Poor Perry Mason
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 at 00:00
By Marcel Strigberger
After careful analysis I have come to the conclusion my childhood idol Perry Mason probably ended up an obscure bankrupt.
I recently watched another couple of rerun episodes, in between heated discussions with my bank manager, and I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Perry Mason must have gone belly up unless he supplemented his law practice income by driving taxi.
The telltale signs of a law practice in trouble were obvious in the very first scene of the counsellor's office. It was readily apparent Mason's entire practice consisted of one active case. Can anyone say they ever saw any files on his desk?
In fact the only paper in the office was supplied by his secretary Della Street, in the form of her steno pad when she was summoned by Perry to record the interview with the unfortunate client who admitted it looked bad for her but insisted she was innocent notwithstanding the fact the police found her fingerprints on the poker which bludgeoned the deceased.
At least his office wasn't too pretentious. I note he didn't even have a swivel chair, making do with a simple low back wooden seat. In fact he was often seen sitting on the front corner of his desk as he chatted with his client. I imagine this was made possible only by the fact his desk remained uncluttered by files.
I would however have expected that legal wiz to be inundated with clients, not because he was invincible but because he never asked his clients for a deposit retainer. I have watched dozens of shows and I am still waiting for him to say, "I'll need $500 up front" (this was the 1950's). Maybe if he would have gotten paid he would have been able to afford a better chair.
But if his lot was so bad, what can we say about the plight of Hamilton Burger, the District Attorney? We don't doubt he got paid, although probably not too much. You will note he always wore that same light gray suit.
And what a life! We all win some and lose some, but Hamilton never won a case. I have watched him in action carefully trying to analyze his technique in an attempt to account for his dismal record of no wins and about 7000 losses.
It's amazing what you can get away with working as a civil servant! If he were to display this type of bleak track record in private practice, after three months his partners would promote him to doing research.
Yet, if you think about it, Burger's demeanor readily matched Perry's. His "objection Your Honour", was just as sound as Perry Mason's but it was all to no avail.
I can only conclude the fault lay not with Hamilton Burger but rather with Lt. Tragg, the crusty old detective who accounted for all the arrests on the show.
In view of the fact Perry Mason got everyone of the defendants off, has anyone ever realized that Tragg must have arrested thousands of innocent people? He has to be history's worst cop. He always arrested the wrong person and then he handed the lemon of a case over to Hamilton Burger who then got tagged for the loss. Sending Burger into court with a Lt. Tragg arrest was about as fair as sending Wayne Gretzky onto the ice without a jock strap. And we call Superman the "man of steel".
But still, what made the great Perry Mason tick?
One thing I noticed is Della was always in court at his counsel table with her ubiquitous steno pad glued to her hand. Considering Perry only had one client I guess it did not matter what Della was doing.
But what happened if she was in court and the phone would ring? This was before the days of the answering machine. Nor did I ever hear an answering service get Mason's line. No wonder he only had one client. He was unreachable!
But the quality setting Perry Mason leagues above other lawyers was his never-ending ability not only to secure acquittals for his clients but also to apprehend the actual murderer. He would do this to the amazement of Lt. Tragg and Hamilton Burger.
For some inexplicable reason, at every murder trial the real murderer always seemed to attend the trial of the innocent accused. He was just asking for it, like the male courting the female spider. Invariably at the end of the episode, investigator Paul Drake walked in, whispered something to Mason and a minute later the murderer stood up in the courtroom and said, "OK, I did it, it was my poker".
After hundreds of cases Hamilton Burger and Lt. Tragg should have realized the trick was to start with the trial, then seal off the courtroom, prohibiting anybody from leaving, and then interrogate all the spectators. This technique worked wonders for Charlie Chan. Dollars to donuts says the murderer would be in the courtroom. The concept of leaving town just never occurred to the rogues in Perry Mason stories. They always came back, like a spawning salmon.
And although Perry Mason probably never made any money out of practicing law, (no doubt being the prototype of lawyers of the nineties) the California taxpayer must have saved a fortune. With Perry Mason securing not only all those acquittals but also the concomitant confessions of the real culprits, the California Court of Appeals was probably about as busy as the Maytag repairman.
