Perry Mason Returns (1985)

This film is interesting not for what it is, but its place in a the scheme of things. By itself, it is dreadful, every bit of it. Taken alone, there are inherited characters played by actors who were accidents. There is an attempt to play with a formula that got worn out, so there is a hipster detective and a couple car chases. The "77 Sunset Strip" model is followed here, I think because the original series competed with it (and its ilk). The formula that worked before was scrambled here, but in the later episodes of this second time around, they got better as they went back to basics.The thing is worth considering because of the stage of evolution it represents. The detective story was a great invention, a big step forward in narrative types. It was followed by the mystery novel, where the reader and writer engaged in a tussle for control, sometimes (in the later form) complicated by a detective who has as much control as the writer. This was high art, in fact still is in some form in literature.Film picked it up and evolved the noir form, perhaps the greatest American invention. In written fiction, the standard model is based on the reader trying to determine the murderer by assembling causal dynamics. Erle Stanley Gardner changed the formula in a clever way. He wrote tons of Perry Mason stories from his "fiction factory," using a very strict formula. In his stories, it is impossible to guess the murderer (or sometimes two) by understanding cause. Instead, you eliminated all that could have done it, because the solution is the least likely. Gardner in his day was the most popular author in the English language.So while film took the mystery form and evolved it into noir in amazing variety, TeeVee picked up this strange deadend on the evolutionary tree. The stories were imported wholesale, with the characters modified significantly. Perry was less a playboy and Della was not his lover. No big deal. I think the long run of this show established the form of the detective story we have today when it is distinct from noir: viewers don't want to work at figuring things out. They just want to collect all the pieces as the movie proceeds and see how they assemble at the end, the assembly done for them.When Perry went off the air, it was a sad end to the more pure negated form (negated because of that "least likely" business). So when he came back with this relatively long form, it was hugely anticipated. I recall this. And I recall how we celebrated the show and its successors, not because they were good but merely because they existed. Again. This negated the negation of the negated form.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

After a 20 year absence from the small screen Raymond Burr who is now, older, stouter, and grayer and with a beard returns to television in the first of several two hour made for television films. Burr had a legion of fans as Mason and his return was heralded with high ratings every time one of these films was broadcast. In the interim like many good lawyers and some mediocre ones, Perry Mason became a judge and was now an appellate court jurist. But when a friend's in trouble, Perry quits it all and returns to active combat in the courtroom. Back in the original series William Hopper as Paul Drake was a defendant in one episode. Here it's the only other living cast member at the time from the old series, Barbara Hale as Della Street.Della's gone on with her life as well. She became a secretary and later executive assistant to the wealthy Patrick O'Neal. With the kids and second wife O'Neal's got, no wonder he began relying heavily on Della Street to run his business. When O'Neal is stabbed to death by a killer in drag to make it look like Della broke in, she's arrested and of course she turns to Perry as her attorney. Biggest mistake the perpetrator made, didn't the individual realize just who Della worked for before. Definitely should have found another patsy. But as the case developed it turns out that not only did O'Neal have to be killed, but that Della had to be framed in order to solve get out of the potential jackpot the killer was in.This became a family reunion in another way as Barbara Hale's son William Katt came on as Paul Drake, Jr. The script had it written that Paul Drake was now retired and the Drake Detective Agency was in the hands of his son. But it's clear that Katt only considers it a part time gig. In fact when we first meet him he's doing another gig, playing a saxophone at a jazz club. Perry takes him on, but doesn't quite take him seriously enough. Katt has to earn his respect and that's a running theme throughout the film.Perry Mason Returns is a good start to eight years of Perry Mason films, all anticipated by the legion of fans Raymond Burr developed for Erle Stanley Gardner's famous defense attorney.

(There are Spoilers) Floundering around like a beached whale in the state appellate court for the last ten or so years and getting thick and heavy around the mid section, as well as everywhere else, former defense attorney Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, was just about pooped in handing out long winded and boring opinions about the law. When Mason heard that his former private secretary Della Street, Barbara Hale, had been charged with the murder of her boss millionaire businessman Arthur Gordon, Patrick O'Neal, the guy just jumped at the opportunity. Perry had to resign in order to defend Stella in open court where the real action is and that's just where Perry Mason want's to be.Finding Arthur Gordon dead of a stab wound in his study all the evidence lead to his private secretary Della Street as being his killer. We already saw that it was the creepy ex-convict Bobby Lynch, James Kidnie, dressed in drag who was the real murderer and the one who left clues to incriminate Della in Arthur's untimely death. Arthur had earlier threatened to cut out his wife Paula, Holland Taylor, and all his ungrateful and greedy children, Kathryn David Laura & Chris,from his will. Arthur was going to have Paula replaced from his charitable foundation, where the majority of his fortune is in, by Della so why would she want to murder Arthur since Della was to end up as the hostess with the most-est! This fact is what Lynch seemed to have completely overlooked and in the end it would lead a very determined and no holds barred Perry Mason straight to Arthur's killers :the guy who did it and the guy who paid him to do it.Working overtime without pay Perry gets his very competent former, but now deceased, private investigator Paul Drake's overly eager son Paul Drake Jr, William Katt, to do the legwork for him in finding out who framed Stella. Junior comes up with a dead Bobby Lynch who tried to run him down in his car in a garage but was shot between the eyes by an unknown assailant; not to save young Paul's life but to keep Lynch from talking in just who hired him if he ever was caught and put on trial.The road to Arthur Gordon's killer leads to not only one of Arthur's spoiled and rotten kids the very sexy Kathryn, Kerrie Keane, but also her secret lover Arthur's personal attorney and the person who's to make out his will Ken Braddock, Richard Anderson. Perry together with Paul Jr. get to the bottom of what was the reason for Arthur's murder and it had to do not with just the money he was to withdraw from giving his wife. Paula had been using the foundation as her own personal piggy bank and on top of all that someone else the person who, with or without Paula's help, had Arthur killed.A piece of cake for Perry who had no trouble at all exposing Arthur's killer and exonerating his good and close friend his former private secretary Della Street but most of all making a monkey out of the snotty and arrogant young prosecuting D.A Julie Scott, Cassie Yeats. Scott wanted to make it big as a state prosecutor thinking that the fat and rusty old man, Perry Mason, was ripe for the picking and ready to be plucked but learned soon enough that Perry is still not only the best at what he does but even better then ever in doing it.

Della Street is set up as the fallguy for a murder. Of course, everybody knows that this sweet, motherly woman wouldn't swat a fly, much less off somebody. Mason pulls out all stops in unraveling the mystery and uncovers a plot to keep a multi-million dollar scam intact. The one phony part in this film is the reaction of a lawyer at the movie's end. No attorney would do what this man did.