The Kalends of Perry Mason 79

Note: Because of the cognitive distortion called anchoring (relying too heavily on a single reference point, or anchor), I have a history of struggle with Raymond Burr. As a teenager during the Nixon era, I sought out Erle Stanley Gardner's whodunits after I saw Burr in the TV series Perry Mason. Reading, I was shocked that Mason was tall and Lincolnesque, not tall and Kelvinator-like. Since last November I've been escaping to Burr's Pre-Mason film noir oeuvre (see Please Murder Me and I Love Trouble). In 1961, a TV Guide writer said, "Before becoming Perry Mason, Burr's customary role in feature length films was that of the heavy, and seldom before had that synonym for villain been applied so precisely.” Talk about cognitive dissonance - seeing Our Man of Order & Ethics acting menacing, mean, maniacal and up to no good has shaken me soul deep. But, thankfully, not in this picture.

Sleep My Love
1948 / 1:37
Tagline: “...the most terrifying words a man ever whispered to a woman!”
[internet archive]

Pal Raymond Burr has two scenes and a handful of lines as homicide detective Sgt. Strake. 

A busy copper, he sports a genial manner but his expressive eyes look unimpressed by the rich-person problems of the connected people seeking police assistance. Though dubious about what he is told, the good sergeant listens kindly to devoted husband Don Ameche’s request to locate his missing wife Claudette Colbert. 

In the fullness of time, Claudette wakes up from her spell, however, in Boston and returns by plane to New York City with family friend Bob Cummings, the personification of harmless but helpful American masculinity. 

I hate spoilers so you’ll hear no details from me about this suspenseful movie but for two things. First, Bob and Claudette attend a Chinese-American wedding. It’s unexpected and fascinating to see successful Chinese-Americans just enjoying themselves in a sequence free of stereotyping or oohing and aahing at exoticism. Eagerly anticipating "being alone," newlyweds Keye Luke and Marya Marco make a cute couple as they neck in the back seat of Bob Cummings' car, thus trashing the stereotype of the Desexualized Asian American Male.

Second, in her initial scene Hazel Brooks as the stereotypical noir bad girl is a showstopper. Red-hair, green eyes, the “You can kill me but you can't hurt me” look on her face, she must be seen to be believed in a sheer peignoir. Really, before viewing, geezers are cautioned to ask their cardiologists if Hazel Brooks sitting in a photographer's high chair is safe for them to view.

The light and shadow, glass and veils, are striking to behold thanks to director Douglas Sirk and cinematographer Joseph Valentine. They like mirrors and fabrics, too.

As for the connections with the classic TV series Perry Mason, Lillian Bronson pops up once as a loyal housekeeper (she has an intense turn on the stand, really good, in TCOT Sulky Girl) and three times as a no-nonsense judge. One imagines that executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson was the power behind diversity in the judiciary on the show (a black judge in 1963's TCOT Skeleton's Closet got the white supremacists frothing, this movie-goer hopes). Keye Luke guest stars in TCOT Weary Watchdog as a monumentally evil perp.