Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion

Fashion magazine editor Valerie Harper annoys several people, including competing publisher Diana Muldar. When Miss Harper turns up dead, Miss Muldar finds herself on trial for murder. Perry Mason does not wish to take the case, since it's New York, but Della Street talks him into it. His competition in court is young Scott Baio, who admires Mason and looks forward to beating him. Foolish boy! Doesn't he know that all of Mason's clients are innocent and the murderer will confess on the witness stand?

It's one of the TV movies starring Raymond Burr as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer-sleuth, produced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with Barbara Hale as his secretary. It's an amusing entry, with investigator William Moses dealing with mafiosi and New York City traffic. The mystery isn't as difficult as some others in the series, but Robert Janes' script plays fair with the rules of mystery writing.

Despite the fact that the plot follows the well-known recipe of "who did it", which has characterised all the Perry Mason movies so far, the characters of the present film are not so well-developed and the selected cast fails to give them flesh and blood. Of course, in general, the Perry Mason movies are not significant, but, even for their low standards, this one is weak.

Of all of the post-1985 Perry Mason movies I have seen, this one is my least favorite.

I confess I have never liked Diana Muldaur as an actress. She only seems to know how to play one type of character - a hard-bitten career woman with some undefined chip on her shoulder who for that reason is extremely difficult to in any way sympathize with. This one is no exception - it runs true to form.

The only thing that saves this movie, in my opinion, is an earnest performance by Scott Baio as the prosecutor - I actually found myself rooting for him to win, and the movie is worth seeing for him alone.

Scott Baio appears in this New York Based Perry Mason tale, as does Diana Muldaur aka Doctor Polaski from Star Trek.

This is one of the Better"Malansky" eps, Moses appears without his irritating rich detective-girlfriend. Here, he is forced to make Buds with Gangster Tony Loomis (Robert Clohessy), and it is a perfect match.

Valerie Harper is Dyan Draper, who is making everyone's lives miserable. She's Muckraked up dirt on the whole planet, but it's anyone's guess who she is going to target in her next column. And several people, including Lauren Jeffrys (Polaski/Muldaur) try to get access to Draper to find out if they are to be the subjects of Draper's Muckraking festivities the next day. But Draper cleverly dodges all attempts from 4 people and she does not even tell her Girl Friday Julia Collier (Ally Walker) who is to be the special recipient of her ministrations.

So there are four possible suspects, maybe 5 even.

What is interesting about this episode, is that it talks about using a Modem to transfer a column digitally to the computer at a Magazine Office. At the desk in Dyan's apartment, is a little Macintosh, same design as the 1984 model. Back then such a modem would probably be 300 baud. In fact, I have a one of the modems that would have been used on the floor in front of my PC. It would have been an Appletalk Network.

But of course none of this is talked about in any great detail, this episode plods along while Perry deftly recuses each possible suspect - Until he is left with the last one, and even then it is not who you expect it to be.

Which makes this one of the better Perry Mason Mysterys segment. Of course, is was directed by Original Perry Mason director Christian I. Nyby's son, Christian I. Nyby II.

What I lov ed about therse later Mason TV Movies is that they finally left the confines of "Colorado" (Colorado-in-Canada?) to visit venues like France, and in this episode, New York City.

And as much as I miss William Katt as the Bumbling version of Paul Drake, and I really did like that it was Della's Real Life son, William R Moses was finally hitting his stride with this episode.

I would have liked an explanation of what happened to Paul Drake, Junior, in this series, but I never saw it. My only complaint with the TV Movies of the 80's is the hole left by Paul Drake's absence, who left us WAY too soon at age 54. Where William Hopper exuded "The Competent Man", William R Katt, excuse me, William Katt sometimes overplayed the comedic aspects, always losing his detective-prey, being smashed over the head constantly, having his wallet stolen, being hospitalized, etc. His "Father" never had that happen. But William R. Moses was able to create a Bridge between Paul Drake and Paul Drake, Jr. He does so magnificently here.

I remember watching these when they were Broadcast, I watched them with my parents. But I haven't seen these since they were originally broadcast, and now that I have a huge 50" TV, the only copies I can find are recorded from Low Quality DVR, sometimes with commercials intact. Even my original Perry episodes are on DVD, which suit me fine, except that the one colour season 9 episode "Twice Told Twist" is not in colour.

I am totally pleased however, that Mason socked it to Scott Baio.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion finds Perry and Della Street in New York getting an award from the American Bar Association. An undefeated trial record ought to get some recognition I would think. Anyway a friend of Della's, fashion editor Diana Muldaur gets herself arrested for the murder of a rival, Valerie Harper and in fact Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale witness a confrontation between the two at a posh eatery.

These two rivals have a thing going that makes Hedda and Louella look like school girls. Of course Harper has a number of other people who loved her equally as much.

The same perpetrator also ran down a fashion designer who could have exposed the individual. This throws Perry with his trusty investigative lawyer, William Moses in an alliance with some mobsters. Seems that the designer was a cousin of a mob boss who wants also to mete out some justice in their usual manner.

One thing I could not get is when Moses and mobster Robert Clohessy track down the perpetrator I cannot believe that the police were also not vigorously pursuing the case. Of course Clohessy has some access to sources that the cops just don't have.

But the best part of this particular Mason entry is Scott Baio as the young rather full of himself Assistant District Attorney introducing himself to Raymond Burr saying how he studied all of his cases and looked forward to beating him. Foolish Boy.

In fact my favorite scene is Burr and Baio at a sidebar with the judge. Baio was wanting to reopen his case and add a witness and came ready and prepared with precedents. Burr catches him off guard and says he has no objection to the new witness and then proceeds to demolish the witness on cross examination. Absolutely priceless.

Scott Baio is the best thing in this particular Perry Mason movie and it should be seen for him alone if nothing else.