What I consider the major part of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court designate Sonia Sotomayor is when new Sen. Al Franken, formerly of "Saturday Night Live" fame, discussed the lawyer series "Perry Mason" with her.
Sotomayor said she became interested in the law by watching "Perry Mason," the dean of lawyer shows. It aired from 1957 to 1966 on CBS, returning with a new cast from 1973-74 and then in TV movies on NBC in the 1980s and 90s.
Actor Raymond Burr, the murderer himself in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window," became synonymous with the role of Mason.
It has been described as the first television drama with the same cast each week.
But in a question which could make or break her getting on the Supreme Court, Franken asked Sotomayor which episode had Mason losing a case.
For all of those years, the plot line was much the same. We were introduced to the week's guest characters. Often one of them was particularly nasty. That person would end up murdered and Perry's client would be arrested. When the 52-minute episode was over, Perry would peg the real killer, often in a courtroom showdown, and free his client.
The fact such an incident may have happened once in the annals of real courtrooms, this happened for 271 episodes of the original series alone. Sad to say, Sotomayor failed to guess the case that Perry lost.
But Franken can't talk. He didn't know either. Fret no more. Mason lost in “The Case of the Deadly Verdict,” which first aired Oct. 17, 1963.
It is included on a DVD set, “Perry Mason 50th Anniversary Edition.”
Besides 13 episodes, it includes the TV movie “Perry Mason Returns,” which saw Burr return to the character in 1985 after 19 years.
The set includes the only color episode of the original series, episodes with a young Robert Redford, James Coburn, Adam West, Burt Reynolds, Leonard Nimoy and Margaret O'Brien.
When Burr required surgery and was laid up, Bette Davis filled in as fellow attorney Constant Doyle. That episode is also included.
If you plow through this set — and the series is addictive — you can begin checking out the entire original series, which is being released on DVD sets a half season at a time. While these include pristine, complete episodes you won't find in this quality on television, they contain no extras. So far the releases have hit season 4, disc 1. There were nine seasons, so that means half the episodes are out.
Mason originated with Earle Stanley Gardner, an attorney who found he liked writing pulp detective novels, using a dictating machine.
His books were turned into a series of B movies in the 1930s, a radio show in the 40s before hitting television in 1957. It's return to the air in 1973 with Monte Markham in the title role failed to gell with viewers and was canceled after half a season.
Some of the plot lines may appear quaint by today's standards. People are accused of murder to preserve the family's good name. Blackmail is common because someone has information that would ruin the victim.
"Perry Mason" is family friendly and retains a bit of the film noir popular in movie theaters in the 1940s. It takes on some topics you didn't normally see on TV back then, like drug addiction and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, but there is nothing that would embarrass you from watching this with younger kids.
You don't need to aspire to be on the Supreme Court to enjoy this classic series.
Heck, you don't even need to have appeared on “Saturday Night Live.”
Read past viper columns at videoviper.blogspot.com.
WEEKENDER / Entertainment
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