Warren William returns for his third go around as Perry Mason in Warner Brothers’ The Case of the Lucky Legs, an all-out screwball affair this time around but with perhaps the most intricate of cases solved by William’s Mason.

Della's sketch of Perry

When we meet Perry this time around he one-ups Nick Charles’ chronic sousing when Thin Man alumni Porter Hall enters Mason’s office to find Perry passed out on the floor behind his desk. Hall’s Mr. Bradbury, called alternatively by Perry: Mr. Bradbottom; Mr. Bradington; Mr. Braddock; Mr. Bradley; etc; in a running joke, plays straight-man to William’s Mason in a scene not just introducing the Lucky Legs version of Mason but narrating the after-math of the Lucky Legs contest we’ve just been shown in the opening scene.

Porter Hall as Bradbury

In that scene Bradbury awards the Leg Easy Hosiery Company’s $1,000 Lucky Legs prize to Patricia Ellis’ Margie Clune, the best, I guess in 1935-terms at least, of a long line of somewhat chunky gams passing blind from the waist up under a curtain before the occasionally hootin’ and hollerin’ audience. Frank Patton (Craig Reynolds), the Leg Easy representative, immediately arouses our suspicions when upon congratulating Margie he explains that he didn’t carry the cash prize along with him because, well, it’s a lot of money and you know, it could be dangerous.

Contest for the Lucky Legs

Bradbury congratulates Margie and reiterates a standing marriage proposal while doing so. Margie has better prospects than middle-aged Porter Hall though and drifts over to her doctor fiance, Bob Doray, played by the much more age appropriate Lyle Talbot, who turns out to be stiffer than the corpse we eventually encounter: “I’ve resorted to gate-crashing,” Dr. Doray disdainfully pipes, Talbot’s voice seemingly escaping his turned-up nose. He’s entirely disgusted to find his Margie being “judged like a prize heifer.” Margie’s co-worker and jealous rival Eva Lamont (Anita Kerry) chimes in, “Yeah, she does look like a heifer, doesn’t she?” just one of Lucky Legs’ long list of comic lines. When Margie explains they really could use the money, Doc Doray storms out basically convinced that winning the contest is more or less akin to taking up work on a street corner.

Lyle Talbot as Doray and Patricia Ellis as Margie

Meanwhile outside Leg Easy’s Frank Patton is halted from his hasty retreat by Thelma Bell (Peggy Shannon), a Lucky Legs winner from nearby Wayneville, who’s still waiting to be paid her prize money and ready to squeal to the cops if she doesn’t get it.

So this is a Perry Mason movie, we’ve already met a long line of suspects before Perry’s even peeled himself off his floor, and we don’t even have a body yet. Bradbury is impressed by Mason’s skills, despite his disgust for his comportment and demeanor, and hires him on to discover what happened to Patton and the Lucky Legs money. Mason, intrigued by a photo of Margie’s winning legs, is on the case.

Meet Perry Mason

Bradbury doesn’t escape Mason’s office at this initial encounter without first meeting Dr. Croker, ironically referred to by Mason as the mortician’s friend–Croker is played by Olin Howland who was previously Perry’s coroner buddy Wilbur Strong in The Case of the Curious Bride, released earlier that same year. Croker is all wisecracks and talks just as fast as Perry, examining him on the fly and taking the harsh step of putting Perry off booze and restricting his diet, a recipe for even comedy throughout Lucky Legs. When Croker suggests milk as Perry’s new alternative to whiskey, Perry croaks, “You mean that unpalatable byproduct of the cow?”

Olin Howland returns, this time as Perry's Doctor

Allen Jenkins returns as Spudsy apparently having lost several points off his I.Q. since Curious Bride. Rather than verbally sparring with Mason this time around Spudsy’s here to be made a fool of by Mason, who throws him into fits of laughter by tickling him on more than one occasion and repeatedly warns him to duck when in the presence of his wife who typically argues by means of hurling pots and pans in Spudsy’s direction. A nice touch is Mary Treen as Spudsy’s wife as it was Treen who played the Telegraph Operator Spudsy hit on in the previous entry, Curious Bride. Could she be reprising her role and have married Spudsy in the meantime? Probably just coincidence.

