Was a 1956 Movie a Preview of Perry Mason on TV?

Jury scene from Please Murder Me

You don’t have to read many articles on this blog to know that I am a huge fan of Erle Stanley Gardner’s detective-lawyer, Perry Mason. While many actors have portrayed the lawyer in movies and on television over the years, one has clearly claimed the title of the definitive Perry Mason. Of course, I referring to actor Raymond Burr who played Mason on TV for nine years. But before he started playing Perry Mason in 1957, in 1951 Burr portrayed an aggressive prosecutor in “A Place in the Sun.” It’s rumored that that performance would later get him an audition in 1956 for the role of District Attorney Hamilton Burger in Gail Patrick Jackson’s TV show, Perry Mason. Ultimately, Burr would garner the lead role. But I suggest that Burr’s role in the 1956 Please Murder Me! would plant the visual seeds of the Perry Mason we would see on TV for nine years, marking it as a showcase of what was to come.

In the 1956 movie, Burr is lawyer Craig Carlson who defends the wife of his Marine Corps buddy after she is accused of his murder. Carlson suffers from guilt when he discovers that she did commit the crime after she is acquitted.  There are two things that make this mo220px-Please_murder_me_1956_poster_smallvie worth watching: 1) Burr’s acting and 2) a fantastic cast. Let’s talk about Burr’s acting first. Those who are familiar with Burr’s interpretation of Perry Mason will see every single physical character idiosyncrasy, quirk and mannerism that followers of the TV show have come to love. There’s the ear tug as he approaches a hostile witness, the sly smile when he gets the answer he wants and the fingers across the lips when he doesn’t.  In this movie. you see Perry Mason as you will see him for nine years.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the fantastic cast and how they would end up on the Perry Mason TV show as well. There is Denver Pyle who appeared on the show six times. He holds the distinction of being both the client and the murder victim in the last Perry Mason episode, The Case of the Final Fade-Out. There is John Dehner who was in The Case of the Sardonic SergeantRobert Griffin was in two episodes including one of my personal favorites, The Case of the Sulky Girl. There is Dick Foran who was in three episodes as the defendant and Mason’s client.  Russell Thorson was in four episodes. And finally, there is Lee Miller who was Raymond Burr’s stand-in on Perry Mason and appeared in 119 episodes as Sergeant Brice of the homicide detail. You’ll note that I didn’t mention the female lead of this movie, Angela Lansbury, who besides film and theater work starred in Murder She Wrote for 12 years.

The movie, Please Murder Me!, is now in the public domain and is available on Amazon and YouTube (which is below):