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The Authorship and Reproduction of a Popular Hero J. DENNIS BOUNDS (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996) reprinted by permission of the author Chapter 5 Formula and Variation in the Television Perry Mason Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, said, “This is a brand-new one, Chief.” RAYMOND BURR AS PERRY MASON Perry Mason received generally high ratings after first airing on October 22, 1957. The television series lasted for nine seasons against formidable odds. It was scheduled opposite the highly rated Perry Como Show (1957–1958 seasons), Bonanza (1959–1960 seasons), Tales of Wells Fargo (1961 season), Dr. Kildare (1962–1965 seasons) on NBC, and The Dick Clark Show (1958–1959 seasons), The Donna Reed Show (1962 and 1964 seasons), and The Jimmy Dean Show (1963 season) on ABC. During the last season, 1965–1966, Mason, secretary Della Street, and private investigator Paul Drake were pitted against Ben, Hoss, and Little Joe Cartwright of Bonanza again, which was produced in “living color.” This time it was not a battle over a legal case that America’s Lawyer finally loses, but the battle over audience ratings. After filing one last brief on May 22, 1966, Perry Mason adjourned into very successful syndication. The move from radio to television returned the visual element to the narrative that had been missing. The casting of film actor Raymond Burr provided a solid, visual Mason, with the actor infusing his character with traits that melded very smoothly with Gardner’s vision of Mason. Burr toned down his previous film work to get the role of Mason. The film that served as his calling card was A Place in the Sun (1951). In this film he played a crippled prosecuting attorney opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.2 Other notable work by Burr was his role as the wife-killer Lars Thorwald in Rear Window (1954) and as a psychopath in A Cry in the Night (1956). His tryout for the Mason role was an effort to distance himself from his typecasting as a “heavy” in both size and characterization. Gail Jackson originally wanted Burr to audition for the part of district attorney Hamilton Burger. He agreed to the audition under the condition that he could also read for the Mason role. He read the part and was asked to return after he had lost some weight.3 The actual casting of Burr is a scene that is reminiscent of David O. Selznick’s casting of Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939). In the glow of a mock-Atlanta in flames, Selznick declared something like “here is our Scarlett O’Hara.” A similarly apocryphal story begins with Gardner on the set the day a somewhat trimmer Burr returned. Supposedly Gardner jumped to his feet and exclaimed “That’s Perry Mason.”4 Although he later complained that Burr was “cow-eyed” rather than the “granite-hard” version he originally wanted for the role, Gardner generally liked Burr’s portrayal.5 Burr brought an introspection to Mason absent from any of the other versions. It is a characteristic comparable to the Mason of the novels. The conventions of the American detective genre in the early 1930s generally called for third-person narration. Although many of Gardner’s pulp stories were presented in first-person—allowing the reader to know what the protagonist was thinking—Gardner shifted his novel writing to the third person. With television—as in film and for the most part radio—the third-person is implied as the audience is removed from the mind of the protagonist. The audience cannot know thoughts, motivations, or intentions of the characters apart from direct narration (voice-overs or exposition meant to overtly reveal thoughts) and indirect narration (dialogue or actions meant to suggest thoughts). The Mason in the novels keeps his thoughts mostly to himself: That is, he rarely reveals his feelings on any subject except in a very calculated way. Burr’s portrayal of Mason is much like the novel: internal, calculated, and intellectual. Unlike the novel, though, Burr adds a mask of control and subtlety. This provides a clue to how Mason is to be understood by the audience and serves as a key variation at element two of the ever-present formula. PERRY MASON AS TELEVISION FORMULA During the 1959–1960 season each television episode of Perry Mason began with this credit sequence: As the muted trumpet strains and distinct jazz theme herald the arrival of “America’s Lawyer,”6 Perry Mason approaches the bench. He picks up a folder, opens it, and smiles to himself—knowingly. What does he see? Is the judge ruling on a motion in the intrepid attorney’s favor? Are these the final pages of the script in which Mason nabs the real killer? Whatever it is that Mason sees, it is clear from his smile that he is pleased. And so is the audience, secure in the knowledge that these opening images provide a capsule version of the story that will follow. Mason comes to the aid of an innocent citizen at the mercy of a relentless legal system, and from the moment Mason lays hands on the case, the innocent will go free and the guilty will be punished. From the manner in which he acts, Mason appears to know that. And it can be presumed that we as audience should know that, too. Perry Mason is an example of a “highly formulaic” television series that has few equals of comparable success.7 It was developed by a production company, Paisano Productions,8 which was owned by Gardner. After having refused several offers to buy