User Reviews

Another of the late-stage Perry Mason TV movies starring the inimitable Raymond Burr fighting crime and bringing justice to the oppressed in his twilight years. I always get a chuckle out of the way that Mason seems to just fall into cases and THE CASE OF THE DEFIANT DAUGHTER is no exception. He's vacationing in Las Vegas, of all places, when a brutal murder sees a suspect arrested and the man's precocious daughter approaching Mason for help.

DEFIANT DAUGHTER works well enough as an episode of the series as the plot seems to tie together better than in some of the other offerings. There's plenty of mysterious things going on here so things are never slow, and an ensemble cast helps to bring the proceedings to like. Rod Taylor-lookalike John Posey is a sympathetic fall guy and Jenny Lewis as his daughter isn't too annoying, although it would have been fun to see her namesake Juliette Lewis in the same role.

Veteran support comes in the form of Roberts Culp and Vaughn, with Kevin Tighe and Ken Kercheval joining forces as a quartet of old-timers. William R. Moses has more to do here and even though he's involved in an action scene or two, his sub-plot seems to have more to do with the actual story rather than feeling extraneous as elsewhere. Barbara Hale doesn't have much screen time but exudes warmth in her minor part, while Burr himself is full of charisma.

****SPOILERS**** Getting up in years and needing a little time to enjoy himself Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, and his eager sidekick and all around legman as well as part time punching bag in always getting himself worked over, by the bad guys, in the movie Ken Malansky, William R. Moses, decide to spend some time in Las Vages to watch the big championship fight! Sure enough Perry gets himself involved in a murder by agreeing to take the case of David Benson, John Posey, who's accused of gunning down poker and master blackmailer as well as publicist Richard Stuart, Robert Culp, who's just in the movie long enough to be both introduced, to those of us watching, and murdered. Benson who's mad at Stuart for driving his by then alcoholic and drug addicted brother Peter to blow his brains out in Stuart, his former campaign manager, destroying his both political and legal career. Benson plans to murder Stuart while he's in the middle of his by invitation only and high stakes poker game in Sin City. Of course Benson in being the nice guy that he is can't bing himself to blow the creep away but he does give someone in the card game the idea to do it instead! And have Benson take the rap for it!

With Benson being the prime suspect in Stuart's murder his only alibi is the mysterious woman that he met in the hotel parking lot who claimed she had the goods on Stuart and have him put away in the clink, jail, for a long long time! With her now gone with the wind Benson is sure to be convicted of Stuart's murder even though we in the audience, in seeing that he really didn't do it, know he's as innocent as the morning snow! It's in fact Benson's 13 year-old daughter Marlaine, Jenny Lewis, who gets the wheels turning for her pop by getting the Great Perry Mason Esq to defend him! Not by paying Perry a hefty fee but by playing on his sense of justice in preventing an innocent man from ending up convicted and on Nevada's death row!

**SPOILERS*** Using his powers of preservation as well as intimidation Perry gets those in the card game with the late Richard Stuart to come clean, by handing them subpoena, in what they know about his murder! As things turn out Perry was dead right in suspecting that one of Stuart's card playing partners was in fact the one who murdered him. Stuart had been blackmailing his poker playing partners for years and used his winnings at the card game, $75,000.00 a costumer, to trick the IRS into thinking that the ill gotten cash was the result of his winning at the poker table not his blackmail payoff money!

***MAJOR SPOILER***As it soon turned out one of Stuart's victim's had a lot more to worry about then just paying him off! There was someone else nibbling at his now fast depleted bank account and that person was the reason that he was being blackmailed by Stuart! And as it soon turned out that person was not only David Benson's air tight alibi in him not having murdered Stuart but also the one who set him up to take the rape for it!

Perry Mason and his young associate, the attorney Ken Malansky, are in Las Vegas to watch a boxing match. But wherever Perry Mason goes he always invariably ends up taking on a murder case. This time that of the PR and political spin doctor Richard Stewart (Robert Culp) and Perry defends David Benson who wanted revenge against Stewart for causing his brother's suicide as a result of his smear tactics that cost him to lose both an election to the senate and his legal practice. Since the weapon used was David's own gun and he had threatened Stewart's life, the police believe that they gave got him bang to rights. Yet, Perry discovers that Stewart's much publicised annual poker game in Vegas was actually a front for the blackmail of four of his top clients, the actor Cliff Bartell (Jere Burns), the former senator turned lobbyist Steven Elliot (Kevin Tighe), the oil magnate and real estate developer LD Ryan (Ken Kercheval) and Jay Corelli (Robert Vaughn), the director of the Corelli Car Corporation. But which one of them did it? Meanwhile, Perry has to babysit David's 13-year-old daughter Melanie (Jenny Lewis) who is terrified and determined to help clear her father, but her antics put her own life at risk and hinder the lawyer's ability to defend him properly...

A wholly enjoyable entry into this long running series with one or two variations on the routine formula. The most notable being the fact that Perry is hired by his client's teenage daughter Melanie. Jenny Lewis is quite good in the role it has to be said and her scenes with Raymond Burr's Perry Mason are touching, occassionally funny and refreshing in equal measure. Perry initially comes across towards the child as an old grouch and intolerant of her. For instance, at first he refuses to accept her case since she broke into his hotel suite and he tells her that "hiring an attorney isn't the same as ordering a pizza" before telling her that his "hectic schedule" won't allow for it. In a moving moment Melanie says "They told me why you're the best, because you keep going and going until you get the truth. What they didn't tell me was that it was only when it could fit into your hectic schedule." She starts to cry and having changed his mind he gives her his handkerchief saying "I want it back" pretending to be uncaring and with no time for sentimentality. Later at the end Malansky says to Perry "Come on, she wasn't that bad" to which he replies "Huh! That's easy for you to say." But, when he is left on his own he says to himself "No, easy for me to say" meaning that he regretted being so harsh on her.

Another standout scene has to be the one involving Barbara Hale's Della Street who plugs Richard Stewart's former personal assistant for information by using the fact that they both have one thing in common: they both worked for their respective employers for a long time and were devoted to them making it easier for Della to get her trust.

There are some notable faces in the supporting cast including Don Galloway (Burr's co-star in his other hit TV show Ironside) and Robert Vaughn from The Man From UNCLE and The Protectors. But, rather disappointingly, they have very little to do. The latter plays one of Perry Mason's suspects, for example, and he doesn't even get put on the witness stand. Galloway, meanwhile, plays a cop but he is nowhere near as good as he was as Sgt Ed Brown in Ironside.

Plot wise, the film is pretty good and you should have some difficulty in unmasking the killer before Mason does in the usual courtroom finale. The twists and turns generally play fair with the audience leading to a logical conclusion.