Mon 8 Feb 2021
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE (1935).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[14] Comments
THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE. Warner Brothers. Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods, Claire Dodd, Allen Jenkins, Barton MacLane, Warren Hymer, Olin Howland, Errol Flynn, and Mayo Methot. Screenplay by Tom Reed and Brown Holmes, from the novel by Erle Stanley Gardner. Directed by Michael Curtiz.
A B-movie plot given A-movie class by Warners and Curtiz.
If you only know Perry Mason from the TV show, prepare yourself for an enjoyable shock. Warren William plays Mason as a shyster par excellence, the kind of lawyer not above suborning perjury, manufacturing evidence, or hiding a witness when called for. In short, the kind of slimy-but-likeable rogue that was William’s stock in trade during his brief stardom. Just how brief we shall see shortly.
The plot involves a lady-friend of Mason’s involved with a blackmailing bigamist who is promptly murdered, the lady’s milksop husband, his domineering dad, assorted minions of the law and the lawless, and Perry’s perennial friends and foes. And as plots go, this one is forgettable to the point of inducing amnesia.
Fortunately, Bride is more than redeemed by the talents involved. Warners sprang for a top-notch supporting cast, location shooting in San Francisco, and the genius of director Michael Curtiz, who fills the screen with smooth camerawork, artsy dissolves, and a real sense of pace.
More than this, though, Curtiz achieves a real sense of fellow-feeling and interaction among the players. When Perry trades quips with the coroner (Olin Howland) and Della Street (Claire Dodd) the affection between them comes right across the screen. And when moviedom’s arch-pugs Allen Jenkins and Warren Hymer meet, the atmosphere of imminent combat is so real you can feel the punches before they land.
And there’s an interesting sidelight: When Bride was released, Warners was seriously considering Warren William for the lead in their upcoming Captain Blood. Instead, the part went to newcomer Errol Flynn, who spends most of his screen time here under a sheet, playing the murder victim. Flynn, of course, shot to stardom, while Warren William’s career began a slow spiral downward, a decline in the quality of his films that he handled with the grace he never failed to show on screen.
February 8th, 2021 at 12:41 pm
Dan, these Perry Mason films are second features, and it seems you are romanticizing William. If he was in the mix for Captain Blood he was one of several, including George Brent, but the right guy got the part and Warren William went on doing more or less the same thing, for example, top support in Man in the Iron Mask, and the lead in The Loen Wolf series at Columbia. If his fee had dropped precipitously,that would be a different story, but I am not aware if that had been in play.
Check out all the other non-stars cast as Mason; Ricardo Cortez, Donald Woods…not William Powell for example.
February 8th, 2021 at 6:24 pm
Dan,
I have to agree on the quality of this film for what it was, but of course Curtiz did the same for Philo Vance in THE KENNEL MURDER CASE.
But this one is much more entertaining than it really has any right to be, and also pays some heed to Mason’s pulp origins and the early books in the series before Perry got scruples. It may be a long way from the classic Raymond Burr version but it isn’t that far removed from the very early pre Saturday Evening Post Mason.
After a brief high as the lead in mostly women’s movies and a few major roles like THREE ON A MATCH Williams career took a nose dive from lead in A films to lead in B’s and second string in major films.
During WW II the army called on Williams expertise in his hobby of flying model planes to use them to gather intelligence during the war.
February 8th, 2021 at 7:13 pm
I agree that the Perry Mason in this movie is closer to the early ESG Mason stories, but it is hard for me now, after so many years of watching Raymond Burr in the role, to go back and pretend (if you will) that this one is even a Perry Mason story.