television rights to the novels, and still stinging from his experience with Warner Bros. in the 1930s, Gardner established his own company in the spring of 1956 with the aid of his agent and media advisor, Cornwell “Corney” Jackson, and Jackson’s wife, Gail Patrick Jackson. Through this venture he made sure that he would have essential creative control over the material aired on television. What happened in the film studios during the 1960s affected television production in several ways. Following the Paramount decision of 1948, and the sweeping change it would have on Hollywood by the 1960s, the studios divested their theater holdings—thereby surrendering control at the point of exhibition. This reorganization, accompanied by an increase in the number of independent production companies, provided an inroad for entrepreneurs to produce program material that the studios would partly fund and distribute. Disney went ahead with its program Disneyland, which featured interviews with stars of Disney films and basically served as an advertisement for the studio and its theme park. Disney’s actions set the stage for other film studios to move into television programming as a new market.9 CBS contracted with Gardner to make the series under the Paisano name. CBS Chief Executive William Paley’s influence was felt early in the creation of the television series. Paisano had contracted with a number of writers to make a suitable series pilot. According to Ted Post, the director of the pilot “The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink,” Paley personally contacted him to work on the series. Evidently scripts were sent to both Paley and Gardner in the effort to find a suitable structure for the Perry Mason narrative on television. Post reported that Paley was unhappy with what he saw coming out of Paisano.10 The pilot was shot in October 1956, almost a full year before the series debuted. It was a success and the series sold.11 As the creator of the original Perry Mason, Gardner cared a great deal about the Perry Mason television series and its formula. Gardner recognized that a formula’s success lay in its accommodation of variation. A revealing instance that gives evidence to this recognition also illustrates the level of Gardner’s involvement in the weekly program. This occurred during preproduction work on the television series adaptation of “The Case of the Howling Dog” (1958–1959 season). In a letter, Gardner railed at executive producer Gail Jackson because the scriptwriter, Seeleg Lester, chose to use the conventional barking-dog clue. Lester was adapting one of Gardner’s original novels for this television episode, and this sequence had been a point of great pride with Gardner. He was furious that Lester changed what the author thought was a key plot point. As mentioned in the discussion of the Mason films in chapter 3, the detective identifies the murderer as someone familiar to the loyal family dog, rather than a stranger, because the dog doesn’t bark when approached. In Gardner’s novel and the Warners’ film, there is an important variation on this clue as the prosecution tries to use this clue to convict Mason’s client and Mason is able to prove that the dog in fact had barked at the approach of, and died defending the victim from, the murderer. To add another layer in the variation, Gardner revealed that Mason knew that the dog barked at his client.12 The end of the novel plays out as in the old joke about the man who notices a cute dog and asks the woman standing by the dog, “Does your dog bite?” The woman replies, “No.” The man reaches down to pet the dog, and the dog bites him. He shouts at the woman in indignation, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite.” To which the woman says, “But sir, that is not my dog.” Gardner had originally varied the clue to disprove “S.S. Van Dine’s dictum that barking dogs serving as clues have been done to death.”13 Gardner did not want any stale ideas in his series. Yet obviously, the Mason narratives resort book after book, episode after episode, to a formula that was quite recognizable. Audiences expected to see a similar program each week. With this regular presentation of the same formula and major characters every week, there is a need for variation between each episode. This is what makes up a series, something that applies to novels as well as television and radio.14 In the examination of the novels, films, and radio series in the preceding chapters, genre and formula are both seen as structural considerations. Both are concerned with the repetition of patterns that group and differentiate individual films. In television, there are added dynamics that come into play. Genre and formula serve as key transtextual conventional influences. Both genre and formula work to provide a guide, a shorthand, for the construction of stories into plots. Kaminsky and Mahan write that genre is order, and this order is neither “absolute nor exclusive.” Genre becomes a “shared perspective” between critic and audience. As a tool for the critic, genre allows for an understanding of an episode or series by creating “a context for that understanding.”15 Television emphasizes different aspects of any given genre, different from what is involved in studying film or radio. In television there appear two types of genre distinctions: genres of form and genres of content or theme. Formal genres delineate narratives according to structure of their presentation. One-hour melodramas, sitcoms, dramadies, made-for-TV