DVD Review Perry Mason: Season 6, Volume 1 DVD Review (1 Viewer)

After reaching the apex of its popularity in season five, Perry Mason began a gradual if noticeable decline in popularity over the course of its remaining four years on the air. Its sixth season found it still ranked among the top thirty shows on the air, but its years in the top ten would never return. Be that as it may, the show remained a highly entertaining and engrossing courtroom procedural until its last aired episode, and the fourteen programs featured in this first volume of season six shows illustrate that the show was still a top-notch entertainment featuring intriguing stories, thoughtful acting, and reliable production values which cleverly circumvent the undoubted formulaic approach to its storytelling.

Perry Mason: Season 6, Volume 1
Directed by Arthur Marks et al

Studio: CBS/Paramount
Year: 1962-1963

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 710 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 mono English
Subtitles: SDH

MSRP: $54.99

Release Date: October 4, 2011

Review Date: September 26, 2011

The Season

4/5

Raymond Burr’s definitive performance as Earl Stanley Gardner’s fictional defense attorney had already garnered him two previous Emmys. He’s always commanding, rarely flustered, and even occasionally playful in the courtroom in a performance that’s always enjoyable to revisit. Barbara Hale’s Della Street is loyalty personified while William Hopper’s Paul Drake isn’t often shown doing his sleuthing for Perry, but he usually makes the most of his limited screen time. William Talman and Ray Collins, almost always the opposition for Perry and continually frustrated by Perry’s success rate with his cases, prove to be wonderfully irascible antagonists for another season of murder stories. Lieutenant Anderson (Wesley Lau), less combative than Lt. Tragg but just as dogged, replaces Tragg in the investigations for a majority of this part of the season (and one of the best episodes of this set features Perry representing Anderson’s cousin, also a police officer, in a murder trial), and Mort Mills shows up a time or two as Sergeant Ben Landro as well.

The formula is unflinchingly familiar: we’re introduced to a group of people, one of whom ends up murdered, and the person accused of the crime comes to Perry for help in his defense. Usually despite overwhelming evidence against the accused person, Perry puts the evidence and courtroom testimony together to trap the guilty party in either lies or hidden information which usually leads to a confession on the stand or in the courtroom gallery. A coda finds Perry, Della, and Paul (and sometimes the innocent parties) detailing the unknown information which led Perry to his eventual solution to the puzzle. Unlike Murder She Wrote which always provided for the audience the revealing clue to solve the mystery hidden in plain sight, Perry Mason doesn’t provide all the clues ahead of time (like the fictional attorney, the most damning evidence is

usually saved for a last-minute reveal in court) making that revelatory coda necessary for the audience to see how Perry put it all together. That said, the cases in the first half of season six seem to be more easily solved by a home viewer than those of previous seasons.

Television programs of this vintage carry with them the possibility of seeing unusual guest stars either at the beginnings of their careers or well into them. In these fourteen episodes, we find a young Ellen Burstyn and the veteran Robert Armstrong in

individual episodes. Others noted in passing during these marvelous mysteries are Joby Baker, Adam West, Allison Hayes, Gary Lockwood, Mabel Albertson, Jeanette Nolan, Dick Davalos, Maureen Arthur, David Hedison, Amanda Randolph, Stuart Erwin, Virginia Christine, Richard Reeves, Harvey Korman, Barbara Parkins, Anna Lee, Susan Seaforth, Parley Baer, Peter Whitney, R. J. Armstrong, John Dall, Keye Luke, Wesley Addy, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Rockwell, Edgar Buchanan, Mona Freeman, Strother Martin, Jim Davis, Jesse White, Ben Cooper, Doris Packer, Lurene Tuttle, Margaret O’Brien, Leonard Nimoy, Peter Breck, Frank Ferguson, William Fawcett, and Antoinette Bower.

Here are the fourteen episodes contained on four discs in the first volume of season six:

1 – The Case of the Bogus Books (a terrific locked room mystery gets the season off to a great start)

2 – The Case of the Capricious Corpse

3 – The Case of the Playboy Pugilist

4 – The Case of the Hateful Hero

5 – The Case of the Dodging Domino

6 – The Case of the Double Entry Mind

7 – The Case of the Unsuitable Uncle

8 – The Case of the Stand-in Sister

9 – The Case of the Weary Watchdog (probably the most surprising demouement)

10 – The Case of the Lurid Letter (no courtroom trial makes this one unique)

11 – The Case of the Fickle Filly

12 – The Case of the Polka Dot Pony

13 – The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe

14 – The Case of the Bluffing Blast

Video Quality

4.5/5

The programs are presented in their original 1.33:1 broadcast aspect ratio. For episodes that are going on fifty years old, these shows look terrific! Grayscale reproduction is spot-on throughout with not a single episode suffering from any kind of age-related problems. Blacks are surprisingly inky, and shadow detail is excellent. Sharpness is so good that one can see the details of many facial flaws and the weaves in shirts and coats easily. Only slight amounts of moiré with certain patterns in some suit or sports coats cause the least bit of problems, and there are some stray dust specks despite obvious clean up. Each episode has been divided into 8 chapters.

Audio Quality

3.5/5

The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track is decoded by Dolby Prologic into the center channel. The recordings typify the era of sound reproduction for network television shows with strong dialogue tracks, occasional music which can sometimes have a tinny sound, and ambient sound effects all blended into a single track. There is some soft hiss to be heard occasionally but nothing that ever overpowers the dialogue.

Special Features

0/5

There are no bonus features contained in this package.

In Conclusion

4/5 (not an average)

It's been ten months since we last saw a Perry Mason season release, so it goes without saying that this latest set of season six's first fourteen episodes is most heartily welcome even if the set doesn’t bother to include any kind of bonus material for the fans of this classic television series. Recommended!

Matt Hough

Charlotte, NC 

Originally Posted by Steve...O

Great review, Matt. Thank you.


It's good to hear that the same high quality transfers we've come to expect are continued here. After reading how some other CBS/P shows were issued using old transfers this is a relief.


I agree with your assessment of how strong the show remained through its later years. The diminishment and eventual departure of Ray Collins (for obvious reasons) hurts because he was such a great actor, but otherwise we get the same reat guest actors (part 2 will have all 4 of the guest lawyer shows) and continued strong writing. Hopefully it isn't another 10 months until S7 comes out; it gets depressing to think we have to wait another 3 years to finish this series off.


[SIZE= 12px]Minor nitpick: the director's name was Art Marks, although the idea of Groucho's son directing a courtroom drama is intriguing [/SIZE]

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Originally Posted by MattH.

That's so embarrassing. And he directed a good many of the episodes, so I saw his name continuously (he was also a producer) and I STILL misspelled it. I'll correct immediately.

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