| The Case of the Lousy
Movies Before Erle Stanley
Gardner's Perry Mason character became a TV star, the
infallible lawyer took a few turns on the big screen.
Unsuccessful turns. As soon as the printed Perry Mason
became a success, Warner Brothers bought the film rights
to several of Gardner's books. In 1935 the studio
released The Case of the Howling Dog, starring
Warren William as Perry. According to TV Guide, Gardner
hated it. In an interview with the magazine in 1964, the
author openly accused Warners of trying to ruin his hero.
Said Gardner: "It seemed to me he had about an acre
of office and Della was so dazzling I couldn't see her
for her diamonds. Everybody drank a lot." Warren
William, the actor who portrayed Perry Mason, hated it
too. He was forced to act like a William Powell clone in
the film, which was produced shortly after Powell had
scored big in The Thin Man. Warner Brothers' idea
was to use the Perry Mason theme to capitalize on the
successful "sophisticated murder-comedy" trend
that The Thin Man had started. But neither this
first Perry film nor the two others released that year
ever reached "big time" status.
Warners tried again in 1936 with The
Case of the Black Cat. For some reason, they cast
Ricardo Cortez, a Rudolph Valentino clone, as a kind of
Latino Perry. This approach also bombed. In 1937, there
was The Case of the Stuttering Bishop, with the
exciting-as-watching-paint-dry Donald Woods. When this
wimpy version of Perry Mason fell flat, some whiz at
Warners went to work on The Case of the Dangerous
Dowager. What they came up with and it's almost unbelievablewas a Western. Released in 1940, the
movie was retitled Granny Get Your Gun. Mercifully,
the character of Perry Mason was completely written out.
Gardner never forgave Hollywood.
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