Been watching reruns lately and I have to wonder how Lt Tragg kept his job with 9 seasons of arresting the wrong person!

But he was always there to arrest the true culprit. That makes his arrest/conviction rate about 50%. Still not good, but it was California.

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The best I can with what I got

...I'm also a fan of Perry Mason and it is certainly proof that formulaic can still be entertaining. I think I feel the most sympathy for poor old Hamilton Burger though.

It seems like Perry Mason did a lot of Hamilton Burger's work for him.

They made Perry the hero by having him clean up everyone else's mess and make it all work out in 1/2 an hour. What I'd like to know is - how did he always get the innocent client? Good script writers, probably.

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protocalldesign.com

Lt. Tragg was already an old man when that show premiered.

It’s an hour show, takes the first half hour before you even find out who’s dead and who’s accused, and very rarely do you see Perry actually get paid.

I like it because there are some interesting prosecution murder "exhibits" that generally involve a revolver as the tool of choice. I have seen some beauties including Colts, S&W mixed in with a few automatics as well. Lot of short barrel .38 caliber in that series, but some .32 as well.

I remember one episode has Colt .38 Supers.

I really enjoy those old Perry Mason shows. Head and shoulders above entertainment compared to the sewage that is on these days.

There was an old lady that took out her change purse and paid him two dollars or something like that . He just smiled and said ok that's fine .

Try to find a recognizable "character actor" from that general time period who never once was on Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, or Bonanza. Probably there are more who appeared in all three rather than those who were in none

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Y. B. Ord & A. Ree

Finding the guilty bystander is more difficult than many people realize. The innocent bystanders are very common, find them just about anywhere.

The other big challenge for cops is never being where they are needed, when they are needed there. Arranging your day to always be somewhere else at every possible moment can be very stressful.

(Tongue firmly in cheek).

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Life of the party until 8:00PM

Lieutenant Arthur Tragg – played by Ray Collins – appeared in all but a handful of episodes in seasons 1–3. Illness forced him to appear in fewer and fewer episodes in later seasons: nineteen episodes in season 4, eleven episodes in season 5, nine episodes in season 6, and three episodes in season 7. Collins continued to be billed in every episode through the end of season 8, though he ceased to appear midway through season 7

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Live long and prosper

I enjoy when MeTV's Svengoolie gives a short spiel on each actor in his featured movies. Many, and often most have appeared on Perry Mason.

It was in the script. Seriously though, it was just a great show. Have seen them all many times, still hard to remember who done it in most of them.

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No baby we aint

Barbara Hale !!!

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Many of the actors in the B movies at the time appeared in Perry Mason. Just ask Svengoolie!

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Even older, even crankier....

Perry Mason never got evolved with any woman romantically and wore a pinkie ring on his left hand.......

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

....but there were only a few 'clinker' episodes. Tragg and Burger were so adamant about their arrests it makes me wonder what happened to all the people that DIDN'T get Perry Mason for their attorney.

Interesting to note that William Talman was kicked off the show for a time after being involved in a raid on a nudie-pot party. He was rehired after Burr and the producer of the show got Erle Stanley Gardner involved in a making a public outcry for him.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I remember that there was one actor who appeared as a member of the jury in almost every episode in which there was a jury. Most episodes did not show a jury in the courtroom.

I was surprised to see Barbera Hale as the romantic lead up in a lot of old Western movies

As for Perry losing: "Mason is known to have lost, in some form or manner, three cases—"The Case of the Terrified Typist," "The Case of the Witless Witness," and "The Case of the Deadly Verdict." Mason also loses a civil case at the beginning of "The Case of the Dead Ringer," partly due to being framed for witness tampering."

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Sceva
OGCA SWCA NRA

I didn't know he was a Vice Cop in his youth!

Geoff
Who remembers.

I watched a lot of Perry Mason, with my grandmother. My favorite was always Paul Drake, the private detective. That dude was smooth.

Perry Mason was obviously not the only lawyer to ever defend a case. Berger and Tragg were successful in most of the other cases or they would have had no jobs and Perry would never have been congratulated.

