A school friend of Ken Malansky, a former ice hockey champion called Bobby Spencer (Jason Beghe), is accused of killing sports tycoon Thatcher Horton (Pernell Roberts) whom he was suing for failing to look after him following an injury whilst playing a tournament. Spencer was overheard threatening Horton with violence after his case against him fell apart. Ken (William R Moses) persuades a reluctant Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) to defend him in court after he was put off by Spencer's aggressive temper, but he reassured him that beneath it all was a fundamentally decent man. As you would expect there are no shortage of suspects for the ace attorney to probe who had strong motives for wanting Horton dead. Not least the tennis champion Kathy Grant (Shari Belafonte) who had given up her lucrative career to go into business with the murdered man only he double crossed her by pulling out of the deal. The basketball player, Temple Brown (Julius Carry), was under threat of being traded in by Horton for losing several high profile games. Horton's son, Stuart (Bruce Greenaway), stands to inherit his father's empire, but before he died he had treated his son as no more than a dogsbody. Then there's his widow, Linda (Deidre Hall), who would have got $500,000 a year for three years if her husband had divorced her, but if she had divorced him she would have got nothing and is there more than appears to meet the eye in her relationship with her step son?
A workmanlike entry in this long running and affectionately remembered series of revival movies featuring Raymond Burr in his best remembered role (along with Ironside) as the crack defence attorney Perry Mason. The script plays fair as can be expected with the audience and the abundance of clues and red herrings are logically assembled so that the audience can follow it so that when the denouement comes it seems credible and reasonably satisfying. Burr's courtroom scenes are reasonably entertaining and the secrets he extracts from his witnesses - things that they would prefer not to come out in public, of course - are interesting and will keep murder mystery addicts glued to their TV screens. Burr still commands authority and integrity as Mason, but his opponent here, the DA Barbara August (Valerie Mahaffey), is nowhere near as confrontational as Michael Reston (David Ogden Stiers) used to be and the chemistry between him and Mason is sorely missed and would have lifted this episode a lot higher.
The light comedy relief in this one is provided through Malansky's love-hate relationship with the rich socialite Amy (Alexandra Paul) who reprises her role from The Case Of The Lethal Lesson and The Musical Murder episodes. Whereas she was quite likeable in the former in which William R Moses was making his debut as Mason's new assistant, she runs the risk of her character becoming rather irritating here. Amy, as fans of this show will know, is forever trying to play at being an amateur sleuth and forever interfering in Ken's cases much to his chagrin. When he objects she seems like little more than a spoilt little rich girl here throwing tantrums. Indeed, at one stage, her attempts to play detective nearly cost her and her friends their lives when she stupidly puts out a flyer offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the killer making Ken's objections completely justified. However, she later redeems herself by providing Mason with a vital clue that helps him bring the real murderer to justice. In a charming little scene at the end, Mason patches things up between Ken and Amy by assuring them that they both in their small way provided the solution to his case and what had been intended to add to the drama and provide comedy relief, yet risked becoming bad is suddenly redeemed and the movie is saved. Performances from the supporting cast are generally good, but none of them really stand out and set the screen alight.
A workmanlike entry in this long running and affectionately remembered series of revival movies featuring Raymond Burr in his best remembered role (along with Ironside) as the crack defence attorney Perry Mason. The script plays fair as can be expected with the audience and the abundance of clues and red herrings are logically assembled so that the audience can follow it so that when the denouement comes it seems credible and reasonably satisfying. Burr's courtroom scenes are reasonably entertaining and the secrets he extracts from his witnesses - things that they would prefer not to come out in public, of course - are interesting and will keep murder mystery addicts glued to their TV screens. Burr still commands authority and integrity as Mason, but his opponent here, the DA Barbara August (Valerie Mahaffey), is nowhere near as confrontational as Michael Reston (David Ogden Stiers) used to be and the chemistry between him and Mason is sorely missed and would have lifted this episode a lot higher.
The light comedy relief in this one is provided through Malansky's love-hate relationship with the rich socialite Amy (Alexandra Paul) who reprises her role from The Case Of The Lethal Lesson and The Musical Murder episodes. Whereas she was quite likeable in the former in which William R Moses was making his debut as Mason's new assistant, she runs the risk of her character becoming rather irritating here. Amy, as fans of this show will know, is forever trying to play at being an amateur sleuth and forever interfering in Ken's cases much to his chagrin. When he objects she seems like little more than a spoilt little rich girl here throwing tantrums. Indeed, at one stage, her attempts to play detective nearly cost her and her friends their lives when she stupidly puts out a flyer offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the killer making Ken's objections completely justified. However, she later redeems herself by providing Mason with a vital clue that helps him bring the real murderer to justice. In a charming little scene at the end, Mason patches things up between Ken and Amy by assuring them that they both in their small way provided the solution to his case and what had been intended to add to the drama and provide comedy relief, yet risked becoming bad is suddenly redeemed and the movie is saved. Performances from the supporting cast are generally good, but none of them really stand out and set the screen alight.