The Things I Watch: Classic Television–Perry Mason

Perry Mason
Season 1 Episode 2
The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece
Cast:
Raymond Burr as Perry Mason
Barbara Hale as Della Street
William Hopper as Paul Drake
William Talman as Hamilton Burger
Ray Collins as Lt. Tragg
John McNamara as Peter Cole
Hillary Brooke as Doris Cole
John Archer as Frank Maddox
Nancy Hadley as Edna Hammer
Darryl Hickman as Steve Harris
Harry Hickox as Phillip Kendall

I can’t say I was ever a big fan of Perry Mason.  When it originally began airing in 1957 I was all of five years old.  When it went off the air in 1966, I was fourteen and had other things on my mind besides watching a stodgy old overweight lawyer trick some numbskull into confessing to murder.  But somehow the complete series has ended up in my library including a set of the Perry Mason movies that remain on the shelf unopened.  Collecting Classic TV can begat some bad habits.

That’s not to say that over the years I haven’t watched any episodes.  I have. And they’re usually entertaining enough and no worse than sitting through an hour or two of Dateline: NBC to find out who the killer is.  In fact, compared to Dateline, Perry Mason is swift, breezy, and quick.  And if you don’t want to wade through the whole episode, you can always fast forward to the end but then you’ve blown over a hundred dollars just to have that pleasure. Current Amazon Price is $107.78.  But no worries.  Those who chose to buy Volume by Volume as they were originally released paid about 10 times as much.  I didn’t get suckered into that deal but we’ll overlook a few others I overpaid for in the same manner. (Mannix, Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible).  Live and learn.  You can also stream this episode and others on CBS All Access but there are seasons and episodes missing so you don’t get the whole shlemiel. 

The first episode I watched was from Season 1.  It was Episode number 2 and called The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece.  Every Perry Mason episode was The Case of something or other unlike the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew which liked to change their titles up with words like The Clue of, The Mystery of, The Secret of, or in one strange instance, “Nancy’s Mysterious Letter.”  You always know where you stand with Perry Mason played by Raymond Burr in the original series and then rehashed again in The Perry Mason Movies once he recovered from his bullet wound in Ironside. 

And thank you to the anonymous person on the I.M.D.B., who typed out this synopsis so I don’t have to.

Unhappily-married Doris Cole finds her husband Peter sleepwalking near her bed with a knife in his hand; Doris accuses him of trying to kill her and decides to divorce him.

A year later, one day before the divorce is to be finalized, Peter's business partner Frank Maddox visits Doris and offers her $100,000 to hold off on the divorce. Then Maddox and his attorney Ralph Duncan visit Peter and his stepbrother Phillip Kendall. Maddox wants $500,000 for his share of their company, which is about the worth of the whole company, or Doris will not grant the divorce.

Peter's niece and secretary Edna Hammar calls Perry Mason to help her uncle, who is engaged to remarry. Perry intervenes, suggesting Maddox and Duncan stay at Phillip's home that night. Phillip is found stabbed to death the next morning after he and Maddox had traded rooms. Peter is arrested for the murder with the belief he stabbed Philip expecting Maddox to be in the bed.

Edna's boyfriend Steve helps Perry by delivering papers and watching Doris.

Believe me when I tell you it's not as complicated as it sounds. I nailed the culprit less than halfway through the episode and I’m sure you will as well.  Unless you’re a Trumpanzee.  They couldn’t find their way to a firetruck if they were standing at the bottom of the fireman’s sliding pole.




The clues are all there for you although more often than not that isn’t the case.  You usually don’t get to see the aces Mason holds up his sleeve until the very end. In those cases you have to do what Mr. Spock did and make your best guess possible under the circumstances.  But eventually his main sidekick Paul Drake will wonder in off the street with the evidence that will crack this nut wide open while Della continues to take notes.  Or doodles.  Or makes coffee. It might even be good to the last drop.

But still, you’ll stick around to find out if you’re right while (sarcasm alert!) being treated to some truly realistic courtroom scenes and find out who the loser of the week is and will be joining the likes of Scott Petersen in San Diego’s death row at San Quentin for a very long wait.

What’s always amusing to me is how full of bluster and smugness Police Lt. Tragg and D.A. Hamilton Burger are when these murders occur.  We on the other hand grin knowing they are putty in Perry’s Hands, as he makes Tragg the most inept cop on any police force and Burger the biggest D.A. Loser in history.  On the plus side, I never knew Tragg to shoot an unarmed black man in the back either.  Maybe that happened off camera.

But all you need is one clue and it comes quick if you aren’t paying attention.  I’ll even give it to you so you won’t have to stay awake nights wondering.  Listen for someone to mention briefly how they’re poor.  That’ll do.

The Things I Watch: Men in Black (1997-2019)

What I’ve actually watched were Men in Black, Men in Black II, and Men in Black 3 along with the recent Men in Black: International. 

