Perry, Della, and Paul, Back at It
Perry Mason is as much a part of American culture as apple pie and mom. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone of any age who doesn't at least recognize the name. Erle Stanley Gardner's books have millions of devoted fans. The television show it spawned was fabulous as entertainment, and today is widely regarded as one of the best shows the medium ever produced. Perry was the attorney you wanted on your side in a jam.
Raymond Burr had some good roles in films, but will always be remembered as Perry Mason. It was Gardner himself who picked Burr, even though the studio only agreed to let him test for Perry if he would test for Burger too! Barbara Hale was his pretty secretary, Della Street, who kept Perry human and was in love with him. William Hopper was the dapper detective, Paul Drake. He had a playful and flirtatious relationship with Della but every viewer knew that secretly her heart belonged to Perry.
William Talman as D.A. Hamilton Burger would almost be...
This just gets worse and worse
I guess Paramount thinks Perry Mason fans will wait any length of time and pay any price for these half-season sets. It's ironic, since nearly all the best PM episodes are from the first two seasons; by the fourth, the actors, writing and directing all slow down considerably. That snappy noir-ish dialogue is gone, along with the incomparable Ray Collins as Lt. Tragg (Collins' successors were uniformly colorless).
It should also be pointed out that while the DVD transfer quality is excellent, these are NOT COMPLETE episodes! I own many Perry Mason tapes on VHS (the Columbia House series), and in several cases a brief scene from the VHS version is missing from the DVD. There is simply no excuse for this.
Given the incomplete episodes, and Paramount's usurious pricing policy, I would recommend all Perry Mason fans wait to buy any more DVD's until they are available used.
Expensive but worth it
No doubt the price for this half season release is high and raises the eyebrows of potential buyers. I think we must assume that this price increase is the result of low sales volumes on previous releases. I don't like the price but I would rather have the DVD's at the higher price than no release at all. Please don't let the Perry Mason series follow the lead of Ironside where the studio released two season and then quit!
Click to Editorial Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment