Perry Mason: La donna del lago

They accuse a famous tennis player, who is a married to a multimillionaire, of murdering her with the intention of inheriting all his fortune. In addition, a few hours before the murder, the tennis player had been pressured by his brother to give him an important amount of money. Perry Mason defends the tennis player ...

David Hasselhoff plays the tennis player and it's an interesting role, more so because strangely he isn't performing any heroics and he's rather vulnerable as he's facing imprisonment for his wife's murder. It's a compelling mystery and it's quite scenic out of the court and is packed with intrigue and lies.

Former tennis pro David Hasselhof married Doran Clark. The gossip was that he was washed up on the courts and he married her for her money. When she turns up drowned in a lake, Mr. Hasselhof winds up in a different sort of court. Good thing he's got Perry Mason as his defense lawyer. He always digs up lots of other suspects, makes witnesses recant on the stand and invariably one of them confesses to the murder.

At least, that's how the formula for Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer-sleuth is supposed to have worked. Even on the TV series, where he tried 271 cases, he won "only" 268... I'm sure William Talman, playing Assistant District Attorney Hamilton Burger, was delirious about those three wins. What if Perry can't find someone to confess?

If the original Perry Mason TV show was a 10, at best these movies are a 6. I gave this a 4 because Drake does even more stupid stuff than usual. I have to think that in order to get "Della" to sign on to do these movies she required them to hire her son to play the Paul Drake character. Aside from hair color he is completely wrong for the part.... One of the worst instances of miss-casting ever. William Katt just does not have the gravitas to play the Experienced Detective and on top of that the writers continually have him doing the stupidest of things which either tip off his hand or put him in situations where it's him against multiple people where he walks in begging to be cut off at the knees. In this movie he repeatedly creates situations in which his quarry gets away. In the woods, in the store, at the motel, on the highway he stupidly goes in with little or no planning and no backup, lets himself be seen and the quarry rabbits away. Infuriatingly stupid.

As to the movie itself, if the stupidity was removed I'd give it a 6 because it's a slightly different approach to a murder and because unlike the first 4 movies in the series it seems Burr had been feeling better (or the directors were more insistent he be a little bit animated) and was able to bring some semblance of life to his part. In the first 4 movies he was figuratively phoning it in.

Billy is a retired tennis player who has moved into resort building with his wealthy wife Sara. When she is found drowned out in the lake, Billy is charged as he had the most to gain and all clues point to him. Mason agrees to defend Billy and begins by looking into her past and a kidnapping incident on the lake as a child. Meanwhile Drake tries to track down Billy's old girlfriend who has quit her job and gone missing.

Boasting a `big' star role for Knight Rider and Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, this films actually is quite lacking in terms of plotting. The set up seems quite deliberately to hark back to an event in the past to the point that you know it must be tied up with what's coming. Even though this is obvious, it is still impossible to guess the killer - and Mason's `isn't it true' is quite a stretch and should have been shouted down by the DA so full was it of conjecture! Mason never really gets to grips with the characters involved and even Drake's section is dull and it's clear that we're not meant to really know what he's going to find until the very end.

The cast are pretty average. Burr is reasonable assured in the role but Katt is starting to look tired - he brings nothing to the party in this film apart from the usual stuff. Hale is underused although Hasselhoff is good in his minor role - or at least as good as he usually is (I'll leave you to your own opinion). The rest of the support cast basically fail to really make an impression and there are a handful of women with 80's clothes and haircuts who really look alike and don't stand out.

Overall this will satisfy Mason fans but will certainly not win over any new fans to the series. The plot is not great, even by the standards of the series. While it is still worth a watch if you are a fan, I must admit that I wasn't ever really totally won over by this film.

"The Lady in the Lake" starts out well. In the beginning, it records the gentle romance between newly-married Billy (David Hasselhof) and Sara Wingate (Doran Clark) and introduces the other main characters who have reasons for being malicious towards the young couple. When Billy is accused of murdering Sara, Perry Mason steps in to defend him. After that this tele-film becomes quite routine. During the courtroom scenes, Perry is not challenged much by the D.A. Even the judge is indulgent towards Perry. Because they are not hostile enough, the dramatic value of "The Lady in the Lake" is lessened. Paul Drake, Jr., is shown to be a rather inept private eye who lets his suspects slip away from his clutches. His incompetence has the effect of lengthening the film by another 30 minutes.

Raymond Burr may have been a great Perry Mason in the late 1950s. However, in these tele-films of the 1980s, he is difficult to admire - the reason being his portly Falstaffian frame which impedes even his gait. It is rather painful to see his leisurely locomotion with the aid of a cane. Why didn't the producers insist that he lose some weight? Similar comments apply to Barbara Hale. But then the purpose of these made-for-TV movies is to stir up memories of the good old days. Therefore, I cannot imagine any other actors playing Perry Mason or Della Street. A young and softer-looking David Hasselhof (in his pre-Baywatch days) and the two main female characters are pleasing to the eye, unlike Burr or Hale.

(Reviewed by Sundar Narayan)