Perry Mason - Le mauvais joueur

I have watched the original Perry Mason series since I was a little girl. Now, the 2- hour movies are coming into weekly rotation on an old movie channel and I am checking them off one by one.

This episode ranks 5 stars out of 10. Not as bad or over the top as others. But for the gigantic shoulder pads of the 1980s that Della and Amy wore, the movie was ok.

The quality of these shows declined after Alexandra Paul was added to cast. I never understood why it was necessary to add her as another annoying character. They already had James McEachin. And I think the only reason he ever agreed to play the buffoon in this series was to get a regular paycheck.

When a ruthless sports team tycoon Thatcher Horton is shot dead. Ex hockey player Bobby Spencer is accused of his murder. Ken Malansky was representing Spencer in a lawsuit against Horton.

Ken turns to Perry Mason to represent Spencer as he is an old friend of his. Perry is reluctant as first as he found Spencer to be hot headed and rude.

It leaves Ken to investigate reluctantly helped out by his girlfriend Amy who wants to be an investigator.

As it's always the case in the Mason movies; there are a number of suspects for Horton's murder which include his wife and son. There is also a hitman on the lose, even while wearing a gardener's uniform he looks like a hitman straight out of central casting.

The fun of the Perry Mason television movies was to see Raymond Burr tearing the witnesses apart in court and bring out their dirty laundry. Here he makes the actual culprit confess in court.

Bruce Greenwood is the standout in this one, obviously he looks like someone who knows he is capable of better things. A fun television movie and I had a rough idea who the culprit might be.

A story that is so slow moving that only a soap opera actor could perform. That is exactly what the audience gets. With the exception of Shari Belafonte, the cast is not exactly replete of motion picture or stage actors. In that respect, the glacially paced plot is perfectly cast. Beyond that, not much to add except that the story is best characterised as obvious.

For me, all Perry Mason episodes follow exactly the same pattern; presentation of the murder, the wrong person arrested, some red herrings, and the final voilà the solution with the clues and reasoning that Mason must have been tying up together the previous night after nobody knowing when he got the sources. Always, the conjuring trick. My question here is: why did the scriptwriters or the producers take off the Amy Hastings character, Ken Malansky's fiancée??? It was the only pair of people that imbued some life into any of Mason's stories. And the only who were not wooden-like when together.

In Perry Mason: The Case Of The All Star Assassin, America's number one defense attorney gets involved in defending Jason Beghe, a star hockey player who is accused of shooting down Pernell Roberts, a George Steinbrenner like owner of both a hockey and basketball team in Denver. He's also got an interest in tennis in the person of tennis pro, Shari Belafonte.

I'm sure there are any number of folks who wouldn't mind seeing Mr. Steinbrenner done in and it's the same with Pernell Roberts. The reason that Beghe is zeroed in on as a suspect is because the murder weapon is found in his car and after Beghe storms out of deposition with his attorney Ken Malansky yelling threats against Roberts's person. Actually the only thing Beghe did was go out on a terrific drunk, the same as Jim Metzler did in the previous Mason film.

It was nice if ever so briefly to see Billy Moses actually doing lawyer like work if in fact he did then turn the case over to Raymond Burr and resume his sleuth role. This episode marked the farewell appearance of Alexandra Paul as Billy's girl Friday, Amy. I believe she started in Baywatch the following year.

The Case of The All Star Assassin not a bad entry in the Mason series. Burr gets a rather colorless female ADA in Valerie Mahaffey as an opponent here. As for the culprit, all I can say that until the very end, this suspect is probably the one least focused on during the film.