RateItAll: The Opinion Network

I loved this show and watch it today...

great stories.

A pretty good show, but a little hard to believe. I can remember F. Lee Bailey on a show and they asked him if anyone had ever broken down on the stand and confressed...he said it had only happened one time! Sometimes it was boring because you always had the same team...burger and Lt. tragg for example.

i actually became more interested in this show after i met one of the writers for the show when i lived in california. he was such an interesting and intelligent man that i wanted to see some of his work. he was also the one of the writers for the george burns/gracie allen show and he had some very funny and entertaining stories from his time working with them.

Also a heck of an Ozzy tune.

Perry Mason was dramatic and interesting every week, but it was too interesting. It spawned about a million imitators, and many of them are on the air now. Looking back maybe we would have been better off culturally if Perry had lost about six cases in a row and the show folded.

Wonder what his hourly billing rate was?

Incredibly irritating and utterly predictable. Strong contender for worst crime series ever made.

As one who lived through the so-called Golden Age of TV I still share the opinion of the FCC Commissioner of the day that TV was a 'vast wasteland'. There were rare exceptions to that rule, and Perry Mason was one of them. The mysteries were well-plotted and mostly well acted, the courtroom drama was dependably satisfying, but it was the work of the five regulars, and above all Raymond Burr as Mason, that made these shows worth watching all these years later. And the other four were fine too. Barbara Hale as Della Street was the ideal secretary: beautiful, smart, and so dedicated to her work that she had no life outside her relationship to Perry and Paul Drake. Paul (William Hopper), the private eye, was a likeable and dependable adjunct, while Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins) was always a pleasure to watch as Perry's friendly police adversary. And Hamilton Burger (William Talman) was wonderful in one of the most ungrateful roles in series TV. Every week Perry would make a fool of him as, once more, Burger would be shown to have prosecuted the wrong person. Wonderful stuff. I hope they never stop running them.

How did Burger and Tragg keep their jobs after arresting and prosecuting the wrong person week after week after week after week, ad nauseum

Perry Mason is the greatest TV lawyer of all time. People don't realize that without PM and it's creator Earl Stanley Gardner (sp?) there would be no Law and Order (A show that I can't stomach). I thank the Hallmark Channel for bringing this great show back to air, and 2 hours of it! Now if they would air Ironside it would be awesome! Raymond Burr was the MAN! The way he got the criminal to confess on the stand was the best (unlike Sam Waterston's constant whining). I also loved the movies in the '80s and 90's, too, except the ones where Hal Holbrook was in it due to Burr's unfortunate passing. Nobody could be Perry Mason but Raymond Burr.

An ok show but nothing spectacular. The storylines were rather trite, repetitive and predictable. Raymond Burr played the part well, but he had better parts than Perry Mason(namely as the villian in Rear Window)

My grandmother, mother, and my uncle used to love this show so much, and for that reason I give it 3 stars. I personally thought it was too repetitious and boring. But for a show in the 60's, it was very moving I imagine. Every now and then I will find myself watching the show and can't pull away from it. :)

Cheers! to the Hallmark channel for running this classic series. Not only am I getting to watch it regularly for the first time in more than 25 years (and during daylight hours!), but I'm also seeing for the first time those latter episodes which were missing from the first syndication package. I struggled a bit deciding whether to give the show all five stars because, let's face it, the performances of some of the bit players was not exactly Shakespearian; plus even an above average episode could be tainted by a too-trite epilog ("why don't you propose to that girl already?"). It was usually in the more formulaic episodes that he more unlikely murder scenes played out, the kind in which Mason's client dazed the victim with a paperweight and ran away, whereupon the "real killer" would emerge from behind the curtain, pick up the same heavy object and bash the the poor soul's skull in. Variations on that same theme became too frequent to remain plausible, but then the cast and crew didn't wrap after only 22 episodes each season back then, they had to come up with 30 original stories. So allowing for the fact that Perry Mason was a product of its time AND that it could come through even to the end of its long run with the occasional unconditional classic episode (like The Case Of The Casual Coronary) I gladly concluded that (since I'm speaking only for myself anyway) that I could only give this show the highest recommendation and...oh shoot! I'm missing it, bye!

This show was very formulaic and predictable, hence, totally lacking in interest and suspense. Raymond Burr was a notably wooden attempt at an actor, while that guy William Talman, who played the prosecutor Hamilton Burger, acted rings around Burr episode after episode. Barbara Hale was pretty hot in her day, however...

Yes, it was orginally an hour show in the late 50's and early 60's. The color ones were later. I really enjoyed this series a lot. I still do. I am buying them through the Columbia House Video Club. Too bad they aren't being aired right now.

The original Matlock. I am afraid I only see him in the movies now. Shame I can't seem to find the reruns anywhere.

Hey! Help me out here! I always thought this was a 70s or early 80s show! The reruns I have been watching of this show were in color and it looked like 70s to me. Was there a 50s Perry Mason??? I don't remember seeing one of these from the 50s (B&W?) but since I like this so much anyway am gonna give it a "5". There just aren't enough two-hour murder mystery/courtroom drama shows these days. I hardly ever see these reruns anymore...

This show made me lose my mind. It was that bad.