crawls to it's dumb climax, by which time I'd long since given up caring!