Ah Spudsy. Perry phones in to Della

As usual the police are on Perry’s tail throughout Lucky Legs as Mason is discovered in several sticky spots including the murder scene not soon after we land ourselves a victim. It’s no mystery that Lucky Legs deadbeat Patton is the corpse, but just about everyone else is suspected at one time or another with evidence of the murder weapon, a surgical tool, pointing most rigidly at Talbot’s Dr. Doray. Mason spars more with the lower level police this time around, led by Joseph Crehan’s Detective Johnson and his underling, dimwitted Officer Ricker (Charles Wilson), while previous Mason foil Barton MacLane still plays it straight-laced as Detective Bisonette, but is overall much looser with Mason than his previous incarnation as Chief Detective Lucas in Curious Bride–Mason even affectionately calls him Bissy throughout Lucky Legs. The D.A., Manchester, is played by Henry O’Neill, who’s fine as usual in his usually small part.

In a humorous sequence Mason charters a plane to track down Margie, who’s fled out of town. When he tells the pilot he’s hoping to go to Summerville, the pilot enthusiastically replies, “Oh Summerville. I think this crate oughta make that,” to which Mason wisecracks, “Well that’s encouraging. Let’s try it.” Once they land Mason is punch drunk and rubbing at his mouth as though he’s just been sick. He comes to the Summerville hotel where he expects to find the recently arrived Doray and says to the clerk “The last plane brought in a man that was pretty air sick.” The clerk takes one look at reeling Mason and says “I see.”

Peggy Shannon and Patricia Ellis answer to Warren William after he raids their fridge

Inside the hotel he taps lightly at the door of the Bridal Suite to find Doctor Doray but no Margie. Mason cracks “Where’s the curious bride?” a direct reference to his previous outing. When Margie does arrive the police are not far behind so Mason concocts a ruse where he plays a doctor to Margie’s suffering patient, complete with pencil sticking out of her mouth in the guise of a thermometer. Luckily it’s yet another dopey cop whom Mason encounters and he manages to secure a ride out of town with Margie, a chief murder suspect, in a police ambulance which races them back to the airfield where they depart just ahead of some of the forces brighter bulbs.

Genevieve Tobin as Della Street, with Warren William's Mason

In my Case of the Curious Bride review I referred to Claire Dodd, a personal favorite, as the best of William’s Della Street’s. Well, my memory may have failed me as I really loved Genevieve Tobin, who’s usually anything but a personal favorite, as Della in Lucky Legs. At the least I’d call the Dodd vs. Tobin match-up a draw. Tobin, who’s previously driven me crazy in Goodbye Again (1933), a pre-code Warren William title I’ve yet to cover, among a handful of other films, takes the patrician accent that usually just kills her presence for me and spins it as naturally as possible throughout Lucky Legs where she finally seems down to earth. Whether alone in a shot, as she often is during periodic phone calls from Perry, or sharing the scene with Warren William and others, she’s intelligent, witty, and funny and even tossed out a few lines in reference to encounters with Perry which left me wondering how they flew past the Production Code. Tobin has great chemistry with William and just does a wonderful job throughout Lucky Legs.

Tobin and William again with Patricia Ellis' back to us

Perry lays out the details of the case for the benefit of all over the last 12 minutes of Lucky Legs with Dr. Croker squeezing in his final examination throughout Perry’s tale which moves from Mason’s own office over to Croker’s and back to Mason’s, with practically everybody mentioned except Talbot’s Doray and Parker’s corpse following along with Mason’s intricate telling.

I was ready to pick the case apart, not recalling the details at this viewing and expecting the typical heapings of circumstantial evidence to lead the killer to crack under pressure and give himself away. Not so this time. The clues fit together and while we’d seen most of the story Mason tells unfold throughout the picture he brings an order to it that enlightens everybody else in on the case, including us, to what we’d missed. A very satisfying ending, especially when you recall the type of unsatisfying solution I’d just mentioned and remember that it’s what was used in The Thin Man.

Warren William plays Perry Mason of Lucky Legs for heavier laughs than ever before with those lines that aren’t funny on their own benefiting from a rather biting sarcasm that William as Mason is smart enough to pull off. William also seems to bring more of a musical quality to his delivery in his comic outings stressing words in a way that would make most anything he says funny. That said I could see if someone said this was just too much–the New York Times period review did, calling him “just a bit too antic”–but I can’t imagine someone saying that who’s already a Warren William fan. If you are, and I assume you are since you’re here, William’s Mason of Lucky Legs just more William.

A mildly wolfish moment for William inside the tight confines of a phone booth with Patricia Ellis as Margie

Despite thinking William over the top, the Times did give Lucky Legs a glowing review on the whole calling it “a gay, swift and impertinent excursion into the sombre matter of murder … at once the best of the Erle Stanley Gardner collection and deserves being rated close to the top of this season’s list of mystery films.” The Times awards much of its praise to screenwriters Brown Holmes and Ben Markson, and also save extra praise for Tobin’s performance as Della.

Directed by Archie Mayo, who’d previously worked on other Warner’s fast-paced favorites such as The Mayor of Hell (1933) with James Cagney and Bordertown (1935) starring Paul Muni with the classic The Petrified Forest (1936) to come soon after, Lucky Legs keeps as quick a pace as any of those others. Mayo had previously worked with Warren William in Under 18 (1931) a film from William’s first year in Hollywood in which he had a key part supporting Marian Marsh, who’d previously starred for Mayo opposite John Barrymore in Svengali (1931).

I’ll be back much sooner next time around with my coverage of Warren William’s final Perry Mason flick, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), though I may squeeze in one non-Mason review prior to that just to change things up a little. Following are the previous entries in this series:

• The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
• The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

Or as you probably know it “the one where Errol Flynn plays a corpse.” That always kind of bugs me because while he’s not in it for very long and doesn’t actually say anything, Flynn is live and in action during the last few minutes of Curious Bride in a flashback scene. So okay, it’s a total bit part, but he is more than a corpse. Why so little Flynn? Well, it’s just his fourth film and first for Warner’s filmed in the U.S. He’d have a little more to do in Warren William’s next film, Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935) before being awarded the lead in Captain Blood (1935)* and shooting to instant stardom. Beyond Flynn himself his character, Gregory Moxley, is actually at the center of the entire case.

*Interesting sidenote regarding Captain Blood. In a letter from Warren William to Warner Brothers’ legal executive Roy Obringer dated January 8, 1935, William, while arguing about the size of his billing in an ad for Living on Velvet (1935), gripes of the “irreparable damage” the studio has done to him by, among other offenses, “reassigning other pictures that have heretofore been publicly announced as vehicles intended for me. I make particular reference to Rafael Sabatini’s “CAPTAIN BLOOD” (Warner Bros. Archives, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California). Backing this up is an item in the June 24, 1934 edition of the Charleston Gazette of West Virginia noting William is slated to play the title role in Captain Blood with George Brent and Ricardo Cortez in support (26).

Errol Flynn as Moxley

As for Perry Mason himself post-Thin Man influence takes over and injects much more comedy throughout this film than the initial entry in the series, The Case of the Howling Dog (1934). But that’s not to say that Mason and Curious Bride are a total Thin Man rip-off. The Mason of Curious Bride actually allows us our first glimpse of Warren William really getting comfortable in the role and giving us a prototype for the personality he’s to play not only in his next two Mason outings but later as The Lone Wolf as well. While Curious Bride isn’t quite as off the wall as The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935) will be just a few months later, it’s apparent from the moment Warren William appears, crab shopping with his cronies on a street corner, that Curious Bride is intended as far lighter fare than the more hard-boiled Howling Dog.

Lightening Mason up this time around is his assistant Spudsy Drake, Allen Jenkins playing about 180 degrees from his Sergeant Holcomb of the previous movie, as well as coroner Wilbur Strong played by Olin Howland. Howland reprises this role in 1936′s The Case of the Velvet Claws but in between he plays the very similar Dr. Croker in Curious Bride’s immediate follow-up, The Case of the Lucky Legs. Also on the scene is Claire Dodd as the best of the Della Street’s despite not having much to do in Curious Bride. Dodd also returns as Della in Velvet Claws, but Genevieve Tobin will take over for Lucky Legs. Need a scorecard yet? Anyway it’s the team of Jenkins, Howland, Dodd and Thomas E. Jackson as Inquirer reporter Toots Howard who help lighten the mood around Mason in this entry, and Warren William rolls with it in a performance so comfortable you can’t help but to think this is the performer in his own skin.

Perry and Spudsy tip their caps to Telegraph Operator Mary Treen

There’s also a decided Thin Man influence in the minor characters of Curious Bride, especially in escargot loving convict Fibo (pronounced Fee-bo) Morgan (Paul Hurst), his actress sister Florabelle (Mayo Methot pre-Bogart marriage), and as the film draws towards its conclusion Oscar Pender (Warren Hymer), a character who has to do some slick talking to explain his presence at the murder scene. These people seem like they left Nick and Nora’s Christmas party early in order to get out to Frisco and be within Perry Mason’s reach!

Warren Hymer as Pender, his face showing the signs of Spudsys blackjack

Of course the final scene of Curious Bride practically mimics the finale of the original Thin Man with the only difference being the suspects are gathered on their feet for cocktails rather than around a table for a meal. Mason’s techniques in fingering the murderer are exactly the same as Nick Charles’ though: a story, some questions, several accusations and eventually the guilty party cracks.

The mystery at the center of all this fun starts to unfold inside an upscale restaurant where William’s Perry Mason has commandeered the kitchen, donning apron and chef’s hat, to cook his crab legs before an audience of adoring employees. Mason ignores the all too common request of a woman calling upon him, preferring to concentrate on his cooking, until Margaret Lindsay beams at him and catches his attention. Lindsay is Rhoda, an old flame, who tells Perry a story about her friend, dubbed the curious bride by Perry, who has hopes of getting married again but first has to void a current marriage. Perry notes Rhoda twisting her wedding ring and basically winks at the story of her friend. When the maitre d’ has troubles fulfilling Perry’s wine request, Mason is forced to excuse himself to choose a proper vintage for himself, meanwhile Rhoda bolts and is tailed outside by Donald Woods who we soon discover is playing her husband, Carl Montaine.

Warren William in his cooking gear

In brief, Rhoda had previously been married to Moxley (Flynn) and married Montaine after Moxley’s death. But she now believes that Moxley is alive and in the interim she’s become seriously involved with Dr. Claude Millbeck (Phillip Reed). If Moxley can be found then that wipes out the marriage to Montaine leaving her free to wed Millbeck. When Mason pays a visit to his coroner pal, Wilbur Strong, to have a peek at Moxley’s exhumed body they all have a chuckle when it’s revealed a cigar store Indian has been buried in Moxley’s place.

Olin Howland as coroner Wilbur Strong

With Mason’s task simplified to just producing Moxley it’s no surprise that when it does find him it’s dead with a sheet pulled over him in a room full of cops headed by Barton MacLane’s cranky Chief Detective Joe Lucas (MacLane returns as a different Dectective in Lucky Legs). Now Rhoda has more than marital woes on her hands, she’s become the chief suspect in the Moxley murder case and Mason sets to work with Spudsy to clear her.

Perry talks to Rhoda with the shadows of the bars in the background

There are no weak performances in The Case of the Curious Bride, in fact my only complaint with the casting is that we could have used more of Claire Dodd as Della Street. Lindsay has a fair amount of screen time as Rhoda Montaine and does a fine job at coloring her character just gray enough to leave us wondering, all the while feeling sympathetic towards her just in case she really is innocent! Allen Jenkins is hilarious as Spudsy and steals several scenes, though perhaps my favorite is one he shares sitting on a stoop with Warren William where the two men are overcome by the tear gas Spudsy has been carrying as they say their farewells for the evening.

Spudsy and Perry break down at their farewell

Also featured in the cast are Phillip Reed, somewhat invisible as Doctor Millbeck, Rhoda’s latest prospective husband; Winifred Shaw as Pender’s (Hymer) singing sister; Charles Richman, effectively pompous as Montaine’s (Woods) father who hopes to see daughter-in-law Rhoda found guilty; Robert Gleckler and James Donlan as Barton MacLane’s underlings, Detectives Byrd and Fritz, both of whom have their moments of comedy relief; and Henry Kolker as heavy handed District Attorney Stacey who’ll go as far as legally possible to finally hand defeat to Perry Mason.

