Perry Mason: Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten (1989) Online

Back in the original series for the most part Perry Mason took clients on retainer like any other lawyer. The filmed series had him more often than not having some kind of personal relationship that gets him involved with the case.

However in Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder, Raymond Burr is in the hospital for some arthroscopic surgery and after he's taken a sedative he happens to see the accused murderer, three sheets to the wind. But because of the sedative, his alibi testimony at the arraignment hearing is impeached.

Whatever else he is Perry Mason is a man with a conscience. Since he can't get defendant Jim Metzler off with his own testimony, Burr donates his services as defense lawyer.

Metzler is the stage manager of a musical that is in out of town tryouts before reaching Broadway. He has a nasty fight with director Dwight Schultz and Schultz winds up shot to death.

Dwight Schultz in my humble opinion is one of the best actors around today. For those of you who remember him best as Murdock in The A-Team, Schultz has gone on to play an astonishing range of characters. I marvel at the man's versatility. His character as the director might be somewhat based on the late Bob Fosse.

Anyway Schultz as per usual in Mason films is one nasty skunk of a human being and more than Jim Metzler would have liked to kill him. It's up to Perry Mason, Della Street and now his new young associate Ken Malansky to find out the who, why and how.

After getting Billy Moses off in the previous film, Raymond Burr signs him on as an associate. When William Katt as Paul Drake, Jr. was in the series he was in fact a licensed private investigator. Ken Malansky is in fact now a member of the bar. Did he know it wasn't going to be the law library where he'd be spending most of his time when he went to work for Raymond Burr?

This TV film involves the musical stage and we're fortunate enough to have Debbie Reynolds in the cast doing a number. That's always a treat.

I was less impressed though with this Mason than with others. The perpetrator had a good reason for doing in Dwight Schultz. But that this person was willing to frame Metzler for the crime, lessens the audience sympathy for this individual.

Still all the elements for a good Perry Mason story are in The Case of the Musical Murder. And a musical number from Debbie Reynolds. How can you go wrong?

Tony Franken (Dwight Schultz) is the director of the hit Broadway show Polly, and while he might be a talented individual, he is a thoroughly unpleasant person who is forever hurling personal insults and belittling the efforts of the cast and crew who, needless to say, all despise him. Practically all of them has a motive for wanting him dead; including the leading lady Amanda Cody (Debbie Reynolds), a former film star who Franken wants to replace, referring to her as the "fading star" and a "relic". The writer James Walton (Raymond Singer) is forever at the brunt of Franken's acid tongue who wants to claim co-authorship on the play, which if it did happen would cast serious doubts on Walton's ability to write for Broadway. In addition, Franken also seems to have a powerful hold over the show's producer Blaine Counter (Jerry Orbach) since he allows him to get away with what ever it is he wants. Why? Inevitably, Franken is murdered and the stage manager, Johnny Whitcombe, is arrested for the crime because he had a fight with the murdered man in which he had threatened to kill him and he lost his job as a result of that. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is convinced that he is innocent but faces an uphill battle to prove it...

Another of the many absorbing cases of the world's best loved fictional defence attorney Perry Mason. You will find that everything is up to par here with George Eckstein's script piling on the clues and red herrings but still playing fair with the audience. This case is particularly personal to Mason because he knows for a fact that Johnny Whitcombe could not have committed the murder because he saw him at the time it happened outside of his hospital window. However, the DA, Barbara August (Valerie Mahaffey), who gets more to do here and is more confrontational, rips apart his evidence in the witness box because he had just taken a sedative at the time which proves it to be an unreliable account of events. In consequence, what should have been an easy case for Perry becomes increasingly difficult and for awhile it looks as though he might lose it to his opponent. But,in the end events take such a turn that the scales of justice are turned back in his favour. This makes up the suspense aspect in this one.

The interplay between William R Moses as Ken Malansky and his socialite girlfriend Amy Hastings (Alexandra Paul) works better here whereas in other episodes it threatened to undermine the films since her character could at times become very irritating coming across as spoilt and used to getting her way and throwing tantrums when she did not. Here, however, she provides some very effective light comedy relief as well as outshining Ken every time by finding clues and his suspect before he does. This angers Ken since he does not like being outperformed by an amateur sleuth.

Performances from the supporting cast are generally good all round here even though many of them are second division. The most notable has to be veteran Holywood star Debbie Reynolds who was still glamouress and still possessed a good singing voice. Her character, the former film star Amanda Cody, provides an emotional element to the story since the accused man is her son; only she kept it a secret because she thought it would end her career if the world knew she was old enough to have a grown up son and she attempts to lie on the witness stand by falsely confessing to Franken's murder.

A musical show is in town but all the cast are under heavy criticism from their director. One of the crew gets fired and leaves full of threats. Later that night the director is murdered and the main suspect is the same crew member. However Perry Mason witnessed the man drunk on the other side of town at the time of the murder. He stands up as a witness for the defence but is discredited as he had taken sedatives just before. He decides to defend the man instead and employs Ken Malansky to find out what the night watchman was doing at the time of the murder.

