Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun

Good episode with various standard tropes when it deals with the church; shifty clerics; a nun with doubts..two weak points ..it's hard to accept that anyone would think this frail, smallish nun could overcome a strapping young man and stab him. Then there's the Lt Brock character..McEachin postures and flails about in his usual over the top manner. It's mostly a Paul Drake show ..but that's just fine !

Interesting that about five years before all the sex scandals started breaking with the Catholic Church, this Perry Mason mystery is about a nun accused of murder because she was trying to cover up an affair with a priest.

In Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun the eminent criminal lawyer is now defending Michele Greene who was working with Father Timothy Bottoms doing an audit of a Catholic hospital. But a letter in her room sent to her by Bottoms implicates her big time when he turns up dead.

But these two frocked accountants uncover a lot of pilferage from that hospital, in fact it was Archbishop William Prince who retains Raymond Burr to defend Greene. This other sin, this nonsexual one opens up a host of other suspects.

Perry Mason always had a G rating and the sex among clergy is a topic treated most gingerly. Still Greene's not certain whether she can take her final vows in the end.

David Ogden Stiers made the first of eight appearances as the District Attorney and James McEachin was in nearly all the rest of the Perry Mason films as Sergeant, later Lieutenant Ed Brock.

This is one of the better Perry Masons as we discover just which commandments are broken that provide a motive for a homicide. Come to think of it, that's a commandment as well.

Like all of the Perry Mason series, this episode keeps you watching until the last scene. I have seen all of the Perry Mason shows at least once. I would recommend them to anyone who enjoys courtroom dramas. They are well written and and all the actors fit their parts to a 'tee'.

This made for TV mystery was dull and lifeless. There wasn't anything notable or well crafted about any aspect of it. The dialogue was flat. The cinematography was uninspired. Scenes are poorly staged with actors standing around awkwardly, and the pace in individual scenes frequently lagged. The acting was bland. The energy is low and the whole film lacks any real style or strong point of view. There are no interesting relationships here or memorable scenes.

The film features a dull mystery regarding the death of a priest. A nun he had been working with is charged with the crime. There's the usual collection of random, interchangeable suspects. Those used to smart and energetic legal dramas like "Law and Order" will be underwhelmed by the staid courtroom scenes. And the revelation of the killer falls flat, because really any of them could have done it. There's no real specificity or cleverness to the mystery's resolution.

Raymond Burr brings his trademark gravity to the Mason role, but the writers have not given him much to work with. Mason is a mostly expository character with little personality. He has no interests, quirks, passions or seemingly any personal life to speak of. He also doesn't seem to form even the slightest emotional bond with anyone else in the story. He's utterly disengaged. Follow his example and disengage from the film yourself.

Father O'Neil and his assistant Sister Margaret are conducting a detailed audit of the church's financial dealings across the church and the local hospital. O'Neil quickly makes enemies among the management, who fear his cost-cutting measures will bring their gravy train to an end. With rumours of O'Neil and Margaret having an affair, a hired killer takes his chance to kill O'Neil and frame Margaret. The Archbishop calls his old friend Perry Mason to help defend Margaret and the Church.

An early Mason in the TVM series of films, this is better in some ways than the later films but not as good in others. The plot is a little more interesting than usual and is different in that we see the hired killer doing the deed, although it still goes forward without us knowing who actually hired him. The film has the usual formula but it feels less polished than later films as well as having some elements that don't work as well. The action side of the film with Drake Jnr is less entertaining than usual, it lacks the rough humour although it does have the odd try - bringing Mason in toting a gun was a bad move and felt misjudged and ill-fitting to the character.

The usual flirty bit of action between Drake and his female sidekick is kinda impossible this time with his sidekick being a nun and all! In place of this they have a melodramatic subplot where Margaret struggles with her faith; however this is a little too heavily done and the music swells up too often - it doesn't sit well with the Mason formula. In fact the wider score also felt a little bit too worthy and it didn't work that well, although it did give the impression that the film had aspirations above TVM standards.

The cast is not that great and only has a few well-known faces in there that aren't used that well. Burr is assured in the courtroom scenes but is less comfortable with the gun or having to do all the melodramatic close ups required. Hale has barely a line to say and Katt doesn't have as much fun as he does in later films (before he bowed out for Moses to replace him - frightening how similar they look!). However this film contains two good performances in reasonably important roles: the DA and the regular Detective Brock. Stiers is one of the most distinctive DA's of the series, you do feel like he could beat Mason, even if he never does. McEachin is a series regular but his role has a little bit more than the usual dialogue to it here. Greene overdoes her role while the big name in the support cast is Tom Bosley - wow!

Overall this is worth seeing as all the usual formula are here; some elements are not as refined as they would later become and don't sit very well within the film. It's isn't great for this reason but fans of the series will enjoy it nonetheless.