Jamie Horton | Through the Shattered Lens

Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) can’t even go to a wedding without someone getting killed! Kaitlynn Parrish (Heather McAdam) is the daughter of Max (Ronny Cox) and Diane Parrish (Diane Baker). Diane used to work for Perry and it’s implied that they used to be more than just colleagues. (I think that means that it is safe to assume that Kaitlynn is actually Perry’s daughter.) At the wedding, Alonzo Hawkes (Beau Starr), the uncle of the groom, gets into an argument with Max and accuses Max of embezzlement. Kaitlynn says she could kill Alonzo. A few hours later, Alonzo is found dead and Kaitlynn is arrested.

This was the 23rd Perry Mason television movie and it’s very predictable. I didn’t care much for the mystery or the scenes of Ken (William R. Moses) looking for clues. Once again, Ken gets in trouble with organized crime. It’s as if the movies ran out of plot lines for Ken so he just has to keep doing the same thing over and over again. All Ken really has to do is track down Suzy Richards (Merle Kennedy), a wedding crasher who witnessed the murder but it takes him forever to do it. Paul Drake, Jr. would have found her in the time it takes to snap your fingers.

I still recommend this one because of the cast. Along with Ronny Cox, the cast also includes Linda Blair, Paul Dooley, and musician Stephen Stills and they’re all really good. Paul Dooley plays the district attorney in this one. He really has no patience for Perry’s courtroom theatrics and Perry has a lot of them in this movie. It’s a good thing Perry was always able to get people to confess on the stand because otherwise, he probably would have gotten in a lot of trouble.

Former madam Suzanne Domenico (Ann Jillian) attempts to blackmail four rich men who are planning on embezzling money from a bank and is found dead by her husband, Tony, shortly afterwards. Tony (Vincent Baggetta) is arrested and charged with murdering his wife. Tony’s older brother used to run around with Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Della is able to get Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) to defend him in court. Paul Drake, Jr. (William Katt) is brought in to do the investigative legwork. Once again, Paul falls for a younger woman (Daphne Ashbrook) who will probably never be mentioned again in any of the other movies.

This movie was a little sad because it was obvious that Raymond Burr was not in good health. He spends most of the movie sitting or moving with crutches. In the movie, they say that Perry is using crutches because of a skiing accident but looking at Raymond Burr, there’s no way to imagine him skiing. Burr is still as sharp as ever when asking questions in the courtroom but it’s still clear that he was in pain when he did this movie. Perry being sidelined does mean that Barbara Hale and William Katt get to do more than usual. After spending the last few movies constantly getting outrun and smacked around, Katt finally gets to beat someone up in the movie.

The mystery isn’t bad, even though I guessed who the murderer was long before the trial started. The entire embezzlement scheme comes down to embezzling a few cents a day so that no one will notice. That’s the same thing they tried to do in Office Space! Luckily, no one got murdered that time.

Overall, this was a good entry in the Parry Mason movies, especially for those of us who like watching Paul Drake, Jr. I’m starting to wonder if all of Perry and Della’s friends are going to end up getting accused of murder at some point. My aunt and I always used to joke about how often Jessica Fletcher’s nephew was accused of murdering someone. It might be just as dangerous to be a friend of Perry Mason’s!