...why didn't D.A. Hamilton Burger just eventually go crazy and kill himself or at least just quit and maybe open up that fishing supply store in the country that he'd always dreamed about, because Perry won...EVERY...single...case. Well, there was one episode where Perry lost, but then they figured out that the guy was really innocent, so Perry won there too, it just took more work.
My first exposure to Raymond Burr was watching him as Parry Mason when I was a child, then as disabled police detective Ironside in that long running show where he manages to continue fighting crime after being paralyzed from a gunshot wound. Thus I always saw him as the good guy. Imagine my surprise when I saw him as the heavy (no pun intended) in films like "Rear Window", "Red Light", and "Pitfall". What an actor!
At any rate, Perry here is the polite and never ruffled always suave defense attorney without a hair out of place taking the cases where the defendant looks embarrassingly guilty, usually of murder. With the help of secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) and private detective Paul Drake (William Hopper), he always manages to get the bad guy (or girl) by putting the pieces of the puzzle together, even if he has to make those puzzle pieces by hand.
This show was quite sophisticated for its time, showing, unlike many early shows or films about attorneys, that they couldn't do it all by themselves, it was a team effort. And the shows are still fun to watch today. The solution to the crime is not obvious, plus you learn some interesting things about culture and law just 50 years ago. For example, I remember one episode from the 1960's where two women exchange California drivers licenses and thus identities, and then one of the women winds up murdered! How could they just exchange licenses like that? There was no picture on a California drivers license well into the 1960's! That's how! At any rate, give the show a chance if it ever comes your way. I think you'll find it interesting.
My first exposure to Raymond Burr was watching him as Parry Mason when I was a child, then as disabled police detective Ironside in that long running show where he manages to continue fighting crime after being paralyzed from a gunshot wound. Thus I always saw him as the good guy. Imagine my surprise when I saw him as the heavy (no pun intended) in films like "Rear Window", "Red Light", and "Pitfall". What an actor!
At any rate, Perry here is the polite and never ruffled always suave defense attorney without a hair out of place taking the cases where the defendant looks embarrassingly guilty, usually of murder. With the help of secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) and private detective Paul Drake (William Hopper), he always manages to get the bad guy (or girl) by putting the pieces of the puzzle together, even if he has to make those puzzle pieces by hand.
This show was quite sophisticated for its time, showing, unlike many early shows or films about attorneys, that they couldn't do it all by themselves, it was a team effort. And the shows are still fun to watch today. The solution to the crime is not obvious, plus you learn some interesting things about culture and law just 50 years ago. For example, I remember one episode from the 1960's where two women exchange California drivers licenses and thus identities, and then one of the women winds up murdered! How could they just exchange licenses like that? There was no picture on a California drivers license well into the 1960's! That's how! At any rate, give the show a chance if it ever comes your way. I think you'll find it interesting.