Michael Curtiz keeps Curious Bride’s overall pace as snappy as its dialogue dissolving each scene through a literal fog which can seem abrupt at times but certainly does as intended in keeping things moving briskly. Except when Perry and his gang are together most of Curious Bride is set inside tight quarters, often with Perry (or Spudsy) trapping somebody under their questioning, one exception being the airport scene which involves a lot of moving parts but at the same time does see Perry lock himself inside a phone booth with Rhoda where he can dictate his orders and keep her away from the eyes of the police.

Claire Dodd as Della Street

The Case of the Curious Bride began production January 28, 1935 and was released as a Clue Club Picture by First National Pictures through Warner Brothers on April 8, 1935. In an April 5 review the New York Times says of The Case of the Curious Bride that “the pace is swift, the solution well hidden, the comedy good and—but isn’t that enough?” I have to agree.

Timing is everything and thus here’s a series where Warren William gets to be the trailblazer. Unlike his Philo Vance and Lone Wolf, Warren William was the first to play Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason in The Case of the Howling Dog, a film released only a year after publication of Gardner’s first Mason story, The Case of the Velvet Claws.

Warren William summing up Mason's case

While we’ll see William’s Mason undergo a dramatic change as soon as the following picture, The Case of the Curious Bride (1935), his first turn at the role is far more straight-laced and much closer to what Raymond Burr would bring to the part later on when he took ownership of the Mason role on television in the 1950′s-60′s and again in the 1980′s-90′s. William’s following three outings as Mason seem distantly related, more like a preview of what was to come in the later Lone Wolf series at Columbia, but are all extremely entertaining and will also be covered in this space in posts to come.

I’m revisiting these early Perry Mason movies about a year after I’d last watched them, so they’re somewhat distant coming in and freshened up after viewing. With that qualification I’m going to write about each in a self-contained post, making no reference other Warren William appearances as Perry Mason from this point forward (With one exception regarding Allen Jenkins below). I don’t want to over generalize or simplify those titles, nor especially do I want to write anything that is proved wrong by a faulty memory. After I finish writing about each of the four William Mason pictures individually I will try to do a post summing them up as a whole. Furthermore, I’ve never read any Erle Stanley Gardner nor was I a big fan of the Burr series when it was in syndication, and so I won’t make reference to those either, only what plays out before me in each film.

While The Case of the Howling Dog opens quite effectively with the howling German Shepherd of the title, which we’re shown frazzling the nerves of neighbor Arthur Cartwright (Gordon Westcott), I’m sure I was like many a period viewer in anticipating the unveiling of Mason himself. Director Alan Crosland does a fine job of this in panning the outside of a building where window after window advertises the presence of the highly successful Mason inside. We’re then made privy to a couple of conversations inside the offices where lesser complaints are redirected to Mason’s underlings because the noted attorney has just become too successful to personally handle each case that walks in his door.

Gordon Westcott as Arthur Cartwright

The first ever on-screen image of Perry Mason comes when his secretary, Della Street (Helen Trenholme), strolls across his private office to interrupt Warren William’s Mason from some paperwork at his desk. As Della reaches his desk she launches into a description of the jittery Cartwright and his troubles with a Howling Dog, to which William, quite bored by the unusual description, says he’s far too busy for such a case. When Della insists that she feels there’s more to this potential case, Mason relents and Cartwright is shown in.

Cartwright fidgets like a junkie as he sits across from Mason describing how the dog torments him and declaring that a howling dog is an omen of death in the neighborhood. Cartwright also asks Mason some questions about putting a will together slipping in a suspicious question about what happens in the case of fulfilling a will left by a person executed by the state. Our first glimpses of Warren William’s Mason reflect what’s to come throughout most of The Case of the Howling Dog, he’s all business and quite humorless. Mason’s business sense continues to dismiss the disturbed man as a client until Cartwright’s shaky hand lays $10,000 under Mason’s nose and pulls him into the job.