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Front sight and squeeze

But his choice of clothes was not very good.

Raymond Burr was in many "B" gangster movies in the '40s and '50s (and a few westerns) long before Perry Mason; He was almost always a bad guy.

And in Godzilla...or one of those rubber suit Japanese monster movies...IIRC...and yeah...Della Street!!

I've been a Perry Mason fan since high school. I have DVDs of the entire series and most of the books. Somewhere along the way I picked up The Perry Mason TV Show Book. It is a great reference book for the history of the show and the actors in it.

Another positive aspect of the Perry Mason series was the regular presence of some very attractive actresses. One of my favorites is Leslie Parrish:



If you don't remember her from Perry Mason, you may remember her from Star Trek:



Yowsah!!

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What, me worry?

I have been watching reruns of Perry Mason also. I have noticed that there was a older lady that sets in the back row in the court. She wears glasses, a hat, and keeps her purse in her lap. She isn't in every show. The camera will sometimes zoom in on her. I figured she must be family to the producer.

Don't forget "The Untouchables."

Also The Fugitive, Alfred Hitchcock, and Twilight Zone.

There was no point in having a Jury . The guilty party always confessed .

The one thing I liked about PM was the top of the line cars and the then contemporary styles and fashions - and how clean everything was.

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Thread Killer.

Many other shows too. Lenard Nimoy, John Banner, Verner Klemperer, and Boby Troupe that I can remember now.

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No baby we aint

When growing up, Nana would always watch Perry Mason - never missed an episode and watched them over and over. Personally I can take it or leave it but have watched a few on Occassion. It's OK IMO but certainly not incredible.

After all the time I’ve spent in court over the years I can’t stand the show.

Now “Columbo” on the other hand is another one we enjoy, in fact I bought the DVD set just so we can watch it without commercials. (Even the Koreans liked watching Columbo.)

My wife and I usually watch an episode each night of Perry Mason. She records them.

Perry Mason was a classic. But you ought to read the backstory of Earl Rogers, the lawyer upon who Erle Stanley Gardner based him on. Geez! He made the fictional Mason look like a rank amatuer.

William Talman once commented about the Burger/Mason chess match saying that Burger "never really lost..." and that since both Mason and Burger were interested in justice first and foremost, catching the real culprit meant both won their cases.

If I had been Gardner, the backstory for Mason and Burger would've gone back to law school where they were friends and rivals as well as dorm mates. Their relationship would've been like many lawyers I've seen in court and similar to the coyote and sheepdog in the old Warner Bros. cartoons.

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The Last Standing Knight

and as the wife murderer/decapitator and dog killer in Hitchcocks Rear Window. Many greats in that one.

incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial!!

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No school like the old school.

I recently watched a few episodes and liked the plots and acting. I wondered where they got all the actors but I'd forgotten about B movies.
What bothered me were the problems with continuity. Several times I saw someone drive off in one car and arrive in another. It makes me wonder if they had a lot of stock footage and just edited some of it in. They also must have filmed all the episodes in the daytime because the "night" scenes have weird lighting and you can see distinct shadows.

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Fools despise wisdom.

Wasn't putting a ‘sun glass’ type lens on the camera for night scenes common for almost movies and tv back in that time frame?

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Wherever my mind isn't
Jim

Yes, they just put a dark filter over the lens. And you could see shadows in the dark scenes, clouds in the sky, etc.

The moon was very bright in the '50s, much brighter than today. Almost like daylight.

Thanks for that. I thought maybe they just underexposed it.

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Fools despise wisdom.

This.

Love the Detroit Iron they featured on the show.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

Those who weren't in a Perry Mason episode were probably busy on the set of Gunsmoke. Those two productions probably built as many careers as Saturday Night Live.

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Life of the party until 8:00PM

Many studios employed actors on contracts to use in any production they were needed. Those contract actors were sometimes rented out to other producers, generating a little revenue in return for their salaries.

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Life of the party until 8:00PM