I don’t think I had viewed the original since the year it came out so I remembered little of the details.  That happens when you get to be my age.  You remember the basics but the minutiae seems lost forever in a fog of 67 years of cramming trivia into your brain.  Eventually, you go on overload.

It was the same with Men in Black II, although having watched it again just the other day I couldn’t swear that I’d seen it at all.  But I know for a fact that I had never seen the third one and although I considered going to the theater to see International, I never made it there. 

Instead I bought International on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as a blind buy.  I did this for two reasons.  The first was to complete my set.  The second reason is that I’ve been on a 4K buying spree lately.  I guess that happens when you get new equipment such as a new 4k TV and 4K Blu-ray player. 


It probably wasn’t really necessary for me to revisit all of the films but I did anyway.  I didn’t think the first one was as good as I remembered it.  The second one, which I didn’t remember at all was really lame and irritating. Halfway through I wanted it to be over with. 

But number 3 was the cream of the crop with not only a good story line but it actually made you care about the participants for a change with it’s time travel story and a surprise ending.  Not to mention that Will Smith toned the slapstick down quite a bit.  Tommy Lee Jones was absent through most of the film although his character Agent K wasn’t.  But that’s not bad.  It only took three films for them to finally get it right.


As for Men in Black International, I liked it.  It was better than the first two I thought.  And most of that you can attribute to Tessa Thompson who was really good in this as newby Agent M.  As for Chris Hemsworth, aka Agent H, he saw his role as more of a party version of Thor.  Sort of like what he became in Avengers: Endgame except without the slovenly appearance or the gut.  And I guess he wasn’t an alcoholic either.  I found his character to be lacking in charm although Agent H did manage to pull it together in the end.  Heroes who fall or fail always find a way to redeem themselves.  Most of the time.

It International was entertaining enough, but you’ll have no trouble figuring out who the villain is because it’s never the most obvious character that they want you to think it is.  It’s the obvious character you think it should be.  As for the 4K, it looked great as most 4K’s do but note that the screen captures I have are not from the 4K Disc.  I don’t have that capability as of yet.

I thought the 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes was totally unfair, and the audience score was much closer to reality at 66%.  And that’s probably what I would rate it.  Somewhere in the B- category.  Maybe C+.  I’ll figure that out for sure when I write a complete review in Clyde’s Movie Palace when I get to it on the twelfth of never.

25 New Films Inducted into the National Film Registry for 2017

Every year 25  films are inducted into the National Film Registry.  These films are considered important for various reasons. 

From CNN:

"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" at the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress?

That classic film is one of 25 added to the library's registry of films this year.

Chosen for "cultural, historic and/or aesthetic importance," this year's selections range from the 1905 film "Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street," which documented the early days of the New York subway system, to James Cameron's "Titanic" and the 1987 biopic "La Bamba."

"The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation's cultural and historical heritage," Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement. "Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and inform us as individuals and a nation as a whole. Being tasked with selecting only 25 each year is daunting because there are so many great films deserving of this honor."

Director Richard Donner had two of his films selected, "Superman" and "The Goonies."

"I thank the National Film Registry for choosing 'Superman: The Movie' and 'The Goonies' as films to be treasured," Donner said in a statement.

"They are both special films in my life, as was the cast and crew for both. It's wonderful to see them listed among so many great films."

Here is the complete list inducted this year, and below that are screenshots taken from those films on the list that I have in my own library.  I have ten of them, but I’m sure I’ll add some more.

Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) 1951
Boulevard Nights 1979
Die Hard 1988
Dumbo 1941
Field of Dreams 1989
4 Little Girls 1997
Fuentes Family Home Movies Collection 1920s and 1930s
Gentleman’s Agreement 1947
The Goonies 1985
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner 1967
He Who Gets Slapped 1924
Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street 1905
La Bamba 1987
Lives of Performers 1972
Memento 2000
Only Angels Have Wings 1939
The Sinking of the Lusitania 1918
Spartacus 1960
Superman 1978
Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser 1988
Time and Dreams 1976
Titanic 1997
To Sleep with Anger 1990
Wanda 1971
With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain 1937-38

Jerry Lewis: 1926-2017

I grew up with Jerry Lewis.   Not only did I see many of his movies from the sixties in the neighborhood theaters, but if one was showing on TV we always watched.  We watched because Jerry Lewis was a funny guy, and his comedy was such that it could be appreciated by young kids such as myself, or adults.

There was also the many times he guest hosted The Tonight Show many times throughout the sixties and into the seventies.  He always seemed to be in your living room one way or another.  Whereas sometimes the more mature current event commentary of Johnny Carson would fly right over my head at the age of ten or so (or even younger), the spontaneous physical outrageous antics of Jerry would always leave us in stitches.  I wish there were some of those episodes still available.  But I imagine they are long gone, lost in the purge of saving money by reusing video tapes.

I did manage to snag a DVD release of The Jerry Lewis Show which ran from 1967 – 1969.  But it is incomplete with many musical numbers axed and some episodes missing.  That collection is only available from 3rd party sellers at an exorbitant price.  But there is a “Fan Favorites” DVD with even less content then the one I acquired some years ago.  But at $9.95, it’s cheap enough.

