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.

Entertaining as a screwball comedy, but hardly the kind of mystery and suspense one expects from a Perry Mason story.

From the very opening scene, the entire story is played for comedy. A criminal cheats prize winning woman out of their contest money and is soon murdered. It's up to Mason to figure out who committed the crime and why.

Since the murdered man was killed with a surgical knife, we can suspect LYLE TALBOT for awhile since he plays a doctor. PORTER HALL is the man who contacts Mason and asks him to investigate the man who has run off with the prize money. PATRICIA ELLIS is the pretty blonde contest winner who wants Mason to find the crooked contest sponsor (CRAIG REYNOLDS).

GENEVIEVE TOBIN is Della Street, batting her eyes at everyone as the plays a mischievous secretary with tongue-in-cheek humor. A sample of the flippant dialog: (Mason to Lyle Talbot): "All alone in the bridal suite? You must love yourself." And later, after knocking him out briefly, "Bring yourself to life. You're a doctor."

Entertaining only as a comedy. The mystery is given short shrift.

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.

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.

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.