The Case of the Lucky Legs

The Perry Mason series of mysteries from the 1930s are some of the best mysteries one could watch. One needs to pay attention to details throughout the film to follow the twists in the plot. The movies closely follow the Erle Stanley Gardner mystery novels on which they are based. The Case of the Lucky Legs holds one's interest from beginning to end as Perry Mason cleverly addresses the case of a murder committed by someone involved in a beauty contest in which girls are judged solely on the looks of their legs. Warren William is a pleasure to watch as Perry Mason, and Genevieve Tobin expertly plays Perry's faithful, flirty and efficient secretary, Della Street. The witty repartee between Perry Mason and Della Street is similar to the banter between Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man series. There are so many wisecracks and humor in this offering, the movie is categorized equally as a comedy as well as a mystery. If you are a fan of old, intriguing mysteries, you won't be disappointed with this gem.

Erle Stanley Gardner oversaw the TV series "Perry Mason," including picking the Perry - so you can see the difference between that series and a Mason movie like "The Case of the Lucky Legs." Warren William is Mason, and his Mason is 180 degrees different from his first, more serious Mason portrayal in "The Case of the Howling Dog." Here, he's extremely flippant, he and Delta flirt constantly, and it's all a game to him in between drinks. In the first entry into the series, he has a huge office with lots of associates; here, he's a one-man office as in the books.

William's Mason has nothing to do with the Erle Stanley Gardner's passionate Perry Mason of the Depression, or the steady, solid Perry of later on, but he's still wonderful - handsome, charming, debonair, and very funny. He's definitely a guilty pleasure, even though I know how much Gardner hated these films.

At least in title, this is an actual Perry Mason story, and it's a good one.

Warren William played heavies in silent films and emerged in talkies as a leading man. He had a great persona.

Very entertaining.

I wonder what the younger audiences thought who saw the first Perry Mason movies in the 1930s, and then saw the Perry Mason TV series that began in 1957. Were they disappointed by the changed character and his venue? As some people seem to be today with the earlier films – those being people who grew up on the TV series that starred Raymond Burr. A number of other viewers have related that author Erle Stanley Gardner didn't like the direction, scripts and characters of his first books put on film. And this one, "The Case of the Lucky Legs," got his ire up the most. Supposedly, that led to his eventual efforts to serialize his stories on TV.

So, now we're stuck watching with the audience of 1935 this third film about Perry Mason, and the third starring Warren William. We've already seen considerable changes in character and his venue in these three films. He started off with a big office, law partners and his own investigative staff. In Lucky Legs, he's almost down and out, and a one-man show, but with sidekicks and friends.

This third film is the weakest of the mystery genre, mostly because the mystery is almost lost in the comedy. Indeed, there's so much comedy here, that the mystery is clearly an adjunct to the comedy with all its antics, witty exchanges and hilarious scenes. On second thought, the comedy may well have been invited because the mystery in this film is not that good or complicated. Plus, Warner Brothers had seen by then the success that MGM had with "The Thin Man," and how audiences loved the comedy of the Nick and Nora Charles mystery.

This film opens with a changed Perry from the earlier two films. He's a boozer whose health is in jeopardy. So, his friend, a doctor down the hall (played wonderfully by Olin Howland) prescribes rest and puts him on a heavy liquid diet that excludes anything alcoholic. Perry asks, "Are there any other liquids?" Della (played to maximum hilarity by Genevieve Tobin) replies, "Milk." Perry says, "Milk. You mean that unpalatable by-product of the cow?" Doctor Croker (Olin Howland) says, "Exactly! No excitement whatsoever, and no stimulants." Perry: "Did you get that, Miss Street? No stimulants and no excitement. I'll have to get rid of you." Della: "Thank you, you flatterer."

This film in places borders both on slapstick and on screwball comedy. It doesn't quite get there for either sub-genre, but the result is a mix of all types of humor with nice doses of slapstick and screwball throughout. Perry is at his height here for flirting and womanizing, but this is done only by insinuation and suggestion.

I rate this film a notch lower than the first two of the series because I think it loses its mystery appeal. To the point that the comedy almost dismisses the crime of murder. But, as a very good comedy, this film stands on its own. Here are some snippets of dialog to tickle one's funny bone.

District Attorney: "Bizzy, why do your men always arrive at the scene of a crime just after Mason?" Police Chief: "Well, I suppose it's because before they decide to a commit a murder, they hire Perry Mason to defend 'em."

Police Sergeant: "Who was that on the phone?" Della: "The garbage man. I told him to send up enough for four."

Airport steward: "I dropped him in a bus for the Lakeview Hotel." Perry: "You haven't got a lake here, have you?" Steward: "No, but the hotel has beds for you lie down on." Perry: "That's a very clever remark." One can see that the other two men are almost cracking up – which leads me to think that there may well have been some impromptu lines at times – especially from Warren William, that the director kept in the film. One has to love and laugh at exchanges like this. A Lakeview Hotel, but no lake. And that's OK because the hotel still has beds.

In a scene toward the end, Della is exhausted and is lying on the office sofa with her head turned toward the sofa back. Perry unlocks his back door and enters the room. Without turning her head to look at Perry, Della says, "Come right in and sit down, please. If you're looking for Mr. Mason, I don't know when the gentleman will be back." Perry says, "The gentleman is here." Della replies, "Oh, ha, don't lie to me. You're no gentleman. You're Perry Mason."

Something is fishy about the "lucky legs" contest at the big department store—in fact, the winner was cheated out of her prize money by the sponsoring hosiery company. The store owner enlists Perry Mason's help.

Our first glimpse of Mason is a good indication of this picture's level of seriousness: he's asleep on his office floor, and when awakened turns out to be rather hung over, in a goofy mood—but quite sharp enough to efficiently gather some details about the new case.

Or course it soon becomes a murder case involving multiple suspects and featuring assistance from Mason's secretary Della Street (Genevieve Tobin) and his associate Spudsy (Allen Jenkins).

Warren William talks fast and appears to be having fun in what must be one of his sillier performances. Tobin is very funny as Della, delivering one coy look and sly smirk after another. Jenkins is right at home in this kind of a picture—his comical sour looks and unheeded protests are perfect foils to Tobin's and William's breeziness.

The solid cast also includes Lyle Talbot as a handsome young doctor who gets mad at his girlfriend for immodestly entering (and winning) the legs contest, and Patricia Ellis as said girlfriend who tells him off, at least temporarily.

The emphasis is on humor more than on mystery or suspense, so the snappy dialog stands out a lot more than the plot. It goes by awfully fast, it's frequently hilarious, and if you can't really remember who did it five minutes after it's over—well, that wasn't really the point, anyway.

One day in 1935, Erle Stanley Gardener wandered onto a Hollywood sound stage. "What's being filmed," he asked? "A new Perry Mason comedy," answered an underling who didn't recognize the author. "You can't be serious," shuddered Gardner "And neither is the movie," said the underling. "I mean there's one scene where a client comes in and finds Warren William as Perry Mason lying under his desk, sleeping off a hangover. The poor sap thinks it's a dead body." "Are the courtroom scenes at least serious," wondered Gardner. "There aren't any courtroom scenes," shot back the underling. "Mason solves the murder of a con artist while in his office, being x-rayed by a doctor who's as much as a nutcase as he is. But nobody really cares about who did it or why." Gardener could have filed an injunction since he was a lawyer-turned-author. Instead, he made plans for a Perry Mason TV series if and when television was ever invented. And "The Case of the Lucky Legs" opened in theaters and got quite a lot of laughs.