The Case of the Velvet Claws

After the disgraceful silliness of THE CASE OF THE LUCKY LEGS, Warren William's Perry Mason seems back on firm ground in a film that takes itself much more serious without forgetting to include healthy doses of character humor. What sets this one apart from the others is Perry & Della getting MARRIED (a development completely forgotten in the follow-up that starred Ricardo Cortez) and Perry being the #1 murder suspect, having been to see the victim moments before he was bumped-- a situation he has all too often had to get his clients out of-- including the woman's husband in this case. She had threatened both Perry and her husband with a gun, and would only NOT be a suspect to anyone watching this because it would just be "too obvious"!!

Of WW's 3 Dellas, my favorite, Claire Dodd returns after having been absent from the previous installment. All 3 Dellas in the first 4 pictures have something to recommend them, I just happen to think Dodd is the most attractive (though Genevieve Tobin's was without a doubt the FUNNIEST). Sadly, Allan Jenkins, who played in cop in ...THE HOWLING DOG and "Spudsy" Drake in eps. 2 & 3, is replaced here by Eddie Acuff, who just doesn't seem to "work". Very oddly, Olin Howard returns as Coroner Wilber Strong from ...THE CURIOUS BRIDE, after having played a different doctor in the previous film! (Did anyone at Warner Brothers care about "continuity" in this series??)

The standard routine of set-up, murder, investigation and courtroom expose so far is limited to ...THE HOWLING DOG. In WW's other 3 films, he solves the murders at a dinner party, in his office during a medical check-up, and at the hang-out of the killer before moving on to the street in front of a hotel. The only time we see the inside of a courtroom in this film is when Perry & Della get hitched-- and when she tries to have it annulled. CRAZY!!

The other point of interest for me was actress Carol Hughes (my favorite "Dale Arden" from 1940's FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE) who is almost completely unrecognizable in here due to bright blonde hair and a southern accent.

I love Warren William's Perry Mason-- I DO! And I wish he'd done a lot more of these. But I also wish he'd done more like the 1st one, where at least, despite the huge differences, I could actually recognize the format and the character of the "real" Perry Mason, instead of this rambling comedic chaos WB kept foisting on audiences!

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.

But I just couldn't. I was deterred by the unnecessarily complicated plot, the repetitive lame jokes - everybody sneezing is not funny!, the annoying second banana to Mason - why did he even hire this goofball?, and the scenes that go nowhere. Warren William is a charming and jocular sophisticate, but films like this were his fate so much of the time after the precode era ended. Until the Lone Wolf series of films over at Columbia in which he starred, he really never again had a role that was worthy of him.

I found Wini Shaw completely unappealing and a terrible actress here, surprising since she really convinced me she was the Island of Manhattan in Gold Diggers of 1935. The only plus of this film is that Claire Dodd got a decent amount of screen time, but then again she was basically playing the same scene over and over again, being annoyed at William for leaving her on her wedding night, and nevertheless helping him with his work.

Back to the plot - Mason is going down the wrong path for the entire first half of the movie - the audience knows this, and yet during the second half he suddenly deduces the entire thing with zero clues. Unless Warren William really was legit in The Mind Reader (1933) all along, I just don't know how he figured this out.

Well maybe Della and Perry did live happily ever after at the end. Because neither Dodd nor William ever played these roles again in the Warner Brothers series. Or maybe being Perry is like being the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride. The old Perry just convinces everybody the new Perry is the real thing then retires.

Just one more thing - There is an episode of the Perry Mason TV show with the same name and a similar storyline that is much better than this film. I would recommend that episode.

As it turned out I happened to see the TV version that Raymond Burr did on his hour long Perry Mason show. Spoiled it a bit because I knew who did the deed. Still seeing the same story done by another actor as Mason was interesting. And was it ever different.

This one started with Warren William as Mason and Claire Dodd as Della Street invading Judge Clara Blandick's chambers and demanding to be married. The barest hint of a romance was present on the Mason television shows. But off Della and Perry go to the apartment and then the plan is for a honeymoon lodge in the country.

All that gets interrupted by Wini Shaw toting a gun and demanding to retain Warren William in a blackmail scheme against the publisher of a Confidential type magazine called Spicy Bits. What she doesn't tell him is that her husband is the secret owner of the rag and she's been stepping out on him with a candidate for office.

In a confrontation Shaw actually believes she shot her husband, but as in television Perry Mason defends no guilty clients. That's a parameter not broken. And if you watched the series you know who did the crime.

What was fascinating to me in The Case Of The Velvet Claws was how Paul Drake's character was changed from a professional well dressed William Hopper who owned his own agency to Eddie Acuff, a rather seedy looking retainer who even got into a drag to tail someone.

The Case Of The Red Velvet Claws has some nice sparkling urban Warner Brothers type dialog handled with aplomb by William. That was a guy who did all kinds of series, Perry Mason, Philo Vance, and Michael Lanyard The Lone Wolf. And all sounded as urbane and sophisticated as Warren William was in real life.

Definitely for fans of Warren William if not Erle Stanley Gardner's sleuth with a law degree.

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.