Perry Mason 124: Mara Maru

Note: Raymond Burr appeared in a couple dozen feature films between 1946 and 1957. He was typecast as the villain because his stoutness gave him a menacing presence. One wonders if he was parodying his own typecasting when he appeared in the 1955 comedy musical You're Never Too Young. Jerry Lewis plays a barber who is involved in Burr's theft of a diamond. So to get the diamond back grown-man Jerry masquerades as a 12-year-old child - totally something I'm going to piss away 1:42 I would never get back.

Mara Maru
1952 / 1:38
Tagline: “Tropical Treasure! Typhoon! and Temptation!”
[internet archive]

Gregory Mason (Errol Flynn), an American adrift in Manila, ekes out a living salvaging wrecks with his hard-drinking partner Andy Callahan (Richard Webb). Callahan’s drunken threats – “Someday I’m gonna kill you” - sound less like bar talk and more like prophecy. Stella Callahan (Ruth Roman, who is great) is unhappy in the horror of abroad, failing to adjust smoothly to expatriate life. Her beef with time zones - “It’s last night in New York!” - captures her dislocation perfectly.

When Callahan turns up dead, suspicion falls on Mason - until a greasy PI provides an alibi. Enter Brock Benedict (Raymond Burr), a suave treasure hunter dangling a fortune in sunken diamonds. Mason resists - until someone torches his boat.

This is a noir adventure movie made by Warner Brothers, which always cared about keeping it real, at least as to how things look. Though a movie-goer doesn’t feel the humidity of Manila, enjoyable are the camera angles of noir. Robert Burks - Hitchcock’s go-to cameraman - bathes Manila in noir shadows: gritty bars, peeling apartments, solemn churches. As for adventure, we get fires, foot chases and typhoons at sea. As the aftermath of Mason’s torched boat, we even get a death of a child scene, made more pathetic since as life ebbs out of the kid, his elder brother, breaking up, promises him a ride in the jeepney they would buy after they got rich.

The actors seem unconnected as if they are under-rehearsed. Flynn moves like a man whose charm has soured - sometimes vibrant, often just going through the motions. Raymond Burr, lethal in a white suit, radiates menace with mogul polish - murder as a business option. Roman steals scenes with a mix of allure and pragmatism, nailing the film’s thesis: ‘All you men are crazy about the same thing – money.”

As for the connection to the classic Perry Mason TV series, the heavy-handed detective is stout Dan Seymour, who played pushy guys in seven episodes. Richard Webb was in two shows, in one of which, my favorite TCOT Impetuous Imp, before he gets knocked off, he lays a film noir truism on Our Girl Bonnie Jones, “You're a very pretty girl, Diana, and pretty girls like pretty things. And pretty things cost money.” Webb played the well-deserving victim again as the obnoxious husband of Patricia Barry in TCOT Velvet Claws.