From the opening set-up this feels like it's going to be just the same as all the Mason films - which I don't mind as I like the formula. However soon after this the plot adds lots of things that are different, slightly, from the norm. We have Mason being the suspects' alibi in a scene where he is very rude to a nurse, we have all the other suspect's having overly complicated subplots behind them and we have Amy tagging along (again) on Ken's investigation after watching him defend a guilty pervert in a case from his new law practice.

These different things are the problem here because few of them work. The early scenes with Mason as a witness slow the film down and leaves less room for the full plot. The subplots are too complex (and depressing at times) and don't act as suspects but create other stories that it leaves untold. Mason himself is too grumpy and the final twist is even more unlikely and impossible to see than usual - it is just plain complex here and the final scene loses some impact as a result. Amy is a regular by this stage (being the sidekick for a few other movies) but she doesn't work - and suggestions that she is Ken's `Della' are laughable. And what's with the running gag that no-one can pronounce Malansky? Never had a problem before.

Burr is not his usual self - I don't know why he played it so grumpy here and got frustrated so often but it drags the film down. Hale is OK but has nothing to do. Moses and Paul don't work well at all together here. Her sidekick role has worked the odd time but here it's forced and she is very annoying. The support cast are OK and the `oh, look it's ...' face this time is Jerry Orbach from Law & Order .

Overall this has too many elements that don't work and the film takes one step too many away from the straight simple formula by adding to it unsuccessfully. As a Mason fan even I found this to be way below par for the series.

When universally disliked theater director Dwight Schultz is killed, Jim Metzler faces a charge of murder, despite Raymond Burr stating he saw Metzler at the time of the murder. Perry Mason is cross, so he takes the defense case, so you know going in that there are half a dozen good suspects and the killer will confess on the witness chair.

William Katt is gone from the TV movie series as Paul Drake Jr., but his place taken by young attorney William R. Moses and his rich girlfriend, Amanda Cody.

Because the murder centers around a Broadway-bound musical, there are plenty of musical-comedy players, including Debby Reynolds as the diva of the company and Jerry Ohrbach as the producer. It's a typically fine entry in the series of movies starring Burr as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer.

THE CASE OF THE MUSICAL MURDER is one of those lacklustre PERRY MASON TV movies where it seems like nobody was making much of an effort, particularly the writer. Once again we have an opening set-up in which a loathsome character is bumped off with certain folk acting as prominent suspects. The setting is the world of musical theatre, thus the presence of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN actress Debbie Reynolds as the foremost guest star.

Otherwise, it's business as usual, albeit low par business. Raymond Burr is on tired and grumpy form here and snaps a lot. William R. Moses and Alexandra Paul come back from the previous instalment and Moses settles into his action-man helper routine when going up against the hulking Rick Aiello. Jerry Orbach is a welcome face in support, and TANK GIRL starlet Lori Petty is here too. However, it's all very familiar and lifeless, and the motive for the murder comes out of nowhere at the climax which I always find a bit of a cheat.

With modern entertainment obsessed with youth it's encouraging to see a project involving very active characters who are in their 60's and 70's. That said, this film is a major disappointment.

Debbie Reynolds (whose name in the credits prompted me to TIVO this) plays a musical comedy actress in a Broadway bound musical about Polly Adler, who achieved a certain level of fame in the early 20th century operating a bordello in Manhattan which catered to upper crust clients. So when we first see Ms. Reynolds she's singing the title song from her show which strongly resembles MAME in music, lyrics, costumes, and choreography. The director is unhappy with the show's progress and pitches a fit, finally firing the stage manager.

Not surprisingly, the director soon finds himself on the wrong end of a handgun.

The stage manager is arrested. However, no one less than Perry Mason can provide the man an alibi. The circumstances of the alibi, in which a heavily sedated Mason happens to be looking out his Denver, Colorado, hospital room at 2:30 AM, are lame beyond belief and demonstrate sloppy writing at its worst.

Mason and his young associate take on the case since the alibi won't hold water and, of course, the actual killer confesses while on the witness stand at the end of the show.

If this had been a typical episode of the series it would have been tense and exciting. Stretched to feature length (take a 48 minute script, boil it in vinegar for half an hour, and borrow a stretching rack from the Inquisition- that's easy) it's just murky and confused. Veteran character actors try to pretend interest in the characters they're playing, but even they are disinterested.

Debbie Reynolds looks great, but even she can't save this project. I did a quick Google to refresh my memory about Polly Adler, and I'm surprised that we haven't actually seen a musical about her life, which would have Dutch Schultz, Jimmy Walker, and Fiorello LaGuardia as major secondary characters. Now that would hold our attention for two hours.