Perry Mason bumps into an old flame, the glamouress and potential candidate for the senate, Laura Robertson (Jean Simmons), during a visit to Washington for a legal seminar. Her husband, Glen (Gene Barry), is none too pleased at Perry's reappearance in their lives and he makes his views very clear on that. However, when he is arrested for killing a small time private eye called Luke Dixon who was blackmailing Laura, Perry finds himself defending Glen on a murder charge...
The fourth revival TVM based on the classic 1950's-60's courtroom drama series Perry Mason stands as one of the best of the lot. Most of them (26 in total) stuck to the same formula in which most of the ace attorney's clients were old friends of his. In consequence, it ran the risk of becoming predictable, unconvincing and very tired. Here, however, it works extremely well under Ron Satlof's direction and there is a strong emotional centre to Perry's case.
Burr clearly relished the opportunity to appear alongside two veteran movie stars, Simmons and Barry, who both offer high calibre performances that lend much weight to this made-for-TV movie - perhaps more than we might have expected. Burr and Simmons sizzle in their scenes together and Barry provides some real dramatic tension too as the husband who is both angry and jealous at Perry's reappearance on the scene. It runs the risk of compromising Perry's ability to provide Glen with a proper defence, and as he unmasks the truth about various suspects whom Laura and Glen thought were close and loyal friends, but were in actual fact hangers on, opportunists and backstabbers, any chance of a reconciliation between the two men seems increasingly impossible. As you can probably imagine, the courtroom scenes are quite powerful here with Burr giving the witnesses both barrels on the stand and revealing various skeletons in closets along the way.
The plot is an absorbing one peopled with interesting characters, and aside from Simmons and Barry, most of the supporting cast is strong and offers good performances. Barbara Hale , who all too often had very little to do in these films, has some amusing scenes as Della Street in which we are invited to wonder if she is just a little jealous of Laura's friendship with Perry. William Katt gets to do some fun tongue in cheek action as Paul Drake while Ron Satlof, who was the series' best director and the most prolific alongside Christian I Nyby 11, does perhaps his best ever work for it exploiting the emotional elements of the plot to their maximum potential.
The fourth revival TVM based on the classic 1950's-60's courtroom drama series Perry Mason stands as one of the best of the lot. Most of them (26 in total) stuck to the same formula in which most of the ace attorney's clients were old friends of his. In consequence, it ran the risk of becoming predictable, unconvincing and very tired. Here, however, it works extremely well under Ron Satlof's direction and there is a strong emotional centre to Perry's case.
Burr clearly relished the opportunity to appear alongside two veteran movie stars, Simmons and Barry, who both offer high calibre performances that lend much weight to this made-for-TV movie - perhaps more than we might have expected. Burr and Simmons sizzle in their scenes together and Barry provides some real dramatic tension too as the husband who is both angry and jealous at Perry's reappearance on the scene. It runs the risk of compromising Perry's ability to provide Glen with a proper defence, and as he unmasks the truth about various suspects whom Laura and Glen thought were close and loyal friends, but were in actual fact hangers on, opportunists and backstabbers, any chance of a reconciliation between the two men seems increasingly impossible. As you can probably imagine, the courtroom scenes are quite powerful here with Burr giving the witnesses both barrels on the stand and revealing various skeletons in closets along the way.
The plot is an absorbing one peopled with interesting characters, and aside from Simmons and Barry, most of the supporting cast is strong and offers good performances. Barbara Hale , who all too often had very little to do in these films, has some amusing scenes as Della Street in which we are invited to wonder if she is just a little jealous of Laura's friendship with Perry. William Katt gets to do some fun tongue in cheek action as Paul Drake while Ron Satlof, who was the series' best director and the most prolific alongside Christian I Nyby 11, does perhaps his best ever work for it exploiting the emotional elements of the plot to their maximum potential.