Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss

This final film of Raymond Burr finds Burr as Perry Mason defending a soap opera star, Genie Francis, who is accused of murdering her arrogant co-star who was having her character put into a coma and effectively out of the show. The kicker is that her contract would have prevented her from seeking work elsewhere. Of course the victim, Sean Kanan was doing these kinds of things any number of others are prime candidates as a potential killer.

The title Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss stems from how the victim died. Seems as though he was allergic to walnuts so a script calling for him to plant one on Genie Francis was given him and her lipstick given some walnut oil. Then his allergy medicine was spiked with enough to put him into anaphelaptic shock. Effective indeed.

The Case of the Killer Kiss follows the usual Mason formula, but the real story here is that the film was made at all. Knowing that the series rose and fell with him, Burr signed for the season knowing how ill he was, but also knowing that NBC would have to make the rest of the season quota somehow or pay Barbara Hale and William R. Moses in any event. Hence the 'Perry Mason' movies with Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook that followed.

A lot of the footage involving Burr was filmed with him seated or in rear projections or behind something he could lean on, all to disguise the pain he must have been enduring in making The Case of the Killer Kiss. But it was completed and gave Hale and Moses some additional work because of the contract.

I always thought that was one of the classiest things I'd ever read about anyone in show business. I wish that The Case of the Killer Kiss was as worthy of Raymond Burr as The Misfits was for Clark Gable or The Shootist for John Wayne. Still, I suppose just doing the character for which he was most known and loved for is in itself a great tribute.

If you know the opera "Cosi fan tutte" (music by Mozart, text by Lorenzo da Ponte) you will appreciate the theme here: a cheesy, overemotional soap-opera-type script about cheesy, overemotional soap-opera-type actors on the set of a cheesy soap-opera production. An obvious cardboard stage-drama about an obvious cardboard stage-drama, but it feels so real to the characters in it. Raymond Burr's ponderous, exaggerated gravitas is hilarious. He must have been giggling the whole time, making his character take the silly story about silly actors in a silly story so seriously.

Side note: Raymond Burr, clearly quite ill, seems to have some kind of tremor in his right hand. You can see in the final court scene, in one shot he's making a tight fist in a not-entirely-successful effort to stop his hand trembling, in the next shot, his arms are folded, concealing the hand altogether. I wasn't aware that he had this.

When soap opera actress Genie Francis is on trial for murdering one of the actors on her show, it turns out to be a good thing that Perry Mason is a family friend. For one last time, the audience can sit and wonder exactly how Raymond Burr's client will turn out to be innocent, while the actual murderer confesses on the witness stand. Burr died on September 12, 1993, in his 74th year, after filming had wrapped.

Burr had come to the role circuitously. He was much in demand as a movie villain in more than 50 movies when he auditioned for the TV Show PERRY MASON....for the role of Hamilton Burger, the Assistant District Attorney who would lose to Mason in every show. The author of the Perry Mason books looked at Burr and said "That's Perry Mason!" Burr had to go on a diet and lose sixty pounds. He would play the role for ten years in the series, and then in the TV Movies from 1986 through this episode. Every once in a while, an actor meets the role he was meant for. For Burr, it was Mason.

One of the gimmicks in this show is that many of the roles are played by actual soap opera stars. It's an amusing conceit, and this one is up to the series standards.

On the set of a popular daytime soap opera `Mile High', actress Kris Buckner is being forced off by co-star Mark Stratton. When she says that she'll `kill him before she leaves the show', she makes herself the prime suspect when Stratton is murdered by someone poisoning him. As an old friend, Perry Mason comes to the help of Kris and agrees to defend her. Meanwhile Ken goes in search of information with the help of fan of the show.

The final Perry Mason film which starred Burr in the title role, this is a fairly typical entry in the series that gives the audience all we would usually expect from the films. The plot is OK but it seems a little bit more forced than in other films in the series. The film enjoys poking fun at the soap opera types - although not as gleefully as I would have expected a TVM series to have done!

Mason does his usual stuff - ripping through TV actors in small roles as red herrings etc. Burr is good in the role as one would expect from someone in the role for so long. Moses has his usual stuff to do - chasing thugs with an useless female sidekick, but it is a little lame this time and the autograph hunter is very irritating. The supporting cast contains nobody of note and none of them really excel themselves, just delivering by-the-numbers performances.

Overall Mason fans will like this because it goes through the formula well and has all the usual stuff. The lack of stronger actors and characters in the support cast is a problem, but essentially the film does what all it's predecessors have done - deliver the usual story in a build up to an average scene of minor fireworks where the real killer is revealed.

Raymond Burr makes his final appearance as Perry Mason in this film. Mason finds his hands full in a case involving actors in a soap opera and a very unusual murder weapon. Featured in the guest cast are several popular daytime performers including Genie Francis as the framed defendant. Burr, as always is above reproach as Mason. Though not among the series best, there does appear to have been an effort to break the mold a bit, with a little more jeopardy for Mason's legman, Ken Malansky.