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Post by Salzmank on Feb 22, 2017 1:34:59 GMT
I never get tired of Perry's superior smile, Della's warmth, Paul's sleazy playfulness, Trag's sardonic wit and Hamleton Burger's temper tantrums. The scripts are awfully good and there are some good performances , but the ingénues tend to be weak. It's a real treat when you get a sassy one that really can act, like a young Ellen Burstyn or Margaret Obrien. That one with Victor Buono as a beatnik and Arlene Sax as the beat girlfriend was spectacular . Zazou Pitts as the Dotty landlady... Some of these really stood out. When Paul or Della were in trouble , when they were chasing cop killers, when kids were in trouble , they rose to the occasion. I watched this with my family first run. We all loved it. I was so excited when the series came out on DVD. As a kid, I never watched Perry Mason. My parents were strict about being in bed by 8:30 on weeknights, and on weekends, my mother watched NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, which ran at 9. I didn't get to see any Perrys until the last season, and only sporadically. Thanks to MeTV, I've seen every episode, and without fail, they're all great. I have noticed that the most innocuous character is usually the killer. But not all the time! What I like best is seeing the array of 1960s faces! Actually, that tends to be the case with lots of detective-story shows: you can guess the identity of the murderer fairly early on. For me, that doesn't take away any of the enjoyment of watching a well-written and clever plot. With the best detective plots, there are clever elements--alibis, clues, etc.--in addition to the identity of the murderer. Same thing with some books. I recently read Ellery Queen's The Tragedy of Y. I guessed the identity of the murderer fairly early on, but there's a plot point (revealed at the end of the book) as to why the murderer did something peculiar, whose revelation made me slap my head with "Oh! God, how could I have missed that!"--the anagnorisis (simultaneous experience of surprise and inevitability) that is the very essence of the well-done puzzle plot. To get a little away from the theorizing for a sec... I also love seeing the array of '60s faces. Even when the puzzle-plotting isn't perfect, the show is just so much fun. The core five, as Telegonus said, are great to spend time with. |
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