A Noiva Curiosa

Second in the Perry Mason film series starring Warren William as the famed lawyer/detective. It's arguably the best in the series. This time around Perry is asked for help by an old flame and winds up investigating her estranged husband's murder. Fun entry with a weird thread involving Perry's cooking hobby. William is having fun as he usually seemed to be. Allen Jenkins is a hoot as Perry's sidekick. Claire Dodd is an enjoyable Della Street. Errol Flynn has a "blink and you'll miss him" appearance in a flashback. This was his inauspicious feature film debut. One of Humphrey Bogart's wives, Mayo Methot, has a small part. The rest of the fine cast includes the always lovely Margaret Lindsay, the always bland Donald Woods, and the always grumpy Barton MacLane. It's a good-looking film, attractively photographed by David Abel with nice direction from the great Michael Curtiz, who would go on to much bigger and better films, including many starring Flynn.

This is the only Warren William Perry Mason movie I've seen so far, and I thought it was a lot of fun! It gallops along at a breakneck pace, partly thanks to its super-kinetic (and rather disorienting) editing. William and Dodd bring a really delicious tongue-in-cheek camaraderie to the roles of Perry and Della, while Mayo Methot (was she already married to Bogart?)has a lot of fun with the small part of Florabelle. The coroner is not to be missed, by the way!

It is fascinating to see what a different interpretation of the character of Perry Mason William gives; he seems to be drawing as much on his previous performance as Philo Vance as on anything in the books. Naturally, this makes him nothing at all like Raymond Burr's Mason. (And he's in San Francisco, by the way, not Los Angeles.) I certainly missed the gravitas and moral authority that Burr gave the part, but William is hilarious and highly professional, pulling off a performance not unlike that of a drunken tightrope walker working without a net with aplomb and smooth daring-do.

The murder (of Errol Flynn, no less!) is incidental.

Margaret Lindsay approaches Warren William to ask him a question for a friend. It's always for a friend, isn't it? She's about to be married and wants to make sure her first husband is dead. While William goes in search of a bottle of Chablis '21, Miss Lindsay disappears. When the coffin of her first husband is opened, it contains a wooden Indian.

The second Perry Mason movie has him in San Francisco, still a sharp, urbane, sophisticated man, and a bit of a shyster when it comes to defending his clients. It's a nicely tangled little mystery under the direction of Michael Curtiz, with the snap and crackling pace that had become a standard for Warners programmers during the pre-code era, and which had not quite vanished.

"The Case of the Curious Bride" is one of the Perry Mason films of the 1930s that starred Warren William as Perry. Erle Stanley Gardner hated these films with a passion. His 1930s Perry in the books was a passionate young man given to intense speeches. He mellowed later on, of course, and it was Gardner himself who saw Burr at the audition for Hamilton Burger and said, "That's Perry Mason." (The original star of the series was supposed to be Fred MacMurray.) So it's easy to see why Gardner despised everything about this particular Mason incarnation.

Regardless of how Gardner felt, this film is a lot of fun, thanks to a breezy performance by Warren William, who flirts shamelessly with every woman who crosses his path and fools the DA time and time again. The dialogue is fast and witty, and Curtiz keeps the action going at a breakneck speed. Allan Jenkins is Paul Drake like you've never seen him - Perry calls him Spudsy -- and Della is the beautiful Clare Dodd. Margaret Lindsay is the woman Perry is defending, who comes to him with a marital problem, i.e., the husband she thought was dead is alive - at first. Later, he winds up dead, in the person of...Errol Flynn in his first American appearance - and his wife is accused. Flynn doesn't have much to do except appear in flashback. For some reason, instead of Los Angeles, the story is set in San Francisco - more atmosphere, perhaps.

William seems to have had the same approach to this character as he had for Philo Vance and the Sam Spade character he played in Satan Met a Lady, but he's so delightful, it doesn't matter. He always looks like he's having a blast, and the audience does too. Hard to believe that until he hit B movies in the mid-'30s, he generally played heavies, but he did, and played them well. When his leading man days were over, he continued in character roles until his death in 1948. How great that we can see his talent now on Turner Classic Movies.

This film is a great reminder that during the Depression, Hollywood gave audiences films that to enjoy and watch to forget their troubles for awhile. I'm not in the Depression per se; I'm just depressed, but "The Case of the Curious Bride" put a smile on my face. It will yours, too.

Michael Curtiz, one of the most prolific directors Hollywood had, is at the helm of this film, based on one of Erle Stanely Garner's stories, featuring Perry Mason, the famous lawyer. With a screen play by Tom Reed, this film offers a glance at some of the best players working in films in the Hollywood of the thirties.

Warren William, is Perry Mason, a man who knows a lot about the law, as well as what to cook for dinner. Mr. William is at his best playing the lawyer-detective. Margaret Lindsay, is the lady at the center of the crime that Perry Mason is trying to solve. Ms. Lindsay was a beautiful actress who adds a touch of class, as well as mystery to her take on Rhoda Montaine.

The rest of the cast assembled to back the principals was made up of some of the best character actors of the era. Donald Woods is seen as Carl Montaine. Clarie Dodd plays Perry's secretary Della Street. Allan Jenkins is Perry's assistant Spudsy.

A little gem of a film for lovers of the genre.