GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #31

PERRY MASON

 The most famous attorney in fiction is the hero of more than 80 novels, some of which have been published since his creator's death.  Perry Mason was born in 1891.  He is described as a big man, but he is not heavy.  Although he says that he has no time for sports or exercise he remains fit and performs well in situations involving physical danger.  He has long legs, broad shoulders, and piercing eyes in a rugged face.  His thick, wavy hair and excellent speaking voice make him attractive to many women.  The woman in his life is Della Street, the most famous secretary in fiction.  In "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" Della says, "I wouldn't want to live unless I could work for a living."  Knowing that Mason would not permit his wife to work, she has, on five separate occasions, refused his proposal of marriage.  However, she has remained steadfastly loyal, risking her life and freedom on his behalf (she has been arrested five times while performing her job, as many arrests as marriage proposals).  

Other characters with whom Perry comes into contact with have also gained notoriety.  Paul Drake is the private eye who does the lawyer's investigative work.  He is invariably at Mason's side in periods of stress, although he frequently complains that the work is bad for his digestion.  Hamilton Burger is the district attorney whose office has never successfully prosecuted one of Mason's clients.  In half these situations the client was arrested through the efforts of Lieutenant Arthur Tragg, the attorney's implacable, albeit friendly, foe.  Operating out of a large office suite at Seventh Street and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, Mason has built a considerable reputation.  His loyalty to his clients, even those who lie to him, is legendary.  If he is interested in a case he will accept a client regardless of his ability to pay.  Mason said, "I never take a case unless I am convinced my client was incapable of committing the crime charged."  He will not hesitate to use extralegal methods to secure evidence in preparing his cases.  He has committed such clear violations of the law as assault and battery, breaking and entering, reckless driving, and illegal wiretapping.  

Although he is invariably well-prepared, he is so skilled in courtroom procedure that he can think "on his feet" and ask just the right question to befuddle a witness, embarrass a prosecutor, and exonerate a client.  There are often lengthy courtroom interrogations in the novels.  Mason is not averse to breaking the exact letter of the law if it secures what he considers to be true justice.  His clients often have something to hide, and though they are ultimately proved innocent, this makes them appear suspect.  Mason wages a vigorous investigation, ultimately breaking down a seemingly airtight case.  Clues often second place to crisp dialogue and hectic action, an element clearly revealing the author's (Erle Stanley Gardner) early days as a writer for the pulp magazines.  In the first novel "The Case of the Velvet Claws", Mason is indistinguishable from most private detectives of the time.  He is identified as an attorney but he gives little legal advice and never appears in court.  

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was one of the bestselling authors of all time.  he was born in Malden, Massachusetts but traveled as a child due to his father's profession as a mining engineer.  He lived in the Klondike, Oregon, and California where he completed high school in Palo Alto.  He briefly attended Valparaiso University in Indiana before being kicked out for slugging a professor.  He developed an interest in the law and took a job as a typist with an Oxnard, California law firm.  In 1911, after having read law for an average of 50 hours a week for three years, he took the California bar exam and passed.  He practiced law in Oxnard 1911-1918 where he gained a considerable local reputation as a champion of the underdog through his defense of penniless Mexican and Chinese clients.  Gardner won almost all of these cases, tirelessly researching forgotten statutes or legal precedents and conducting devastating cross-examinations of hostile witnesses.  

In 1921 he joined a law firm in Ventura, California, and he began to write fiction, hoping that writing might bring him economic success and freedom.  For a number of years Gardner followed a hectic schedule, spending a full day in court and several hours in the law library afterward, and then working until the early hours of the morning writing 4000 words of fiction each day.  In 1923 he sold his first mystery to a pulp magazine.  Between 1923 and 1932 he wrote millions of words and sold hundreds of stories.  Since he used pseudonyms a magazine often published several of his works in the same issue.  He wrote variously as Charles M. Green, Robert Parr, Kyle Corning, Les Tillray, Charles J. Kenny, and Carleton Kendrake.  He started out in pulps like Breezy Stories and Snappy Stories, but soon his work was appearing regularly in Black Mask, Argosy, and other prestigious pulp magazines.  He also wrote westerns for Sunset, Cowboy Stories, West, and Outdoor Stories.

