The Ides of Perry Mason 29

On the 15th of every month, we publish something about of Our Fave Lawyer

Tribute to James Coburn

James Coburn is remembered for his tough-guy turns in action movies such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963) as well as the quirky The President’s Analyst (1968). During the period when I went to movies all the time – O Seventies, Pre-Reagan, Pre-AIDS! - I fondly remember him in two Sam Peckinpah outings, the revisionist western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and a war movie that combat veterans say is the real deal Cross of Iron (1977).

But Coburn was a worker so he made more than 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, including two Perry Mason episodes: The Case of the Envious Editor (1961) and The Case of the Angry Astronaut (1962).

Let’s discuss the second one first. The Angry Astronaut is the test pilot Mitch Heller. He has high anxiety that is controlled only by shots of placebo injected by Dr. Linda Carey (played by the under-rated Jeanne Bal). His stress - partly caused by overwork but also self-induced -  is making him to be late and absent, so much so that the million-dollar space project he works on is six weeks behind schedule. General Addison Brand is brought in to get things on track. Coburn screws up his face into a visage of dynamism and purpose. His general is a man determined do his duty by using the tools he's given to get the job done. If fulfilling that duty involves kicking ass and treading on sensitivities, that’s the way it is going to be. 

As the general, Coburn is completely persuasive as he barks orders and tells subordinates how it is going to be. When they we both in uniform, Heller and Brand had quarreled over Heller’s ability to perform his job, with Heller being messily terminated in the end. With his hectoring voice, Brand all but labels Heller an effeminate weakling in a convincing argument.

It is a refreshing contrast to the usual Mason victim, usually a despicable scamp doing crimes for base motives, so detestable that we figure he needs killing. Coburn’s general is the boss from hell, but his motives are commendable. 

Unfortunately, Coburn is in only two scenes before the good General is murdered with a .45 caliber slug from an Army pistol. It’s too bad because the episode falls flat once Coburn exits.

The Case of the Envious Editor (1961) is the better of the two because Coburn is in more scenes. He plays the part of the publishing mogul who is changing money-losing weekly magazines into exciting, sexy trash that will fly off the shelves. The opening scene in which he telling the staid board that he is going to publish a “magazine about sex from the woman’s point of view” is hilarious. One gets the feeling that the mogul doesn’t care so much about making money as making the prudes and complaint-wienies feel consternation. Holding dirt on everybody he does business with, the mogul also likes blackmailing people into doing his will.

This is an excellent episode, certainly in my Top 5 Favorites. Paul Lambert plays a poet and all round literary pro who recites "Richard Cory" by Edward Arlington Robinson to the former owner of the money losing magazines. The former owner is played by Philip Abbott, who is perfect as the decadent Philadelphia aristo easily shoved aside by the Coburn upstart. And what can we say about Sara Shane, playing the wife of the aristo and accused of sending Coburn’s bad guy to his just deserts? She’s great as the woman who does low things out of the fear of poverty, having been scarred as a teenage girl fending for herself in China in the Thirties, in other words, about the most vicious place in the world to have to do that.