Perry Mason: The Ninth & Final Season - Volume One

After nine years the Perry Mason franchise needed a rest. When the series began in the fifties, few shows were in color and the TV movie had yet to be invented. The earliest episodes of the series were often based on actual Earle Stanley Gardner titles, mostly pulp fiction mostly written in the thirties, forties and fifties.By the time the television series ended there were seventy seven Gardner novels and two hundred seventy one television episodes. Each case required Mason, but virtue of courtroom theatrics as Hamilton Burger often put it, not only to get his client off but also to serve the interests of justice by revealing the identity of the true killer who confesses in open court. Gardner had over thirty years to produce his seventy seven novels, the scriptwriters were churning out about thirty episodes a season, three quarters of them original screenplays.Those kind of demands take tolls on the writers, actors and directors. As time went by, the film noir grit and glamour of LA murders presented in grainy black and white began be stretched too far. And so, the final season of this iconic courtroom drama lacks some of the punch that hooked us so thoroughly during the Eisenhower Administration.But this season is the last of the real Perry Mason. Paisanos Productions offered us Monte Markham in the title role of the "New Perry Mason" for a season in 1973. That fifteen episode dud, proved to be like "new Coke" and swelled the demand for the real thing. Burr and Barbara Hale, as Della Street, returned to make twenty five TV movies between 1986 and 1993. These were two hour jobs ( no original show was ever even a two parter), filmed in color (so much for film noir) and set in Denver. Gardner had died in 1970, and so it is safe to assume that the bankers, transactional lawyers and studio execs, didn't have the pesky creator around to scream bloody murder at the nightmare the franchise became in the eighties.So let's face it, this is not the best season of the series that steered a lot of impressionable kids like me to a career before the bar. But it is lovingly restored and will complete your personal collection of the trials of the greatest and luckiest lawyer ever to grace the small screen. So good is the restoration of this entire collection is that it looks great on a 55 inch LCD.

By some coincidence, I received this today, the 20th anniversary of Raymond Burr's passing. It's really hard to criticize these long-running releases with the quality of the source material and mastering other than the half-season double-dipping, but at least we finally got the whole series (where are you, Alfred Hitchcock Hour?)...However, I have to gripe about something I doubt more than a few people will actually care about, but still a valid issue nevertheless.Almost as famous as the show itself was its unmistakable theme. For the 9th season, the intro and outro music was redone mid-60s style, and it was quite different sounding than the version that had been nearly unchanged since late 1958....For one episode only (the first of the season), "The Case of the Laughing Lady", there was another, earlier arrangement of the theme similar to the rendition eventually used for the rest of the 9th season, but still noticeably different. On this DVD release, the music for this episode has been replaced by the standard 9th season theme.What happened to it? Why couldn't it have been preserved for this otherwise excellent quality release? We wanted the original, unedited episodes, with music intact (this doesn't seem like a rights issue, probably an oversight). You can also see during the end credits "Music Composed and Conducted by Leigh Harline", credited only for this episode. By the next episode, it was back to Richard Shores, the composer from the prior season. My guess is that Leigh Harline redid the music for the new season, but for some reason (maybe someone didn't like it?) they had Richard Shores re-record the new arrangement again his way. Unfortunately for us, there's now no easy way to compare the two as the first version is missing from this DVD set.

Excellent!!!

So we have finally arrived at the first volume of the final season: it's all here.Going into the home stretch, the makers of the program allowed themselves a little more experimentation. Paul Drake is featured in "Carefree Coronary", Perry goes solo to Germany again (Berlin, this time) in "Fugitive Fraulein". Co-Star turns by Roman Gabriel of the LA Rams ("12th Wildcat") and Bill Williams (Barbara Hale's husband, same episode), Noah Beery in "Hasty Honeymooner", and many others.This volume also features what is perhaps the most stylized beginning segment of the entire series: "The Silent Six" which packs much wordless action into two minutes to the accompaniment of Chopin's "Fall of Warsaw" prelude (last prelude.) Does this version on DVD have something that you never hear on TV? Namely, the resolution from the final two anguished chords? YES!(PS: Yes, "Silent Six" is also the Perry Mason response to the Kitty Genovese murder of March, 1964, just as Season Seven's "Nebulous Nephew" is a response to the Civil Rights struggle in 1963. There's a lot of cultural history to be gleaned from this series.)Highly recommended to all Perry lovers.

I chose this rating as I really like this Ninth & Final Season of Perry Mason. They have all aged gracefully and it is nice to see Paul Drake still the consummate private detective and friend, ever faithful secretary Della Street and the fiercely independent Hamilton Burger honorable contemporaries in the courtroom with Perry. The stories are well acted and it is nice to see stars who have gone to other careers getting their start in this wonderful series. I was sorry to see Wesley Lau leave but Richard Anderson as Lt. Steve Drumm is a welcome replacement. But the real enjoyment is seeing Raymond Burr in his signature role of which he has made his own doing the professional job he has always done. Anybody that longs for the series that were shown in the past that bring back memories of what TV use to be and, sadly, won't be again, will love the memories it brings back. I am looking forward to seeing the Volume 2 of this Final Season and feel bad to see it end. Highly recommended.

I've done so many of these reviews (slowly collected the whole series) so it's best if I refer you to earlier ones. But I hope it's enough to say that this series is terrific value for money for anyone who loves a good courtroom drama, And for any 'retro' fans, you'll love the 'real time' fashions and cars of the day - ultra chic and cool. However, I found that the best storylines were from the late Fifties and early Sixties. This one is still outstanding but some of the Sixties scriptwriting was a bit too off the wall, and not always suited to Perry Mason. That said, any Perry Mason episode, with wonderful Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale, is better than many films. Excellent prints.

Arrived with in the quoted delivery time. The story lines have improved over some that disappointed in Series 8 Volume 2. Now not so tired, formulaic and scene predictable and some not even set in the USA. Ray Collins (Lt. Tragg) has definitely missing now and been replaced by the excellent Richard Anderson (Lt. Drumm). Still interesting to spot appearance's by actors who were well known in the sixties or would be well known for other work at a later date and of course some appearing for the fourth or fifth time. Over the 9 years and 271 episodes that the show ran that should be no real surprise.Regards David Barton-Smith

Very quick delivery, picture quality and sound up the usual high standard of this series.First class.

Does not play on my DVD. Have to use MediaPlayer

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