movies, news magazines, and award shows are formal genres. These formal types carry their own imperatives as to how a narrative is constructed. One-hour melodramas are predominantly shot on film using a single-camera system with heavy postproduction editing. In contrast, sitcoms are either shot on film or videotape, but each system tends to use multiple-camera setups. These production conventions weigh heavily on the resulting production. Also weighing heavily are the numerous aspects of the thematic genre. Thematic genres are those that an audience is probably most familiar with because they have come down to us through the marketing of novels, films, and other narrative productions. The western, space opera, family melodrama, military comedy, and lawyer drama are all examples of thematic genres. As a thematic genre of lawyer-detective in the formal genre of hour melodrama, Perry Mason brings to production a number of predetermined product and production conventions before the individual series’ formula is presented. Whereas television genre deals with the contexts of individual series or episodes, formula concerns the internal working out of those individual contexts: The genre is the group of similar production series; the formula is the structure of the individual series within the group. Horace Newcomb considers Perry Mason to be emblematic of formulaic series television and goes on to use John Cawelti’s definition of a formula as “a conventional system for structuring cultural products.”16 He stresses that any product’s artistic merit should not be the focus of television analysis. It is not the purpose of this chapter to argue artistic merits (or lack of them) but to examine the internal workings of Perry Mason, its use of formal and thematic genre conventions, and its formula and variation as guided by Gardner. Thomas Schatz notes in his work on the genres of Hollywood that the producers of a formula must constantly “vary and re-invent” the formula while not forsaking the combination of key elements that made the formula popular.17 These were the dynamics that had to be taken into account when a television series such as Perry Mason was developed. PERRY MASON AS FORMULA TELEVISION Perry Mason is formulaic in the sense that the plots of the series remain true to a pattern set up in the novels—a pattern that, by the television series’ end 270 episodes later, is still intact. Clearly this is because its literary source is already a formulaic fiction. In fact, it is the very success of the literary stories that posed a problem for the producers of the television series: How to inject “freshness” in the series as the audience became familiar with the formula? The requirements of formula and variation in Perry Mason lead to the series’ distinctive narrative structure. This structure, as pointed out in the preceding chapters, is derived from the standard formula of the detective story. For television the formula is severely shaped by the requirements of the fifty-five minute time schedule. This viewing time is similar to that of the slightly longer Warner Bros. Mason films, and considerably shorter than the reading time afforded by the structure of each novel. Yet the formula for the television series is the same as the formula for both the novel and film series. As with the novels and films discussed in chapter 2, each episode is composed of two narrative movements: the crime and the solution. Within the television series the crime and its attendant character interactions are most noticeably variable from episode to episode. The solution tends to be increasingly invariable as it leads Mason toward the exoneration of his client in the courtroom. The use of the courtroom climax creates a common misconception that the Perry Mason television episodes always end in a jury trial. It is only in the first season that jury trials occur. For the rest of the run each episode generally concludes with one of two events. There might be a hearing by which the state, usually in the form of D.A. Hamilton Burger, presents its case to the court to determine whether the defendant should be bound over for trial. The other option would be a trial adjudicated by a judge or panel only. The confusion over the presence of a jury possibly results from where the camera is located for the course of the courtroom proceedings. It is positioned primarily to one side, giving the audience the feeling that there is a jury because they themselves are serving in the place of the jury. The placement served both an economic and a narrative function. There would be fewer extras to pay, fewer camera setups, a more flexible set, and the audience is invited to serve as guest-jury. As is customary in television production, the first episode actually shot was the pilot, “The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink,” based on a book reportedly picked at random from a shelf of Perry Mason titles, and not because of its adaptability.18 Both the writer of the first draft and the director of the pilot episode, Ben Starr and Ted Post respectively, insisted that they were not given a guide, or ‘bible,’ of how the episode should work.19 Instead, Starr and Post both intended to make a good, coherent, and entertaining freestanding work first above all else. The pilot finally aired on December 14, 1957, as the thirteenth episode. As is the case with most pilot episodes, this one is shot to convey the most impact and the greatest sense of what the eventual series could