Terry Rhoads | 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.

When arrogant news anchor Brett Huston (John James) is shot and killed, his co-anchor Gillian Pope (Kerrie Keane) is arrested and charged with the crime. It looks like an open-and-shut case because Brett was shot with Gillian’s gun. Luckily, Gillian is friends with Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) and soon Perry is on the case with Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Ken Malansky (William R. Moses).

Now this is how you do a Perry Mason movie! Brett’s murder is linked to a memo that he wrote in which he criticized the other members of the news team and argued that they should all be fired. All of the suspects are enjoyably eccentric. There’s a weatherman (Peter Jurasik) who wants to be a stand-up comedian. There’s the sports reporter (Philip Michael Thomas) who used and sold steroids. There’s the producer (Susan Sullivan), who was also Brett’s ex-wife. Brett even insulted the station manager (Jerry Orbach, who previously appeared as a different suspect in The Musical Murder). Ken, as usual, finds time for romance, this time with reporter Cassie Woodfield (Mary Page Keller) who appears to have someone trying to kill her as well. Along with a great cast of characters, this mystery had a solution that took me by surprise but which also made sense when I looked back on it. The final courtroom reveal was perfect. This is also probably the only Perry Mason film where the hours of a hamburger restaurant proved to be instrumental to the case.

The Case of the Ruthless Reporter was a good one!