After careful analysis I have come to the conclusion my childhood idol Perry Mason probably ended up an obscure bankrupt.
I recently watched another couple of rerun episodes, in between heated discussions with my bank manager, and I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Perry Mason must have gone belly up unless he supplemented his law practice income by driving taxi.
The telltale signs of a law practice in trouble were obvious in the very first scene of the counsellor's office. It was readily apparent Mason's entire practice consisted of one active case. Can anyone say they ever saw any files on his desk?
In fact the only paper in the office was supplied by his secretary Della Street, in the form of her steno pad when she was summoned by Perry to record the interview with the unfortunate client who admitted it looked bad for her but insisted she was innocent notwithstanding the fact the police found her fingerprints on the poker which bludgeoned the deceased.
At least his office wasn't too pretentious. I note he didn't even have a swivel chair, making do with a simple low back wooden seat. In fact he was often seen sitting on the front corner of his desk as he chatted with his client. I imagine this was made possible only by the fact his desk remained uncluttered by files.
I would however have expected that legal wiz to be inundated with clients, not because he was invincible but because he never asked his clients for a deposit retainer. I have watched dozens of shows and I am still waiting for him to say, "I'll need $500 up front" (this was the 1950's). Maybe if he would have gotten paid he would have been able to afford a better chair.
But if his lot was so bad, what can we say about the plight of Hamilton Burger, the District Attorney? We don't doubt he got paid, although probably not too much. You will note he always wore that same light gray suit.
And what a life! We all win some and lose some, but Hamilton never won a case. I have watched him in action carefully trying to analyze his technique in an attempt to account for his dismal record of no wins and about 7000 losses.
It's amazing what you can get away with working as a civil servant! If he were to display this type of bleak track record in private practice, after three months his partners would promote him to doing research.
Yet, if you think about it, Burger's demeanor readily matched Perry's. His "objection Your Honour", was just as sound as Perry Mason's but it was all to no avail.
I can only conclude the fault lay not with Hamilton Burger but rather with Lt. Tragg, the crusty old detective who accounted for all the arrests on the show.
In view of the fact Perry Mason got everyone of the defendants off, has anyone ever realized that Tragg must have arrested thousands of innocent people? He has to be history's worst cop. He always arrested the wrong person and then he handed the lemon of a case over to Hamilton Burger who then got tagged for the loss. Sending Burger into court with a Lt. Tragg arrest was about as fair as sending Wayne Gretzky onto the ice without a jock strap. And we call Superman the "man of steel".
But still, what made the great Perry Mason tick?
One thing I noticed is Della was always in court at his counsel table with her ubiquitous steno pad glued to her hand. Considering Perry only had one client I guess it did not matter what Della was doing.
But what happened if she was in court and the phone would ring? This was before the days of the answering machine. Nor did I ever hear an answering service get Mason's line. No wonder he only had one client. He was unreachable!
But the quality setting Perry Mason leagues above other lawyers was his never-ending ability not only to secure acquittals for his clients but also to apprehend the actual murderer. He would do this to the amazement of Lt. Tragg and Hamilton Burger.
For some inexplicable reason, at every murder trial the real murderer always seemed to attend the trial of the innocent accused. He was just asking for it, like the male courting the female spider. Invariably at the end of the episode, investigator Paul Drake walked in, whispered something to Mason and a minute later the murderer stood up in the courtroom and said, "OK, I did it, it was my poker".
After hundreds of cases Hamilton Burger and Lt. Tragg should have realized the trick was to start with the trial, then seal off the courtroom, prohibiting anybody from leaving, and then interrogate all the spectators. This technique worked wonders for Charlie Chan. Dollars to donuts says the murderer would be in the courtroom. The concept of leaving town just never occurred to the rogues in Perry Mason stories. They always came back, like a spawning salmon.
And although Perry Mason probably never made any money out of practicing law, (no doubt being the prototype of lawyers of the nineties) the California taxpayer must have saved a fortune. With Perry Mason securing not only all those acquittals but also the concomitant confessions of the real culprits, the California Court of Appeals was probably about as busy as the Maytag repairman.
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© 2007 Marcel Strigberger. This article CANNOT be copied or reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the Author.
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