provide. It is steeped in witty dialogue, threats of bodily harm to the hero, and a final shoot out between the murderer and Lt. Tragg in Mason’s office. This episode has a courtroom scene, however it is not the location of the climax with the breaking down of the murderer by Mason. The first episode that was actually aired was “The Case of the Restless Redhead,” and it serves as a better example of the formula/variation pairing. Indeed, as a guide to writers for the series, Gardner himself identifies this episode as an ideal script.20 “The Case of the Restless Redhead” features all the principal cast members: Mason (Raymond Burr), Street (Barbara Hale), Drake (William Hopper), District Attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman), and Lt. Arthur Tragg (Ray Collins). The formula is the same as presented in the novels, film, and radio. Close examination of this episode illustrates the level of each element’s variation on the pattern as it was presented in the plot. The formula is set in motion as a young redheaded woman, Evelyn Bagby, believes she is being stalked by an eerie stranger who wears a pillowcase over his head for a disguise.21 As the hooded stranger tries to run her car off a cliff-side road, Bagby pulls a gun and fires it at him to scare him off. The viewer sees these scenes in the first few minutes of the episode, well before the first appearance of Mason, thus placing an element from the source novel first in the episode’s plot. This strategy is a key part of the Mason pattern: The series regulars do not appear until after the guest actors. Bagby contacts Mason about protecting her from this hooded man—providing the first appearance of this Mason version. Mason drives to her place, passes the cliff-side road, and finds Sgt. Holcomb and his men pulling the body of Harry Merrill from a wrecked car at the foot of the cliff. Merrill, who had stolen some money from Bagby some time before, is wearing a hood made from a pillowcase taken from Bagby’s apartment complex. Here is presented another aspect to the first element of the formula: The innocent client is either given no alibi for his or her whereabouts during the time of the killing or the television audience is given the impression that they caught the client in the murderous act. Once Mason is on the case, the movement toward the courtroom arena is irreversible and, being the Perry Mason substitute for the English detective story’s ‘drawing-room scene,’ irresistible. The client hides key information. In this case, Bagby withholds the information that the gun she used on her hooded assailant was loaned to her for protection. This bit of information identifies another aspect of the Perry Mason formula: The murder weapon as a ‘charged object’—an item that will figure into the solution of the crime. Paul is sent out to do some legwork while Della disappears to track down leads and do background work. In this case it turns out that the gun belongs to Mervin Altritch, who is about to marry the widow of Merrill, the actress Elaine Chaney. Though not in every episode, Drake and Street figure into most of the stories as assistants and facilitators for Mason’s heroic activities.22 This is the next stage of the formula: The facilitating assistants help Mason. Also, Burger—or another district attorney—presents evidence that calls into question the client’s innocence and integrity.23 The hearing invariably hinges on the ‘charged object’—in this case, Bagby’s gun, or as it turns out by now, two guns—and a point of law. Mason goes to great lengths to confuse the two guns in the eyes of the judge and prosecution witnesses. Mason hammers away at the point of law concerning circumstantial and inadmissible evidence that the gun the police have, the murder weapon, had been switched with the one his redheaded client, Bagby, fired at the hooded man. The climax occurs in a moment of interrogation by Mason.24 In this episode, Mason uncovers the real killer in court—in the gallery, watching the trial, and not hiding on a beach in Acapulco. It is none other than Lewis Boles, the motel manager who helped Merrill with his blackmail schemes, that wore the hood the night Evelyn shot at his car. It was Boles who placed the already dead body of Merrill behind the wheel, with the hood over its bullet-pierced head, and sent the car over the edge. By the end of this first episode, the Perry Mason formula’s accommodation of television media style had been clearly established. the formula can be reduced to ten narrative elements (see Table 5-1)—each of which serve the function of bound motifs in plot construction. Just as the formula remains unchanged throughout the series, so do the narrational techniques. For instance, one technique is straightforward, linear, chronological plotting, with the remarkable absence of flashbacks—a device commonly used in each of the Mason films and many of the Mason novels. In a flashback, the forward flow of the narrative stops, and an event that is purported to have taken place before or simultaneous with the current narrative is presented. Table 5-1 The Formula for the First Episode of Perry Mason
