Perry Mason: Crimini di guerra

This is the best film in the Perry Mason series. Wonderful guest stars like Paul Freeman and Marcy Walker bring glamour and power to he story set in Paris. A complicated case - but Perry will handle it. William R. Moses is at his best as Ken Malansky. You have to like the recurring characters like Ken, Perry and Della, and you have to accept the way the Perry Mason - movies are made. Only than you can appreciate this fine movie. Wonderful. Thank you for this one !

I loved it, but then, I've been a Raymond Burr fan since 1957, so my opinion is a tad biased. My only comment is that I'm glad Ken Melansky is no longer with Amy Hastings, unless he was cheating on her in this one. (Not really!) I think somebody must have decided she didn't help the plots and quietly ditched her. Good idea!

US marine officer Captain David Berman (Tim Ryan) has been arrested for killing a former Nazi SS officer called Dieter Krugman, whom was living in Paris in the guise of a successful businessman called Felix Altmann. The prosecution has a strong case against the defendant because it was well known among his friends that he had an obsession with tracking down Krugman as his mother Helene (Teresa Wright) is a survivor from a Nazi death camp in which she saw her two brothers murdered by Krugman before her very eyes. Helene is also a close friend of Perry Mason and she persuades him to fly to Paris and prove her son innocent. Mason believes Berman to be innocent because he tells both him and his mother that he wanted to have Krugman arrested and tried under the Crimes Against Humanity Law, which doesn't suggest he wanted to kill him. Nevertheless, that is not enough to win his case. But Mason soon discovers that Altmann's wife Danielle (Yvette Mimieux) has a strong motive for wanting her husband dead because she was having an affair with one of his former employees Andre Marchand (Ian McShane) and needed her inheritance to support his business interests. In addition, Mason has a mysterious Nazi hunter called Otto Rosen (Ian Bannen) to investigate whom refuses to fully explain why he conducts his activities in hiding rather than with the public, which most other Nazi hunters do.

THE CASE OF THE DESPERATE DECEPTION is one of Burr's better latter day movies as Perry Mason, which is easily his most celebrated role. Between 1985-93 he returned to the role over twenty times in a series of made for TV movies. These varied in quality with several suffering from lacklustre scripts, which threw clues at us out of nowhere with no real insight as to how Mason solved them. In addition, the running time was often padded out since the films more often than not were far too long for their plots with the exploits of Mason's sidekick Ken Malansky (William R Moses) who often raced around the States trying to track down a missing witness that was vital to his employer's case with a few fights and car chases thrown in.

Here, however, we have a stronger plot line than usual and George Eckstein's script doesn't just dream up clues out of nowhere and the story moves neatly and logically to its conclusion. It also makes a nice change to see Malansky's part used more effectively, in which the car chases are abandoned in favour of more straight detective work as not to confuse the plot. Raymond Burr is enjoyable as always especially in his courtroom scenes as he grills the real guilty party at the witness stand and we also have a better supporting cast than usual with veteran British actor Ian Bannen who is very good as Otto Rosen. Teresa Wright offers a sympathetic portrayal as Helene Berman who has to relive her horrifying memories of the concentration camp in order to help Perry Mason prove her son's innocence.

This story couldn't miss as it featured several big screen stars - and big ones at that: Teresa Wright (Mrs Miniver), Ian Bannen (Flight of the Phoenix), and the still-stunning and almost too-beautiful Yvette Mimieux (The Time Machine and countless others). And that they could act is an understatement. Part of the wonder of the original Perry Mason series was the creative use of senior movie stars. Here that was carried through with great effect - a wonderful relief from the mediocrity of soap opera actors who frequently populate low-budget made-for-TV movies. The story itself was somewhat reminiscent of A Place Called Midnight in the original black and white series. But here there were many new twists but still with the sinister darkness of the Nazis at every turn. This is well worth a watch for Mason fans.

Not a great episode. They could have spared us the long list of clichés about Paris, including a mime in the street... Anyway, a murder is committed in Paris and obviously the French police is in no way involved... that was really absurd.

Aside from that, Ken Malansky is his annoying useless and charmless self, except he's now hitting on a girl when it's never been established that he is not engaged/married anymore.

His girlfriend was not in the previous episode but it was never established that she was out of the picture. She was the only good thing about the introduction of that incredibly bland character. It's in poor taste. She was beautiful, charming, funny, competent, courageous and intelligent. Too good for him?