A minority opinion
I appreciate the reasons for consumer gripes regarding the Perry Mason DVD releases. Like other Amazon reviewers, I'd like to pay less and see complete seasons rather than half-seasons released at a time.
I'd also like two-dollar gas, killer abs, and a winning lottery ticket, but they're not gonna happen either, so I'll just say here and now that Paramount has done a superb job of remastering the PM series for us diehards, and I encourage the company to stick with the project.
When I look at the quality of the prints, that the episodes have been restored in their entirety, that the episodes are generally longer than most of today's popular dramatic series, and the plain fact that paying several bucks for each episode of one of my all-time favorite shows is no big hit on my wallet when it's spread out over months and years, I'm okay with the pricing and staggered releases. (And no, I don't work for or represent Paramount, and yes, like everyone else I have only so...
Park Avenue Beat
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...
Rerun it again and again
Perry Mason, the one hour television show displayed originally fuzzy black and white on a round screen disappeared from original telecasts in May, 1966. It lived on in re-runs through the end of the millennium and re-appeared as a series of TV movies in the eighties featuring a bearded Mason and the ageless Della.
But 1960 was a special year indeed. Firstly William Talman, who played Hamilton Burger the brilliant but hapless Los Angeles County District Attorney was temporarily kicked off the show following his arrest following a raid at a "wild nude party" in Hollywood in March 1960, resulting in a stream of appearances by lesser prosecutors. As a result he is absent from many of the episodes in this series.
Secondly the Mason series, always a home for some of the better character actors of the era, had in the second half of the season, some amazing cast members. Louise Fletcher, later to win an Oscar, plays Gladys Doyle in The Case of the Mythical Monkeys...
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