Mason is not at all playful when he arrives at District Attorney Claude Drumm’s (Grant Mitchell) office to meet with the DA and Clinton Foley (Russell Hicks), owner of the howling dog plaguing client Cartwright. In fact the entire purpose of Mason’s visit appears to agitate Foley, who himself deadpans such limp insults in Mason’s direction that the character plays as unintentionally comic today. Mitchell, typically the master of playing cranky fathers throughout the 30′s, plays a cranky District Attorney this time around. While he has an unmistakable respect for Mason, the hot shot attorney has a knack for annoying him just a little bit more than he’d like to be bothered.

Grant Mitchell as District Attorney Drumm

Other characters in The Case of the Howling Dog are just as sober as Drumm. Cartwright’s housekeeper, Elizabeth Walker (Helen Lowell), is an unpleasant old lady with bum hearing. While there is an attempt at some humor playing off Walker’s disability, she’s so snippy that she drains all of the fun out of it. Across the street attractive Lucy Benton (Dorothy Tree) is the Foley housekeeper. Seemingly kind, Lucy Benton goes on the immediate defense with Mason who purposely antagonizes her in every scene they share. Of all people even Allen Jenkins plays a cantankerous character here, his Sgt. Holcomb suspicious of Mason from the first with Jenkins’ typical good nature hidden somewhere behind the ill-fitting mustache he wears in Howling Dog (Note: A far cry from what’s to come in the series for Jenkins who plays Mason’s comic sidekick Spudsy in future Mason films). Even Howling Dog’s intended comic relief, Wheeler (Eddie Shubert) and Dobbs (James Burtis), a pair of fast talking private dicks hired out by Mason, are only darkly comic. This is all as intended, The Thin Man (1934) was only finished up as Howling Dog entered production and so what was to soon be it’s widespread influence over the genre had yet to flower. The Case of the Howling Dog is meant to play straight, and it does.

More intimidating than funny, Wheeler and Dobbs

At the heart of The Case of the Howling Dog is the case which spins off of Cartwright’s original complaint. When Bessie Foley (Mary Astor) arrives to confront her husband an irate Clinton Foley unleashes the vicious German Shepherd upon her before approaching himself with intent to stab his wife with a letter opener–both Foley and the dog are shot dead. Bessie Foley denies any wrongdoing and sure enough a door to the garden some distance from Mrs. Foley slammed shut immediately after the shots were fired. After original client Cartwright disappears Mason is left working for the person he has bequeathed the major portion of his fortune to: Bessie Foley!

If this sounds confusing on the page I can only say the film itself benefits from multiple viewings as some of the details can be confusing. Until now I’ve left out the fact that Cartwright’s will originally left his holdings to the woman known as Mrs. Clinton Foley living at Foley’s address only to be later changed to the woman legally wed to Clinton Foley, two entirely different women as defined from the start. With characters disappearing throughout most of the build-up to the on-screen arrival of Mary Astor, her Bessie Foley is actually by this point the only character left for Mason to defend.

Mary Astor as Bessie Foley

One of the stronger scenes in The Case of the Howling Dog comes when Mason pays a visit to Bessie Foley and not only confirms that her fear of going to prison is about to come true but explains that he has actually caused it by coming into possession of a handkerchief she had left inside the cab that took her to confront her husband on the night of his murder. After using Della to secure the handkerchief from the cabbie Mason turned the evidence over to the police. The incriminating hankie placed Bessie Foley at the scene of the murder and sure enough leads to her arrest while Mason is at her apartment explaining his actions to her. Bessie Foley is left wondering why her attorney would hand over evidence which would lock her away, and while Mason does not explain at this time it’s no great surprise that the handkerchief would play a major role in his courtroom defense at the climax of Howling Dog.