In 1932 Gardner earned the unprecedented amount of $20,525 solely from his magazine sales.  That year he began submitting the manuscript of his first novel "The Case of the Velvet Claws".  After being rejected by several publishers, it was accepted by William Morrow & Company who would publish all of the hardcover editions of all Gardner's books.  Thayer Hobson, then president of Morrow, suggested that Perry Mason should become a series character, and Gardner agreed.  The Mason series was an immediate success.  Even after his death in 1970 his books have not lost their immense popularity with the reading public.  More than 200 million copies have been sold in the United States alone, and his works have been translated into at least 30 languages.  Gardner was a natural storyteller, leaving behind four decades of work which will be read and reprinted and reread as long as the art of storytelling is cherished.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

All of the Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner begin the title with "The Case of the..."  and to save myself a little time in listing this bibliography, I will abbreviate the beginning of each title as TCOT.  Also, where applicable, I will note when the novels have appeared in magazine form also.

1933 "TCOT Velvet Claws"/  1933 "TCOT Sulky Girl"/  1934 "TCOT Lucky Legs"/  1934 "TCOT Howling Dog" (Liberty Jan 13 - Mar 17, 1934)/  1934 "TCOT Curious Bride" (Liberty July 7 - Sept 15, 1934)/  1935 "TCOT Counterfeit Eye"/  1935 "TCOT Caretaker's Cat" (Liberty June 15 - Aug 17, 1935)/  1936 "TCOT Sleepwalker's Niece"/  1936 "TCOT Stuttering Bishop"/  1937 "TCOT Dangerous Dowager"/  1937 "TCOT Lame Canary" (Saturday Evening Post May 29 - July 17, 1937)/  1938 "TCOT Substitute Face"/  1938 "TCOT Shoplifter's Shoe"/  1939 "TCOT Perjured Parrot"/  1939 "TCOT Rolling Bones"/  1940 "TCOT Baited Hook"/  1940 "TCOT Silent Partner" (Washington Post Mar 22, 1942)/  1941 "TCOT Haunted Husband"/  1941 "TCOT Empty Tin"/  1942 "TCOT Drowning Duck"/  1942 "TCOT Careless Kitten" (Saturday Evening Post May 23 - July 11, 1942)/  1943 "TCOT Buried Clock"/  1943 "TCOT Drowsy Mosquito"/  1944 "TCOT Crooked Candle"/  1944 "TCOT Black-Eyed Blonde" (Liberty Mar 24, 1945)/  1945 "TCOT Golddigger's Purse"/  1945 "TCOT Half-Wakened Wife" (Star Weekly Feb 2, 1946)/  1946 "TCOT Borrowed Brunette" (Star Weekly July 12, 1947)/  1947 "TCOT Fan Dancer's Horse" (Star Weekly Dec 6, 1947)/  1947 "TCOT Lazy Lover"/  1948 "TCOT Lonely Heiress" (Star Weekly Oct 2, 1948)/  1948 "TCOT Vagabond Virgin" (Star Weekly Feb 26, 1949)/  1949 "TCOT Dubious Bridegroom"/  1949 "TCOT Cautious Coquette"/  1950 "TCOT Negligent Nymph" (Colliers Sept 17 - Oct 22, 1949)/  1950 "TCOT One-Eyed Witness"/  1951 "TCOT Fiery Fingers"/  1951 "TCOT Angry Mourner"/  1952 "TCOT Moth-Eaten Mink"/  1952 "TCOT Grinning Gorilla" (Star Weekly June 13, 1953)/  1953 "TCOT Hesitant Hostess"/  1953 "TCOT Green-Eyed Sister"/  1954 "TCOT Fugitive Nurse" (Saturday Evening Post Sept 19 - Nov 7, 1953)/  1954 "TCOT Runaway Corpse"/  1954 "TCOT Restless Redhead" (Saturday Evening Post Sept 13 - Oct 30, 1954)/  1955 "TCOT Glamorous Ghost"/  1955 "TCOT Sun Bather's Diary" (Saturday Evening Post Mar 5 - Apr 23, 1955)/  1955 "TCOT Nervous Accomplice"/  1956 "TCOT Terrified Typist"/  1956 "TCOT Demure Defendant" (Saturday Evening Post Dec 10, 1955 - Jan 28, 1956)/  1956 "TCOT Gilded Lily"/  1957 "TCOT Lucky Loser" (Saturday Evening Post Sept 1 - Oct 20, 1956)/  1957 "TCOT Screaming Woman"/  1957 "TCOT Daring Decoy" (Chicago Tribune Sept 8 - Oct 19, 1957)/  1958 "TCOT Long-Legged Models" (Saturday Evening Post Aug 10 - Sept 28, 1957)/  1958 "TCOT Foot-Loose Doll" (Saturday Evening Post Feb 1 - Mar 22, 1958)/  1958 "TCOT Calendar Girl"/  1959 "TCOT Deadly Toy" (Saturday Evening Post Oct 25 - Dec 13, 1958)/  1959 "TCOT Mythical Monkeys" (Saturday Evening Post May 2 - June 20, 1959)/  1959 "TCOT Singing Skirt"/  1960 "TCOT Waylaid Wolf" (Saturday Evening Post Sept 5 - Oct 24, 1959)/  1960 "TCOT Duplicate Daughter" (Saturday Evening Post June 4 - July 23, 1960)/  1960 "TCOT Shapely Shadow"/  1961 "TCOT Spurious Spinster" (Saturday Evening Post Jan 28 - Mar 11, 1961)/  1961 "TCOT Bigamous Spouse" (Saturday Evening Post July 15 - Aug 26, 1961)/  1962 "TCOT Reluctant Model" (Star Weekly Oct 7, 1961)/  1962 "TCOT Blonde Bonanza" (Star Weekly Apr 7-14, 1962)/  1962 "TCOT Ice-Cold Hands"/  1963 "TCOT Mischievous Doll" (Saturday Evening Post Dec 8, 1962)/  1963 "TCOT Stepdaughter's Secret"/  1963 "TCOT Amorous Aunt" (Star Weekly Mar 7, 1964)/  1964 "TCOT Daring Divorcee"/  1964 "TCOT Phantom Fortune"/  1964 "TCOT Horrified Heirs"/  1965 "TCOT Troubled Trustee"/  1965 "TCOT Beautiful Beggar"/  1966 "TCOT Worried Waitress"/  1967 "TCOT Queenly Contestant"/  1968 "TCOT Careless Cupid"/  1969 "TCOT Fabulous Fake"/