Flashbacks are common in detective films and television programs as a way of providing exposition, usually in the last act, as the detective recounts how the crime was committed. Recent examples of this occur in the 1979 film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, the British series Poirot (also adapted from the work of Christie), and the CBS television series Murder, She Wrote. In each of these instances, the flashback sequences occur most often at the end, at which time the tacit agreement is that the detective will ‘prove’ that his/her opinion of ‘what happened’ is the truth. This works effectively because the audience is accustomed to the convention that pictures never lie.25 The absence of the flashback sequence in the Mason series indicates several significant aspects to the Mason formula. The plot progresses in a single direction in time, and it links the spectator with Mason and his facilitators as they gather the information secondhand. This is a close parallel to the work of an actual attorney who concentrates on gathering ‘testimony’ (verbal retelling of events and experiences by a direct participant). This heightens the sense of a “present tense” that fortifies each presentation of the formula. With Mason as essentially the chief character upon whom our knowledge of the events is dependent, the lawyer-detective is never doubted. It is the repetition of the Perry Mason formula that connects the individual episodes to one another. Further, it is primarily the insertion of variation—the motivations for and commission of the crime, the other narrative movement—that works to differentiate one episode from another. Gardner was well aware that invention was necessary to complement and complete the conventions of the formula, having originated the formula as well as many of the plots of the series. Horace Newcomb and Robert Alley argue that television is a producer’s medium, where individual television producers or executive producers serve as the guiding force behind a series in that they hire and control the line-producers, writers, directors, and “below-the-line” craftsmen involved in each episode.26 The most successful of these producers, Newcomb and Alley discovered, are the writer-producer ‘hyphenates’ (those who officially hold two above-the-line positions in a series production). According to production records, Gardner essentially served not only as owner of the production company but as a co-executive producer. With this role he demonstrated creative authority over the series. Properly Gardner should be listed as Writer-Executive Producer for his series. However, his work in that capacity as producer could hardly be considered typical of other television producers. Besides approving the casting of the series regulars, Gardner reviewed every draft of every proposed episode as often as requested until it met with his approval. A Perry Mason episode would originate with the writing of the script, sometimes as an adaptation submitted by a free-lance writer. At other times the script was an original idea provided by the scriptwriter. Gardner usually suggested changes that involved conforming the courtroom scenes to that of proper legal procedures before going into actual production.27 Yet, just as often, Gardner would request a change in the plotting. Gardner could make his suggestions, but beyond any legal aspects, the producers of the program had no requirement to change the script in accordance with Gardner’s wishes—although they usually did. An illustrative case in point occurred in the middle of the sixth season. In an early draft of the episode “The Case of the Bluffing Blast” (air date January 10, 1963, and reproduced here in teleplay format), the progression of Mason’s line of questioning is standard. This exchange occurred as Mason concluded the interrogation of a witness: CHARLES (opening eyes) What? WHO? MASON The forgetful drunk—the person who admittedly went there to kill Floyd Grant —YOU, MR. LAMBERT! Charles tries to speak—but nothing comes out—he just stares, wild-eyed, at Mason. Mason looks at him, then: MASON (CONT.) I have no further questions—at this time.28 A memo from Gardner to Gail Jackson makes it clear that he was not happy with the cross-examination and offered some “suggestions.” Page 51: Mason’s cross-examination. I don’t like. I would prefer to have it something like this: Mason: “You went there to kill?” Answer: “Yes.” Question: “Did you intend, to then surrender yourself?” Answer: “I don’t know. —No, I wanted to get away.” Question: “Didn’t it occur to you to make an escape by blaming the crime on the defendant?” Answer: “But I had a revolver, not a club. I couldn’t have killed him.” Question: “Who says you had a revolver?” Answer: (somewhat confused) “I say it.” Mason, turning away: “Exactly. I have no further questions.”29 A look at the revised script indicates that the producers implemented Gardner’s suggestions: CHARLES (opening eyes) What? WHO? MASON The forgetful drunk—the person who admittedly went there to kill Floyd Grant. You did go there to kill? CHARLES Yes, but— MASON —Did you intend, then, to surrender yourself? CHARLES I don’t know—No, I wanted to get away. MASON Didn’t it occur to you to cover your crime by blaming it on the defendant? CHARLES But I had a revolver, not a club. I couldn’t have killed him? MASON Who says you had a revolver? CHARLES (confused) Why—why, I say it . . . MASON Exactly. You say it! (turns) I have no further questions—at this time.30 As revealed in this exchange, Gardner first complained, then offered suggestions, and the producers and writers usually complied. Sometimes they did not, as happened during the pre-production work on “The Case of the Rolling Bones.” In notes submitted on that episode Gardner complained that the legal maneuvers were “as phony as a three dollar bill.”31 The resulting episode remained