Lewis was loved in France but often derided by U.S. Critics.  And while even I’ll admit some of his late sixties early seventies stuff is tough to sit through, there’s no denying the man’s comedic genius.  My favorite Lewis films are some of the Martin/Lewis films like Living It Up, Artists and Models, and You’re Never too Young.

Of his solo films, I’d rank Rock-a-bye Baby, The Nutty Professor, Don’t Give Up the Ship, The Delicate Delinquent, Cinderfella, and Boeing, Boeing (despite it’s low regard for women) as my favorites.

Then there’s the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon held every Labor day that raised millions for the charity.  If you were lucky enough to view the show in it’s early years, before it went coast to coast, becoming (necessarily so) bigger but more bloated with corporate sponsors, you got 24 hours of Lewis being Lewis non stop where he would often go out and mingle with the audience, grabbing money, and just having fun.

I’m not going to get into why the MDA thought it necessary to do away with the yearly event.   But their unceremonious firing of Lewis who raised over 2 billion dollars was and remains a disgrace to this day.  There is a right way to do things, and a wrong way to do things.  After sixty-one years of hard work in which Lewis earned not one penny, instead of rewarding him they kicked him in the ass.  And I do know this: Since Lewis last hosted the telethon, Labor Day has never been the same.

Following is a selection of screenshots from my Jerry Lewis Library.  I don’t have every film, but what I do have is extensive.  Visit to a Small Planet is not here, but I’ll add it when the Blu-ray version arrives next week.  Eventually I hope to have them all although some, such as The Sad Sack, have never had a U.S. DVD release for whatever unknown reason.  I had a digital copy but it had a Spanish audio track.  I also have a copy of The Ladies Man around here somewhere, and will add that as well. 

But one thing is certain, Lewis, despite any faults he may have had, was a comedy giant who made the world a better place.  We will miss him.

And finally, no Jerry Lewis memorial would be complete without this signature song with which he signed off each and every telethon.

RIP Jay Thomas: 1948-2017

Jay Thomas has passed away at the age of 68.

The Hollywood Reporter:

Don Buchwald, his longtime agent and friend, reported his death, after a battle with cancer, to The New York Daily News. His publicist, Tom Estey, would not divulge when or where Thomas died when contacted by The Hollywood Reporter.

Thomas played the obnoxious TV talk-show host Jerry Gold (and Candice Bergen's on-again, off-again boyfriend) on CBS' Murphy Brown from 1989-98 — winning a pair of Emmys — after his stint as Rhea Perlman’s husband Eddie LeBec, a French-Canadian goalie with the Boston Bruins, on NBC's Cheers. On the latter, his character winds up appearing in an ice show and gets killed by a Zamboni.

Thomas also starred on his own sitcom, playing an egotistical sportswriter opposite Susan Dey and then Annie Potts on CBS' Love and War, a 1992-95 series created by Murphy Brown's Diane English.

A native of Kermit, Texas, who was raised in New Orleans, Thomas got his start in radio as a high school football announcer for the Rutherford High Rams in Panama City, Fla.

He worked at stations in Panama City; Pensacola, Fla.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Nashville; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Charlotte, N.C., where he earned nicknames like "The Mouth of the South," "The Scorpion" and "The Prince of Darkness."

Thomas moved to New York for a job at the FM station 99X and then did stand-up comedy at the Improv and acted in off-Broadway plays. He got his start on television in 1979 as Remo DaVinci, the co-owner of a New York deli, on ABC's Mork & Mindy. He also hosted a radio show in Los Angeles and, most recently, had a daily gig with SiriusXM.

Appearing as an annual Christmas guest alongside Letterman "has been fun," he said in 2014. "I've always wanted to be one of those guys on late-night talk shows who everybody wants to see. Like on Carson, when [Don] Rickles would come out. I became that guy. And I love football, so my two big dreams were totally realized."

I’m a big classic TV buff, and especially love collecting Christmas episodes of as many TV series as possible.

I have a lot of Jay’s work in my Library including his work on Cheers and Murphy Brown.  But I choose to highlight his particular episode to honor Jay.

I originally recorded this episode, A Christmas Kvell, when it first aired in 1992.  It was always a favorite of mine, but eventually the old VHS tape had worn out and I was sure that was that.  But as it turned out, you could purchase it from Amazon digitally, so I was glad to have it back in my collection. 

I think just from this small clip you can  grasp why this is one of the better stories about Hanukkah and Christmas, and while Dey’s comedic timing leaves a bit to be desired (she would be replaced by Annie Potts in Season Two), the episode does highlight Jay’s comedy genius.  In case you’ve forgotten, Dey’s character Wally is Catholic and Thomas’s character Jack is Jewish.  They’re struggling to celebrate their first Christmas/Hanukkah together.  In this clip, Thomas tries to explain the significance of the Jewish holiday.