Posthumous novel publications:  1972 "TCOT Fenced-In Woman"/  1973 "TCOT Postponed Murder"

A total of 82 novels.  There were also four short stories.

"TCOT Crying Swallow" (American Aug 1947)/  "TCOT Crimson Kiss" (American June 1948)/  "TCOT Suspect Sweethearts" (Radio & Television Mirror May 1950 - this was a tie-in to the radio series with a Della Street byline)/  "TCOT Irate Witness" (Colliers Jan 17, 1953).

FILMS

"The Case of the Howling Dog" WB, 1934.  Warren William (Perry Mason), Mary Astor, Gordon Westcott, Helen Trenholme (Della Street).  Director: Alan Crosland.  William, whose courtroom style could be likened to that of John Barrymore, is a Mason with flair, trying his best to defend a client charged with murdering her husband, who had turned a ferocious dog on her.

"The Case of the Curious Bride" WB, 1935.  William, Margaret Lindsay, Allen Jenkins, Donald Woods.  Director: Michael Curtiz.  Mason postpones a European vacation to help a distraught newlywed whose first husband - supposedly dead - is blackmailing her (later he does die).  After solving the case, Mason proposes to Della (Claire Dodd), suggesting that the interrupted trip be their honeymoon.

"The Case of the Lucky Legs" WB, 1935.  William, Genevieve Tobin (Della), Patricia Ellis, Lyle Talbot.  Director: Archie Mayo.  The pretty winner of a beauty contest consults Mason when the contest promoter runs off with the cash prizes.  Mason finds him stabbed.

"The Case of the Velvet Claws" WB, 1936.  William, Winifred Shaw, Gordon Elliott, Dodd (Della).  Director: William Clemens.  Mason and Della are married just an hour when a socialite insists, at gunpoint, that he defend her of the charge of shooting her husband.

"The Case of the Black Cat" WB, 1936.  Ricardo Cortez (Mason), Gary Owen, June Travis (the new Della, unmarried).  Director: William McGann.  Based on "The Case of the Caretaker's Cat".  There is a feline witness to a murder Mason investigates.

"The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" WB, 1937.  Donald Woods (Mason), Ann Dvorak, Robert McWade, Anne Nagel.  Director: Clemens.  An Australian bishop implores Mason to help him find a young girl who is unaware that she is an heiress, but Mason is curious about the churchman's crippling stammer.