Likewise the new HBO version. It seems to have done well, but with that one I can’t even pretend, and I haven’t watched it.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:40 pm
I enjoyed the HBO series as hard boiled thirties P. I. stuff, but hated it as Mason, a thumbed nose to Gardner and his creation and generations of fans with a dirty grungy over aged Mason only the least of the problems. I did like the black Paul Drake though how he would manipulate in LA of the period will have to complicate things.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:59 pm
I had to sign up for HBO Max to keep watching PERSON OF INTEREST, so maybe I should never say never.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:37 pm
I can’t get over the fact that Perry Mason is a lawyer at all. Totally an impasse.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:42 pm
HBO Mason: ouff, I hope I’m not inferring that they snubbed a character-as-originally-written and shoehorned in a phony-diversity-that-never-existed character.
February 9th, 2021 at 12:18 am
It is an easy inference to make.
February 9th, 2021 at 9:21 am
THe HBO Perry Mason character is a Straight White Male, with no diversity aspects at all. He does later meet some Black characters, as well as a lot of White ones. Nothing unusual here…
He bears almost no resemblance to the Perry in the books. He’s a seedy private eye type who looks like he hasn’t had a bath since 1917. Film historian David Bordwell quipped that they couldn’t give the same treatment to Archie Goodwin, who boasts in the books about how “neat” he is.
February 9th, 2021 at 9:35 am
I would enjoy seeing a talented Black or Chinese actor, say, starring as Perry Mason. Especially if they kept to the books’ prenise, of Perry Mason as an endlessly resourceful lawyer who works tirelessly for his clients.
The Raymond Burr television series is in many ways close to the books. Yet it has a different “feel”. TV’s Perry is subtly different from the book’s Perry. There is plenty of opportunity for a new, BBC style version of the books, that explores the books’ nuances and atmospheres.
The Burr TV series was also hampered by shoddy looking sets, rare location shooting, low budgets, and directors with no visual flair or gift for atmosphere.
What would a Perry Mason adaptation by a genuinely talented director look like?
February 9th, 2021 at 10:19 am
Here is a question for you, Mike, or anyone who cares to answer. I was not watching much TV in the 1980s when Burr started doing the made-for-TV Perry Mason movies, and I’ve never seen any of them. Were they able to overcome the shoddy looking sets, etc., that you say hampered the early black and white series? (And while I am a big fan of the early Mason shows, I have to agree with you on that.)
February 9th, 2021 at 12:49 pm
The late Burr TV-Movies had much better production values. Like most TV of the era, they had nice-looking sets, lots of location shooting, and good color cinematography. Nothing that made them stand out, however – but easier on the eyes. Also, I think William Moses as Perry’s helper was much more likable than William Hopper in the original series, an actor I’ve never been able to cotton to.
My memory is that the earlier, first TV movies in the series were poor. Eventually quality improved. Two episodes I liked were TCOT POISONED PEN, and TCOT DESPERATE DECEPTION.
Nothing I saw in the later TV-movies soared to great art, however. By contrast, nearly every film such great directors as Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock ever made was original cinematic art of a high order. By contrast, these Mason shows were nice solid detective shows and courtroom dramas. They had good scripts – but the direction reached a certain craft level, but no higher.
February 9th, 2021 at 12:54 pm
Steve, I am an enormously devoted fan of the original Perry Mason series, and the sets have nothing to do with that, but the star chemistry certainly does. Burr, Barbara, and the two Bills are irreplaceable. Warmth and humor go a long way with me. The second series Barbara and Burr did, was better produced and far inferior; without,the love fans had for the original, these two hour movies would be down the drain. Raymond’s reinterpretation of Mason as a harsh, bearded senior, was about as unappealing as his performance as the villain in PJ.
As for Mike’s comment about a black or Asian playing Mason is absurd. Want that? Write something new for him. James Bond is not a person of color either, nor is he a girl. Stop trying to please an audience surely to be turned way off.
February 9th, 2021 at 1:04 pm
I think watching Burr as Mason with a beard did not work for me, either. Just another reason why I was never much tempted to watch one. Nor do I agree with Mike with his suggestion that Mason be played by a black, Asian (or female). Speaking for me personally (and who else will?), I’ll pass.
I’ll stick with the old black-and-white’s.