The Ides of Perry Mason 78

Note: Three times a month, we turn to the works of Erle Stanley Gardner, either the novels or the classic TV series that sent us hardcore readers to the novels. The first three seasons on CBS (1957-58-59) have a noir look and a delightfully lurid handling of stories of folly and murder. The motives are classic: overweening ambition; wishful thinking; irresistible desires and aversions; cowardice and cupidity; and wanting to speed blackmailers into the scalding hells they deserve. Because the Sixties zeitgeist prized “relevance,” the stories became less sensational and more topical, from corporate espionage to folk singing to the JD problem to open-wheel race cars to Playboy clubs to the space program to Vic Tanny-type health clubs. Ironic that the emphasis on “ripped from the headlines,” along with the corny soundtrack of Sixties teevee crime drama, makes the Sixties episodes feel more dated than the timeless Fifties fables of ambition, anxiety, and anger crowding out good sense, moderation and caution.

The Singular Episode in Color

The original Perry Mason TV series (1957 - 1966) was shot in black and white. In the first three seasons, the designers and crew worked their magic with grayscale and composition to achieve the noir vision. The high-contrast visuals and low-key lighting, for example, make Evelyn’s troubles more nightmarish in The Case of the Restless Redhead and make sleazier the civic corruption in the stylish The Case of the Fraudulent Foto.

Only one episode of the 271 was filmed in color. CBS execs had decreed that all shows would be in color for the 1966-67 season. President Wiliam S. Paley wanted to see what full-spectrum Perry Mason looked like so in Season 9, the experiment entitled The Case of the Twice-Told Twist was broadcast* on February 27, 1966**.

Designers took the color bit and ran, which was what designers did in the early days of color TV. They used red and orange for walls, linen, and cars. As for clothes, though Barbara Hale*** pops against the pecky cypress paneling in the office and looks stunning in red silk, not well served by colorful attire are  Victor Buono, Beverly Powers, and Lisa Pera (with the blue blue really blue eyes that some Russian women have). I gape, gawking at the yellow mohair sweater. One scene has Paul chasing a suspect down on L.A.’s Olvera Street (shot for Mexico), with its merchant stalls, craft shops, and restaurants. The pedestrian marketplace flashes with so much bright stuff that it looks as cluttered and fussy as an interior on Murder, She Wrote.

With an example of only one episode, it is hard to judge if Perry Mason in color packs the punch of the other 270 B&W shows.  As hinted above, the visual fatigue drains us viewers with 2025 eyes. On the positive side, Victor Buono puts in his usual skillful performance as a corrupter of youth. The confession scene is pretty cool. The deal-breaker that in the end drags the episode into Meh territory: campy and unbelievable are the juvenile delinquents playing Artful Dodgers to Buono’s Fagin. They dress like the Young Engineers Club at Beverly Hills 90210 High School.

I am of two minds about colorizing the original Perry Mason. My objection is whatever effects the original designers intended cannot be captured by the AI colorizing process as it stands today. What if training images to prime the AI were all based on color TV shows in the early days of color - bright and saturated and exhausting? AI-generated color and design tends to look garish anyway probably because of the taste of the IT bros who don’t know kitsch when they see it.  I can’t imagine what the process would do to the red highlights Hale sometimes put in her hair, but I suspect the reds would be, like Agent Scully’s, “a little too red.” How would an AI know how to use color to add emotion to the scene?  Colorizing from AI algorithms would inevitably distract from the mood, atmosphere, and drama conveyed by images and design originally conceived and captured for black and white.

But the realistic part of me grants a colorized classic Perry Mason will attract audiences. Black and white alienates many people, especially those that can’t bring themselves to believe in the distant past of 60 years ago we lived our lives in color. It would be great if colorizing Perry Mason would make the youngs put down the mobile and pay attention to the greatest courtroom series ever and its depth, creativity, convoluted plots, and high-minded morality (In The Case of the Impatient Partner, Perry says, “I always have faith, Mr. Fallon. Faith in what Judge Learned Hand called ‘the eventual supremacy of reason.’”).

By paying undivided attention, youth would learn to live with the bending of time and space. Like in The Case of the Sulky Girl, a scene supposedly taking place at 11:00 p.m. was obviously shot during the day. As for space, in The Case of the Crooked Candle, the inside of a sailboat is larger than its outside indicates, making us wonder if Perry and Della have wandered into Interstellar’s tesseract. At times out and out magic occurs as when in The Case of the Silent Partner, Lt. Tragg is driven to an apartment in a black 1957 Buick Roadmaster Riviera, but when he arrives moments later it is in a black 1957 Buick Special.

 

*CBS later cancelled the show due to low ratings ("Who wants to go up against Bonanza," asks a TV actor in the last episode TCOT Final Fade-out). Producer Gail Patrick Jackson told The New York Times that the network assumed everybody connected to the show was exhausted due to its grueling shooting schedule. Too true, Burr, obviously tired, frankly discussed burnout as early as 1963.

** I was not quite 10 years of age at the time and I don't recall public reaction to the color episode. I do remember, however, the high media interest and public semi-hysteria when Mia Farrow cut off her hair in late February 1966. Farrow said in her memoir you'd think nothing else was happening in the world. 

*** At 19, in 1941, she began fashion modelling to pay for her education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Besides that wonderful smile, she looked amazing in anything she wore.