as written, in spite of Gardner’s objections. In most other instances, especially as he argued for the validity of the formula, he had more success. The one narrative situation that Gardner most cared about involved the against-all-odds win. This situation would begin with the odds stacked heavily against the detective. Yet, as good triumphs through this adversity, Gardner felt that the audience would be “left with the impression that if you keep on fighting, good will triumph.”32 In each case where Gardner criticized an episode, he offered suggestions or variations in the formula. Several odd episodes that appear late in the sixth season illustrate the lengths to which both Gardner and his producers went to test the formula. The star Raymond Burr hurt his back and was out for four weeks, creating both a problem and opportunity for Paisano Productions. Instead of rerunning earlier exploits, the producers fit the Perry Mason formula with four ‘guest’ defense attorneys. The first guest detective is Bette Davis, as the widowed partner who is left to manage “Doyle and Doyle, Attorneys at Law.” Michael Rennie follows as a noted law professor and Hugh O’Brian after him as a lawyer who defends a spy. The last of this block of guest stars is Walter Pidgeon appearing as a corporate lawyer who must defend an employee.33 Davis, by the way, accepted the producer’s offer without looking at the script. In an interview before the episode was aired, Davis said that reviewing a script “wasn’t necessary . . . it’s a formula show, and I knew the formula.”34 However well she knew the formula, Davis’s appearance as the defense attorney does not disrupt the flow of the Perry Mason series. The climactic courtroom scene was shot much the same as any other Perry Mason episode. Shots of the guilty individuals are intercut as they sit around the courtroom sweating while Davis explains the steps the murderer took to commit the crime. But this time, the defense attorney is not Mason but an outsider, a variation. The fact that Davis was well known in films, her role as defense attorney in the Mason series became a variation on the second element of the formula. Although the real murderer cracks up under Davis’s questioning, the scene cries out for Burr to cast his dark, steely eyes upon the hapless confessor. The episode’s formula stays intact. Besides these four episodes, two more “guest defense attorneys” made appearances later in the series. It is not clear why Burr was absent again, but he is replaced with Mike Connors in one and with Barry Sullivan in the other.35 These six non-Mason episodes are standout failures if they were intended as possible series spin-offs of Perry Mason. Yet as attempts at recasting of the formula, they illustrate clearly that the cooperative strength of the formula/variation narrative structure works. It is the combination of the formula elements and not the identity of the detective that makes the episodes match with the rest of the Perry Mason series. The conventions established in the television series as a whole—Hale as Street, Hopper as Drake, the other regular cast members, and even the office from which the replacement lawyer-detective works from—serve to transtextually motivate the actions and presentation of any of these six episodes. In each, the facilitators function as they did in the episodes featuring Mason. Through the seventh season, with Burr back in the role of Mason, the episodes are not given as strict a test as with the Davis, Rennie, Pidgeon, O’Brian, Connors, and Sullivan episodes, and each episode follows the formula/variation structure of most of the previous seasons. This season proved to be the beginning of the series’ decline in popularity, mainly due to stiff competition from Dr. Kildare (NBC) and The Jimmy Dean Show (ABC). To Gardner, most of the scripts of the eighth season showed a lack of creativity.36 The first episode of the 1965–1966, and last, season was “The Case of the Laughing Lady,” air date September 12, 1965. Gardner complained that the “gimmick plot” of a myna bird being the source of the mysterious laughter—itself a ‘charged object’ for the course of the story—was laughable. Although not a particularly ‘odd’ episode, it is representative of the problems of the last season. Over and over in his criticism of the script was the phrase “creaking obvious plots”—always in the plural, suggesting that he was not just talking about the current script he was reviewing.37 Early in this season, CBS notified Paisano and Gardner of their decision not to renew the series. That word came in November of 1965, and the first draft of the last episode was written in early April 1966. Almost five months of teleplays and episodes were produced with cancellation clearly in the minds of the story editors, producers, and Gardner. The standard of deviation in the last season was wider and wilder than in any previous season. In the penultimate episode the general selection of character actors was skewed with the casting against type of the generally clean-cut, mild mannered Gary Collins as a crazed killer.38 Again, though the standard of deviation is widened to encompass even the most outlandish events, the formula is unaltered. In early April 1966, the last script for the series was written by the story editors, Ernest Frankel and Orville H. Hampton: “The Case of the Final Fade-Out.”39 In his critique Gardner admitted that although the script had “problems”—such as Burger going to trial without a case against Mason’s