Too much of everything

Lack of good storyline.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

...why didn't D.A. Hamilton Burger just eventually go crazy and kill himself or at least just quit and maybe open up that fishing supply store in the country that he'd always dreamed about, because Perry won...EVERY...single...case. Well, there was one episode where Perry lost, but then they figured out that the guy was really innocent, so Perry won there too, it just took more work.My first exposure to Raymond Burr was watching him as Parry Mason when I was a child, then as disabled police detective Ironside in that long running show where he manages to continue fighting crime after being paralyzed from a gunshot wound. Thus I always saw him as the good guy. Imagine my surprise when I saw him as the heavy (no pun intended) in films like "Rear Window", "Red Light", and "Pitfall". What an actor!At any rate, Perry here is the polite and never ruffled always suave defense attorney without a hair out of place taking the cases where the defendant looks embarrassingly guilty, usually of murder. With the help of secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) and private detective Paul Drake (William Hopper), he always manages to get the bad guy (or girl) by putting the pieces of the puzzle together, even if he has to make those puzzle pieces by hand. This show was quite sophisticated for its time, showing, unlike many early shows or films about attorneys, that they couldn't do it all by themselves, it was a team effort. And the shows are still fun to watch today. The solution to the crime is not obvious, plus you learn some interesting things about culture and law just 50 years ago. For example, I remember one episode from the 1960's where two women exchange California drivers licenses and thus identities, and then one of the women winds up murdered! How could they just exchange licenses like that? There was no picture on a California drivers license well into the 1960's! That's how! At any rate, give the show a chance if it ever comes your way. I think you'll find it interesting.

Lawyer Perry Mason is what we would like lawyers to be. TV Show Perry Mason is what we would like court cases to be.Was life every this way? It's easy to look around today and "No way", but those who didn't have many experiences before the information age simply don't have "information" to go on.There was a time of "naivette", of rotary phones, of waiting for news.Still, the episodes of "Perry Mason" depict a world that was way before my time, the fifties, when I was born.The characters behave believably, except for the final confession in the courtroom. It had to be a great stand up comic joke at the time.I always got a kick out of Hamilton Burger, the opposing attorney, who never could beat Perry Mason. Again, another tailor made stand up comic joke.It was the "atmosphere" that made the show. A safe world, partially safe because of Perry Mason and his crew, as well as Lt. Tragg and Hamilton Burger. A world where people treated each other with respect. A world where being disrespectful wasn't rewarded.It's a black and white world, and often the world is black and white. There aren't as many "gray" situations in real life as the modernists want you to think. That's part of their "snake oil".

The actors and writers took it all seriously, when they could have played it as a spoof. That's what made this TV series one of the best ever.It's a bit of a shock to see pre-Miranda law enforcement, but what seems like egregious behavior today was foiled by Perry's fast-and-loose actions, always in defense of his client first and the truth second! Of course, Raymond Burr is PERFECT as Mason, but Barbara Hale and William Hopper capture Della and Paul exactly as Gardner envisioned, I suspect. Add Ray Collins with his indefatigable politeness as Lt. Tragg and William Talman as the down-but-never-out Hamilton Burger, and the scene is set. All that's left is to translate some of the best "legal drama" novels into a series of 1-hour shows and voilà - TV magic.You owe it to yourself to find and watch these gems again.

I saw this show quite a lot when I was younger. The basic premise of the show is someone was usually on trail for committing a heinous crime, person gets Perry Mason to defend him, Perry uses his investigative team and skills as a lawyer to not only get this person acquitted of the charges, but also get the person responsible to stand up in the middle of the courtroom and screaming about how they are the one's responsible. Usually made for an entertaining hour of television though not exactly realistic as the prosecutor Burger always lost. I am afraid to say if the prosecutor had a losing record against one attorney not only would he be terminated or sent somewhere else, but also all the police that worked these cases would probably need to be retrained. Seriously, how does one defense attorney get case after case of innocent clients? I do believe he actually lost one case initially and then won the appeals or something. The show though was entertaining for what it was, Raymond Burr played the title character very well and made the show enjoyable. There was humor interjected within it as well so a nice well rounded show.