Very reserved, Mary Astor makes her Bessie Foley one of the more interesting aspects of The Case of the Howling Dog. Second billed Astor doesn’t show up until after we’ve met everyone else in the cast, far enough along into the movie that you’ve practically forgotten she’s even going to be in it! When she does finally appear it’s as part of the confusing Clinton Foley murder scene, one which I was sure she was responsible for during my first viewing and not entirely convinced in later viewings. Other than the handkerchief scene, in which she practically jumps out of a window to avoid capture until Mason tells her to go along with the police, she brings no color to Bessie Foley at all, and this is on purpose as throughout the major portion of the picture we’re not supposed to be entirely sure as to whether Bessie pulled the trigger or not. William’s Mason keeps Astor from projecting any of her personality throughout the film with one missive, his key to her staying out of the electric chair and best summed up by Mason himself at the jailhouse during another excellent scene between the two when he tells her, “No one ever got into trouble by not talking to much.” She’s clammed up throughout, only allowed to give away a hint of her guilt or innocence inside Mason’s office, in front of only Mason, Della, and us, after her trial.

Warren William's Mason with the first Della Street, Helen Trenholme

Perry Mason has perhaps his lightest moment in The Case of the Howling Dog in this final scene after Bessie Foley exits his office and Della puts together what actually happened.

While clearly not as hard-boiled as some of the mysteries playing in later years, nor attempting any of the humor of those Thin Man influenced titles more immediately to follow, The Case of the Howling Dog does just fine in delivering a story that progresses from what feels like a series of potential red herrings to an intriguing mystery we’re anxious for the adroit Mason to unravel for us.

Get your preferred recording devices ready, there’s actually A LOT of Warren William airing on TCM this week!

First up, he’s Caesar tomorrow night in Cecil B. De Mille’s “Cleopatra” at 12:45 am EST (That’s actually very early Tuesday morning so as not to confuse). I don’t know if you’ve been checking it out, but I’ve been posting several of the TCM daily schedules with movie collectibles as illustration over in my spot on the Examiner.com. You may have the schedules already, but the images are the added bonus.

Then Wednesday, July 1, starting at 9:30 am, TCM is airing 6 of the 1930′s Perry Mason movies, the first four of which star Warren William in the title role. That schedule, again, all times Eastern:

• 9:30 am “The Case of the Howling Dog” (1934)
• 11:00 am “The Case of the Curious Bride” (1935)
• 12:30 pm “The Case of the Lucky Legs” (1935)
• 2:00 pm “The Case of the Velvet Claws” (1936)

I actually watched “The Case of the Lucky Legs” over the weekend with the intention of writing it up for the Examiner prior to Wednesday’s airing, but with that just 3 days off and another critical viewing required before I attempt to touch it, I’m not sure if I’ll beat TCM to the title or not. More than likely not, but I’ll try. Obviously I’ll link that up over here if and when I do get to it.

Enjoy them while you can, the next appearance Warren William makes on TCM won’t be until a July 17th airing of “The Man in the Iron Mask” (1939). Happy viewing –

Cliff

Warren William as Julius Caesar in Cleopatra

Thanks to a little Perry Mason run, Turner Classic Movies is going to do a little better by us Warren William fans in the early Summer than it did through the Spring.

If you’re interested in the complete rundown here are TCM’s schedules for June 2009 and July 2009.  Warren William highlights follow:

June 29 – 12:45 AM (early morning of the 30th actually) – Cleopatra (1934) – Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) gets more camera time, but Warren William is playing Julius Caesar, which is nothing to sneeze at!  Looks like Cleopatra is part of a Cecil B. DeMille night that starts at 8.

July 1 – Here we go, Perry Mason all morning and into the afternoon on Wednesday the 1st.

9:30 am – The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)
11:00 am – The Case of the Curious Bride (1935) Michael Curtiz directs this one
12:30 pm – The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935)
2:00 pm – The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936) With Claire Dodd as Della Street

Note: Following the Warren William Perry Mason movies you also have a chance to check out Ricardo Cortez (The Case of the Black Cat – 1936) and Donald Woods (The Case of the Stuttering Bishop – 1937) in the role as well.

July 17 – 9:45 am The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) Okay, TCM really likes this one.  It seems to be on once per month.

July 25 – 10:00 pm The Firefly (1937) starring Jeanette MacDonald.  Even my DVR will be lit up here, don’t believe I have this one and I know I haven’t watched it if I do.

And while there’s no WW as Philo Vance on in June or July, I figured I’d share this still from The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939) that I picked up in an eBay auction recently:

The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939)