RADIO

"Perry Mason" aired weekdays on CBS as 15-minute episodes from October 18, 1943 to December 30, 1955.  It was sponsored by General Foods and Tide.  John Larkin played Perry from 1947-1955.  As radio dramas moved to TV so was the destiny for "Perry Mason".  However, Erle Stanley Gardner disagreed with the proposed direction of the new TV series.  CBS insisted on giving Perry a love interest and Gardner flatly refused.  Sponsor Proctor & Gamble hired the staff and writers of the radio show, changed the setting and renamed the characters, and "Perry Mason" became the TV soap opera "The Edge of Night".  The show ran on CBS from April 2, 1956 until November 28, 1975, when the series moved to ABC where it ran December 1, 1975 to December 28, 1984.  The total episodes were 7420.

COMICS

In January 1944 Book-of-the-Month ran two comic adaptations of "The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde" and "The Case of the Crooked Candle".  These were drawn by Stephen Grout.  B-O-T-M was a syndicated feature to newspapers from 1942-1947 that adapted bestselling novels that included "The Lost Weekend", "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and "The Fountainhead".  They were less "comic" and more like illustrated stories, with each daily panel consisting of three illustrations accompanied by text below.

The first comic books of Perry Mason were Feature Books by David McKay who adapted "The Case of the Lucky Legs" in 1946 with art by Vernon Greene, and "The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe" in 1947 with cover and art by Paul Norris.  Universal Syndicate tried a short-lived newspaper comic strip October 16, 1950 to June 21, 1952.  It was drawn by Mel Keefer.  Then in 1964 Dell comics produced two Perry Mason comic books with Raymond Burr photo covers to tie-in to the popular TV series.

TELEVISION

"Perry Mason" was Hollywood's first weekly one-hour series filmed for TV.  CBS, after adapting the "Perry Mason" radio series to the soap opera "The Edge of Night", announced the new "Perry Mason" TV series in February 1956, after coming to terms with creator Erle Stanley Gardner.  The series began filming in April 1957 with Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, Barbara Hale as Della Street, William Hopper as Paul Drake, William Talman as Hamilton Burger, and Ray Collins as Lt. Tragg.  Burr, a big man, lost 100 pounds for the role.  He was in 98% of the scenes and the workload was enormous.  Burr had no life outside of the TV show, as he worked six days a week.  He never went home at night, choosing to live on the lot.  Each episode was budgeted at $100,000 - a huge budget for TV back then - and 39 episodes were filmed for the first season.  The show ran on CBS September 21, 1957 until May 22, 1966.  Over the course of the nine seasons, most of the Gardner novels were adapted for episodes of the series.  It was an immediate hit with viewers.

The show was so popular that the actors became synonymous with the roles, to the extent that The Saturday Evening Post, which serialized many of the Perry Mason novels over the year, began illustrating the stories to resemble the key actors in the series.  The themesong was one of the most recognizable in TV history.  Written by Fred Steiner it was titled "Park Avenue Beat" and pulsed with the power of the big city, with sophistication, toughness, and swagger that embodied the show.  271 episodes were produced over the nine seasons and it was often the #1 show in the Nielsen ratings, even beating "Bonanza" on NBC.  CBS abruptly cancelled the show in 1966, never giving a definitive answer as to why.  The cast found out by reading the news in the trades.

CBS tried to resurrect the popular show in 1973 with "The New Perry Mason" with Monte Markham as Perry and Sharon Acher as Della.  It ran September 16, 1973 to January 27, 1974.  It lasted 15 episodes before being cancelled halfway into the season.  The dramatic theme had been replaced by a generic piece, and the show had low ratings, placing 71 out of 80 shows.  Beginning in 1985 NBC produced made-for-TV movies of Perry Mason with as many of the original cast as survived, which turned out to be Burr and Hale.  Hale's son William Katt (from her longtime marriage to actor Bill Williams) was cast as Paul Drake, Jr., since William Hopper who originated the role died in 1970.  30 of these Perry Mason TV-movies were made by NBC, airing from December 1, 1985 to April 10, 1995.  Raymond Burr appeared in 24 of them before dying in 1993.  After that four more films were made with Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrook as attorney friends who represented the Mason firm as Perry was "out of town".  

HBO began a series of "Perry Mason" on June 21, 2020, based on the character created by Gardner.  Matthew Rhys plays Perry as a down-and-out private investigator in 1932 Los Angeles before becoming a defense attorney.