Garras de Veludo

Unfortunately this was Warren Willism's fourth and last foray in film as the omnipotent/ever-confident San Franciso(in film) lawyer Perry Mason. Warren William again gives a nice turn as the lawyer adding humorous touches with his witty deliver and his obvious talent for verbal repartee. The story; however, is not nearly as good as the previous three films as Perry marries Della Street(played again by Claire Dodd from the second Mason film The Case of the Curious Bride)and is held up when getting home from his wedding to enjoy his wedding night by a woman needing Mason's help in keeping someone's name out of a cheap gossip rag called The Tattler. The story then gets somewhat convoluted from there and William and Dodd do their best to throw one-liners everywhere they can hoping they stick. Some indeed do - but many just don't land, and that makes The case of the Velvet Claws the least of the William Mason films. The direction is not bad nor is the character acting though the guy taking over the Spudsy Drake role(Eddie Acuff) is nowhere as good as the previous actor Allen Jenkins. The fine comedic acting of Warren William - an actor who is definitely overlooked and forgotten by many - keeps this one relatively entertaining.

Perry Mason marries Della Street (in a ceremony performed by a female judge -- how often did you see THAT in older films) but their honeymoon is interrupted by a woman with a gun demanding Perry help her stop a scandal rag from publishing a story. Soon the paper's owner is murdered and Perry finds himself the prime suspect.

This is the fourth in WB's Perry Mason film series and the last starring Warren William. If you're new to this series but are familiar with Perry Mason from either the books or the Raymond Burr TV show, you will be surprised by what you find here. This is Perry Mason in name only. The character in this series is pretty much your typical '30s detective, smooth with the ladies and quick with a wisecrack. Pretty Claire Dodd returns as Della Street after being replaced by Genevieve Tobin in the third film. Eddie Acuff is Perry's right hand stooge, Spudsy Drake. For his part, Warren William is...well, more of the usual Warren William screen persona that I've seen in many films from the period. He's enjoyable although, as I've said, nothing like the Perry Mason I grew up watching reruns of on TV. It's an entertaining B detective film. Nothing more memorable than that but a good time-passer.

"The Case of the Velvet Claws," made in 1936, is a Perry Mason mystery that has Della and Perry as newlyweds starting off on their honeymoon. In the TV series, and even more in the TV movies later on, there was always that unspoken love between Della and Perry - and no one knew what went on after office hours. In real life, Erle Stanley Gardner married his secretary Jeanne right before he died, I suppose so she could inherit. So in some sense, the Perry-Della thing was modeled on his real life.

The two don't get to start their honeymoon because a woman (Wini Shaw) kidnaps Perry at gunpoint. She pays him $5000 to make sure a story about to be published in a tabloid about a politician doesn't come out - because it's about him and a woman, and she's the woman. Perry later finds out she's the wife of the owner of the paper! When the owner is found dead, Perry's own client blames him for the murder.

Warren William gives his usual lighthearted, devil my care performance. Even though his portrayal has nothing to do with Perry Mason, he's a riot. Instead of Paul Drake, he has some sort of an assistant named Spudsy Drake. The exotic-looking Winifred Shaw brings class and spark to her character. Who can forget her "Lullaby of Broadway" opening in "The Gold Diggers of 1935?" She had a very special quality. For some reason, her career died. Probably Warners failed to pick up her option in 1939. A shame.

I enjoy these films, but don't confuse them with Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason. He hated these movies.

After a couple of seasons of the Perry Mason TV series (1950s-1960s), viewers were waiting and watching for the episode in which Mason would finally marry his secretary, Della Street. But the wait continued through more than two dozen TV movies in the 1980s and early 1990s. And Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale never did tie the knot. Actually, that was true to the Mason story as written by Erle Stanley Gardner in some 82 novels. Gardner wrote his novels up until his death in 1970, two of which were published after his death. And, while his readers knew that the criminal lawyer and his trusted right-hand woman would never marry, there was that hope among viewers that somehow the union would be made in one of the last films.

The reason for that hope sprang, no doubt to some extent, from the earliest Perry Mason movies. Way back in 1936, Perry and Della did marry, and it was in this, the fourth film which was made in 1936. Warren William and Claire Dodd had the roles in a script that was built around the couple's marriage. Gardner may not have liked the way his hero was portrayed in the early films, but William made an excellent Mason who was more sleuth and detective than lawyer. And the Warner Brothers team that wrote the marriage into this film made it work well.

The mystery of the book is still in "The Case of the Velvet Claws." But here it is cleverly developed around Perry and Della's marriage. And the marriage, honeymoon night with many interruptions, and periodic reunions of the newlyweds add wonderful humor to the story. This is a very enjoyable film, start to finish. I especially enjoyed how Perry handles a double-cross. Not just once, but twice. I think others will too. The only sad thing about this film was that it was to the be the last with Warren William in the lead role.

Perry Mason and Della Street burst into the courtroom, a noisy crowd at their heels. Boldly interrupting proceedings, Mason announces that he wants the judge to marry him and Della immediately. They're going on a honeymoon then he's giving up his criminal law career: "I have promised Della to become a sober filer of briefs." –Alas, when they get back to his apartment, there's a woman hiding in the bedroom with a gun, and the honeymoon is off.

A good balance between humor and suspense keeps this picture zipping along. Warren William dominates proceedings from start to finish in a flamboyant performance that is alternately silly and clever.

Of course there's a murder, and the strong plot has the murder victim's wife—who may be guilty herself—accusing Mason of the crime, forcing him to hide out in a hotel and rely on assistant Spudsy Drake to do research and legwork. Eddie Acuff is more comical than serious as Spudsy; he and Claire Dodd (as Della) are both very good.

A rather wild climactic gathering-of-the-suspects has Mason passing around kleenexes—over the course of the picture, just about everybody has caught his cold!

Great fun.