client—he suggested only minor changes to the legal aspects and the general probability of the story. “This is going to be a very weak script from the standpoint of probability, but the whole plot is wacky anyway.”40 Story editors Frankel and Hampton had picked a young writer to be the killer—who kills because his story idea was stolen by the victim. The irony is amusing because much of the philosophy behind the formation of the series is revealed. Ideas, as a perusal of Gardner’s notes and letters well suggests, were hard to come by—especially fresh ones. Even with its ‘wacky’ plot, its heavily self-referential narrative, its inclusion of cameos by all the staff and crew of Perry Mason, with Gardner himself playing the judge, the last episode still followed what I have identified as the Perry Mason formula. In looking at the resilience of the Perry Mason formula, one may wonder how formula works in other television series. Two other popular representations of the detective have surfaced on television since Perry Mason ended its run: Columbo and The Rockford Files. Each of these series establishes formulaic patterns so as to connect the individual episodes into a series. Like Perry Mason, those patterns are based on common patterns within the classic detective genre. Moreover, it can be seen how Perry Mason is unique. PERRY MASON AS GENRE TELEVISION One way of understanding the formula of any television series with as many episodes as Perry Mason—271 hour-long episodes—is in terms of genre. Within something like the rigid detective genre as a context of understanding there needs to be a balance between the familiar and the unusual that will keep the audience coming back for more. Jane Feuer writes that genre study provides “a field in which the force of individual creativity could play itself out.”41 In Perry Mason we see the individual creativity of those who worked on the production, including Gardner himself, playing successfully within the genre of detective television. Although it can be argued that Perry Mason’s rigidity emanates from being set within the legal profession, I contend that it is the combination of detective story and courtroom drama that causes rigidity. The detective genre contains the most highly structured and therefore most highly standardized formulas. No other genre is as rigid in its practice because the detective genre relies less on the development of characters and more on the ‘puzzle.’ And because Mason’s control of the narrative begins well before the opening gavel of the court session, the courtroom location serves as another product constraint. This constraint was used often and with effect. It was clear to most writers, for example, that the second half of each episode should occur in the courtroom. Laurence Marks, cowriter of the pilot, remarked that this was understood by the writers on the series because they were told that, in the radio series and the early years of the television series, “Ratings went really high as soon as you hit the courtroom.”42 In other series in the detective genre, the detective can be a professional whose job is somewhat related to the law-and-order apparatus. Such is the case with the lawyer Perry Mason. However, the detective usually is more professionally suited for the job. Two licensed detectives are private investigator and ex-convict Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files and Lt. Columbo in Columbo.43 Each of these later series owes a debt to Perry Mason in two ways. First, as one of the earliest detective programs on television, Perry Mason showed that a formula could be sustained through a multiple-year run. Second, this series showed that variation from episode to episode could keep the audience interested enough to tune in each week. Columbo aired on NBC from 1971 to 1977, with Peter Falk as the shabby, bumbling, cigar-smoking detective, and was as rigid as Perry Mason in its formula. Much like Perry Mason, each episode would begin without the title character in the first scenes. Because the audience is privy to an elaborately staged murder, and is told who ‘did it’ in the beginning, the problem facing the audience is not “Who did it?” but instead “How will Columbo solve the crime?” Because the lieutenant clearly suspects who the murderer is within the first fifteen minutes, the rest of the episode becomes a game for the audience as he slowly and methodically figures out a way to prove what he knows. Because of this, Columbo and Perry Mason may appear quite different from one another. However, with close examination it is evident that the Columbo formula is an inverted reflection of Perry Mason, not only in its formula but in its main character. Whereas Mason cuts a sophisticated and tailored figure, Columbo always has his rumpled coat, beaten car, and bumbling air while he invokes contempt from the individuals he questions—especially the killer. The lieutenant asks about things that seem to have no bearing on the case (“Tell me, off hand, how much does a place like this go for—in rent, I mean?”). And he always caps off each seemingly aimless streak of questioning with a final, direct, and usually incriminating question, which is keyed to throw off the suspect. Here the formula is as solidly constructed as Perry Mason’s. Also, just as with Perry Mason, Columbo relies on two movements to create an adequate formula/variation narrative structure. Most of the variation comes in the introduction of the killer, the victim, the motives, and the actual commission