Perry Mason: Morte a tempo di rock

The Silenced Singer, along with "The Lost Love" is perhaps the apex of the "Perry Mason" mystery series. While the plot follows the same tried and true formula, there seems to be an effort to evoke memories of the classic movie "Laura," with suspects remembering how murdered singer Terri Knight (a luminous Vanessa Williams) affected their lives. All this over a wistful soundtrack featuring several songs performed by Williams.

In this case, Perry Mason defends the husband of superstar singer Knight, who was murdered after a loud argument in front of witnesses. The trick for Mason is, that, although Terri had been cruel to members of her inner circle, they all loved her, each in their own way. So who would murder her?

The guest cast includes several TV favorites, like Tim Reid, Nia Peoples and Rex Smith and offers an early performance from Angela Bassett.

The resolution is unusual and almost tragic.

Really top notch!

When Vanessa Williams is killed, her husband Tim Reid is the obvious suspect; there's also a lot of evidence. Fortunately his good friend, Perry Mason, is his defense attorney.

This entry in the TV-Movie series starring Raymond Burr as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer-detective has even more going for it than the usual standard of the fine series. The actresses include not only Miss Williams, but such talented lovely women as Angela Basset and Nia Peeples. Because of the ambience, there's a lot of good contemporary singing. More than that, there's some discussion of the victim's character, an almost LAURA-like investigation into the different faces someone shows to different people.

Sadly, Barbara Hale is almost absent from this show; William Moses as Burr's associate/investigator charms the pretty women, and James McEachin as a friendly police detective round out the regular cast. Old pros Alice Ghostley and Alan Rachins also show up.

Another very good Perry Mason film where a singer, with a changing personality, is murdered and her second husband is arrested for this.

As always, Perry uncovers a slew of others who could have done the victim in.

You know that something is really amiss when of all people, Alice Ghostley, is killed by the killer as she same him at the scene where he didn't want people to know that he had been there.

Other potential suspects include the woman's first husband, and two female friends.

The ending, as always, is a real shocker. You'll almost feel empathy for the killer until you realize that he or she tried to blame the first husband out of revenge for his previous affair.

As the singer, Vanessa Williams sparkles. Her singing, in flashbacks, is absolutely sparkling. Wonder if she did her own singing.

Wish they could edit Ken Malansky out of the whole series. He's the equivalent of Grady in Murder She Wrote except Grady was likeable and didn't distract and compete for screen time with Jessica.

In Perry Mason he's like a show within the show with repeated chases. Worse: He gets people killed by conducting very lousy investigations, doesn't seem too bothered by it and keeps in the same line of harassing witnesses by lying to them about who he is. What a creep.

He is a very awful replacement for Paul Drake who was competent and a neutral sidekick to Perry and Della.

Off the bat I will say that Perry Mason: The Case Of The Silenced Singer is one of the more unusual entries in the Mason film series. It has a different twist to the normal ending that we expect from a Mason film.

The Perry Mason team is defending another attorney Tim Reid who is married to Dinah Ross like pop star diva, Vanessa Williams. Things haven't been going so good in the marriage of late, in fact Vanessa's becoming one royal temperamental piece of work. She's alienating a lot of her close friends. Which makes for a lot of potential murder suspects besides Reid when she winds up shot to death in their hideaway apartment.

It's the 911 tape of an anonymous witness calling in about a disturbance that sets Raymond Burr to thinking the police have the wrong man. Of course the discrepancies there might also have invoked some interest even among the satisfied homicide cop James McEachin. But then we wouldn't have the film.

When Burr sends Billy Moses off to investigate the discrepancies in the tape he has a very nice and whimsically funny scene with Alice Ghostley who's confronted the killer without realizing it. It's the highlight of the movie.

I think you'll like the different twist on the usual Mason ending here.