DVD Review Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 4 DVD Review (1 Viewer)

Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 4 DVD Review

Nearing the end of his career, Raymond Burr continued to crank out TV-movies featuring himself as his most famous character, astute criminal attorney Perry Mason. The fourth volume of six films covering the years 1991-1993 are among the last work he ever did (he’d film two more Mason movies and an Ironside movie before his death at age 76), but he’s as cagey and clever as ever even if he’s more ambulatory in some of these films than in others. With Barbara Hale continuing in her role as Della Street steadfastly by his side, the films while not as involving as the TV series episodes still provide generally acceptable escapist entertainment as eager fans wait for the remaining movies in the series to be released.

Studio: Paramount

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 480I/MPEG-2

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Audio: English 2.0 DD

Subtitles: English SDH

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 9 Hr. 18 Min.

Package Includes: DVD

three Amaray case in a slipcase

Disc Type: DVD-9 (dual layer)

Region: 1

Release Date: 10/07/2014

MSRP: $59.99

The Production Rating: 3.5/5

The box set begins with one of the best mysteries in the set, The Case of the Glass Coffin. A star magician (Peter Scolari) is charged with killing one of his assistants, a woman pregnant by him who was blackmailing him to keep the information from his wife. Perry with ever-helpful assistance from Della Street and not-as-bumbling-as-usual legwork by Ken Malansky (William R. Moses) finally arrives at the identity of the guilty party. Though very entertaining, there is a low budget feel to this one with a town’s streets always surprisingly empty except for one of the stars and his assailants. The second film The Case of the Fatal Fashion offers a more colorful story of scandals among the New York fashion magazine elite (one magazine editor played by Diana Muldaur is charged with killing a rival editor played by Valerie Harper at a different magazine) but is actually a much easier mystery to solve with the clues pretty much spread before the viewer. The change in locale from the usual Denver to the Big Apple makes for a refreshing shift and adds some vitality to the effort. Notable in this case is former teen idol Scott Baio stepping way up in class playing a cocky assistant district attorney taking on Perry in court. It’s no surprise when Perry runs rings around him during the trial.Perry's back in Denver for his next cases, the first concerning the murder of an artist (David Soul) already assumed dead who presently surfaces to declare works of his art being sold as forgeries. It's a complex case with quite a few obvious suspects plus the murderer who's less than obvious, probably the cleverest surprise revelation out of this group of six mysteries. The Case of the Fatal Framing emerges as one of the best from this crop of entries even if it spends far less time in the courtroom than the other entries in this set. The following one in The Case of the Reckless Romeo is a bit less interesting with the murder of a muckraking TV host (Geraldo Rivera) who publishes a book of memoirs detailing all of his female conquests, all of whom jump to the head of the class as prime suspects. Once again, Ken Malansky is tied up with an overly ambitious female, this time an eager TV reporter (Tracy Nelson) who first works against the investigation before Mason reads her the riot act and turns her around to their way of doing business, and the revelation of the killer isn't a complete surprise.But that film is quite a few steps ahead of either of the last two cases, by far the weakest entries in this box set. The Case of the Heartbroken Bride finds a pop star (Heather McAdam) charged at her own wedding ceremony with killing the uncle of her soon-to-be-husband. The clues are fairly non-existent, the suspects are a fairly uninteresting lot, and James McEachin is around chewing the scenery most shamefully as Lieutenant Brock. But even this one is an advance on the box set’s sixth film The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal. This one’s a melodramatic mess with a ruthless cosmetics executive (Morgan Fairchild) murdered just as she’s announced a revolutionary age-reducing face cream. Perry and Ken run around in circles for almost the entire film looking more amateurish than ever before while once again being stymied by a duplicitous female private eye (Lauren Lane) and with the script wasting talents like Polly Bergen and Tippi Hedren in nothing roles.These six films do offer a wonderful array of guest stars. In addition to the ones described in the above summaries, such talents as John Karlan, Julie Sommars, Mark Moses, Ally Walker, John Rhys-Davies, Scott Valentine, Robin Tunney, Priscilla Barnes, Bob Gunton, Ronny Cox, Linda Blair, Paul Dooley, Michael McGrady, Patrick O’Neal, Scott Thompson Baker, and David Warner have some choice roles to play.

Video Rating: 3.5/5 3D Rating: NA

The films are presented in their broadcast aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Image quality improves with the middle two films in the box set. The first two and last two films seem to be somewhat softer in appearance and feature some occasional smeared color in certain scenes and some definite edge enhancement in The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal. While there are occasional dust specks, color is generally good to very good with accurate flesh tones. Sharpness comes and goes within the episodes possibly due to soft focus photography on some of the older players and on some of the ladies, but that’s not always the case. Black levels are only average to slightly above. Because there is no anamorphic enhancement, there are moiré patterns and aliasing to be seen on a fairly regular basis. Each episode has been divided into 9 chapters.

Audio Rating: 4/5

The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound mix features well-recorded dialogue tracks while the music gets a wonderful spread through the soundstage while again never overpowering the all-important dialogue within the films. Sound effects like gunshots, wrecks, screeching tires, and passing motorists have sufficient weight to make them believable within the confines of the movies.

Special Features Rating: 0/5

There are no bonus features at all with this release.A note on packaging: two films are each assigned one DVD, but each double feature disc is contained in its own Amaray case taking up much more room than if the set had been done in a single case with leaves or in slimline cases. Four volumes into this collection of Perry Mason TV-movie releases, they do have a consistency in look, but they eat up a tremendous amount of shelf space.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

For those fans of Perry Mason who not only want the complete series of television episodes as well as all of the TV-movie presentations, these six additional TV films contained in Volume 4 of the Perry Mason Movie Collection get us to 1993 and coming up on the last two films featuring Raymond Burr as the famed attorney.

Reviewed By: Matt Hough

Support HTF when you buy this title:

Thanks for your reviews. I always try to read them. Your professionalism and the respect you have for your craft and those you write about is appreciated.

Thanks for the great review, Matt. I have pre-ordered this volume and can't wait until it arrives. I hope we hear news soon about the release date for the last and final volume (#5).

Darby

I bought this as well and it arrived yesterday in the mail!!