A beauty pageant operator swindles the winners, but ends up on the wrong end of a knife. So who did it.
It's madcap sleuthing with Williams' Perry Mason going about 80-miles per hour and no Stop signs in sight. His Mason's never at a loss for a snappy line, at the same time the dialog crackles forth like machine gun fire. What can you say about a lawyer who sleeps on the floor with a whiskey bottle for company. It's sure not TV's favorite straight-arrow attorney. Then there's girl Friday, Della Street (Tobin), who's about as demure as a hash-house waitress slinging her own one-liners. No, this is definitely not Raymond Burr's Perry Mason. In fact, it's hard to believe the two versions are supposed to be the same character.
Maybe you can follow the whodunit. I couldn't, but that's beside the point anyway. It's really a Warren William showcase. The plot's just something to hang the actor's hat on. And catch the mystery's unraveling, including flashbacks for slow readers like me. It takes up about half the run-time. If there's a more swollen solution on record, I haven't seen it. Still, I really liked the first part, the one with one of the odder beauty contests on record. If it were me, I would have given a blue ribbon to all the lucky legs.
Anyhow, the film's sometimes fun, sometimes not. I get the feeling it too often tries too hard. All in all, the result is really a Warren William vehicle, again showing why he was such a commanding presence from that neglected decade.
It's madcap sleuthing with Williams' Perry Mason going about 80-miles per hour and no Stop signs in sight. His Mason's never at a loss for a snappy line, at the same time the dialog crackles forth like machine gun fire. What can you say about a lawyer who sleeps on the floor with a whiskey bottle for company. It's sure not TV's favorite straight-arrow attorney. Then there's girl Friday, Della Street (Tobin), who's about as demure as a hash-house waitress slinging her own one-liners. No, this is definitely not Raymond Burr's Perry Mason. In fact, it's hard to believe the two versions are supposed to be the same character.
Maybe you can follow the whodunit. I couldn't, but that's beside the point anyway. It's really a Warren William showcase. The plot's just something to hang the actor's hat on. And catch the mystery's unraveling, including flashbacks for slow readers like me. It takes up about half the run-time. If there's a more swollen solution on record, I haven't seen it. Still, I really liked the first part, the one with one of the odder beauty contests on record. If it were me, I would have given a blue ribbon to all the lucky legs.
Anyhow, the film's sometimes fun, sometimes not. I get the feeling it too often tries too hard. All in all, the result is really a Warren William vehicle, again showing why he was such a commanding presence from that neglected decade.