Perry Mason, Redux

 When I was about 10 years old, the TV show "Perry Mason" was in high form. In our house we didn't get to watch much TV, but since Perry was shown on Saturday nights, sometimes us kids were allowed to see it.  Now I don't know what my parents thought of the show but I totally loved it. It was clear cut, black and white (not just the TV but the morals) and Raymond Burr was, in my tiny mind, amazing.  In those days you could write to the television studios in care of an actor and ask for an autographed photo of the star.  I did so and a black and white photo of Burr came to me!  Autographed, well, no, but some machine signed it and that was fine with me.

For many years I watched that show. I wanted to be a lawyer because of Perry Mason. How exciting to gather evidence, to interrogate  a possible criminal! How powerful it would be to expose the real killer in the middle of a courtroom trial, to prove a client innocent and defy Lt. Tragg, the face of injustice!

I kept that photograph of Raymond Burr for a while. I kept the goal of being a lawyer for a while as well.  Eventually that career path disappeared.

We all know that trial lawyers are not like Perry Mason, things don't proceed in such an orderly fashion, trials don't get wrapped up in two days and the guilty don't always go to jail and the innocent sometimes take their place in that  jail.

I am writing about this because the TV show "Perry Mason" is on streaming TV now for free. The episode I just watched, from Season 3, ends with not just Mason but also Lt. Tragg letting a guilty man go free.  The man is a war hero and has just a few months to live, so those in charge decide, without a word spoken between the two of them, to close the door and let the soldier live out his last months in a Vet hospital instead of prison. While this is right and just and humane, it is also wrong and unjust. Guilty or innocent, the rules are the rules. The guy should be prosecuted. 

However, it's a TV show from the late 1950's, when compassion was still to be found. 

In the end, "Perry Mason" is a good show to watch if you want something entertaining in less than an hour.  Dramatic music, dramatic courtroom dialogue and a look at the world (in a way) 65 years ago.  Check it out.