of the crime—the “problem” movement. The second, or “solution” movement, is more routine. A second example of the television detective formula is The Rockford Files, which aired on NBC from 1974 to 1980. This series is much more character driven than either Perry Mason or Columbo. Jim Rockford (James Garner) is an ex-convict who is now a private investigator, lives and works out of his trailer on Malibu beach, and takes cases that the police have closed. Each episode begins with the phone ringing at Rockford’s trailer, the answering machine going off, and a message exchange. The exchange is different every episode and usually lacks connection to the episode that follows. It serves as a cue that Rockford may miss a few cases, may not get his client off, and may not even have an innocent client to work for. And because there is a different message left by a caller each week, the audience should look for something different in each episode. This is not to say that each episode is free-formed or rolls from genre to genre as the wind might blow it. Instead, working within the detective genre, this series manages to incorporate a high degree of variation within its formula. When we apply the double-movement notion to The Rockford Files, clearly the ‘solution’ movement is not as rigid as Perry Mason or Columbo, but still it is there. The ‘solution’ movement is less rigid in order to allow for the ‘problem’ movement, here the “case” itself, to be varied from episode to episode. As in most detective genre series, there is much more variation at the “solution” stage. Rockford gets a client (an outsider or perhaps one of the cast regulars) who cannot or will not rely on the police. Rockford will use one of his many fake names, identifications, and voices to get his client out of a jam. He will get into trouble himself and, if set-upon by hoods, bodyguards, or other menacing obstacles, Rockford will recognize his limitations and either fight back or back off.44 He will lose something by the end of the episode—either his fee or his pride—but his client will have done well by having found a place in the ‘Rockford files.’ By comparing the formula and variation aspects of Perry Mason to Columbo with its rigidity and The Rockford Files with its flexibility, it can be argued that Perry Mason is standard detective genre television. Yet, it can also be identified as something different. Perry Mason can be viewed as a series in the process of generic evolution. It developed in the first through sixth seasons (1957–1963) from a rigid formula whose key elements are distilled from the novel formula and further evolved to a mannered stage by the ninth and last season (1965–1966) whose “embellishments” complement the formulaic elements. All the while Perry Mason never violated the integrity of the formula.45 THE STRUCTURE OF A CLASSIC TELEVISION SERIES Gardner adapted the two-movement narrative structure of the generic detective story into each of his Perry Mason novels. Through his Paisano Productions he further applied this two-movement strategy in the Perry Mason television episodes, allowing variation to complement formula. Knowing this relationship is key to understanding the success of the series in both its original and syndication runs. Gardner clearly valued the internal structure of the basic formula. “Tell a kid the story of the ‘Three Bears’,” Gardner said, “and the child wants to hear it over and over again. Try to change it and the kid has a fit.”46 As important components to the study of detective series television, formula and variation identify episodes as both individual narratives and as parts of a series. Perry Mason as a Commodity Beyond the confines of the episodic series, Perry Mason is only marketable as a concept in certain contexts. There is a board game based on the television series that takes two Gardner plots and allows the players to act the part of Mason while questioning the suspects in a mock trial. The two episodes are “The Case of the Stuttering Bishop” and “The Case of the Tandem Target.” The first television episode was based on a Gardner novel while the second was written originally for the small screen. The cover art is based on the television series characterizations, with Burr as Mason and Talman as Burger being the most recognizable. Yet, I found this game in a huge stack of its cousins sitting remaindered in a discount toy shop. Apparently it was not a big seller. Although many things could account for its low sales—poor market timing or too complex—this shows that the name Perry Mason is hardly gold. The Warner Bros. films, the radio program, the television episodic and made-for-television movie series featuring Burr as Mason were successful translations of the characters from prose to another media form. The success of one form of adaptation does not guarantee the success of others. It is instead the dynamics of the interworkings of the individual projects and how they manage the various motivations that make a particular work ‘work.’ Just as prominent are the failures—including The New Perry Mason with Monte Markham. This series appeared in the fall of 1973 and ran for just fifteen episodes. Markham played the title role, Sharon Acker played a blonde Della Street, Albert Stratton played Paul Drake, and Harry Guardino filled out the cast as Hamilton Burger. The series followed much of the same formula as the 1957–1966 series with one notable exception: It used flashbacks. In the episode “The Case of the Telltale Trunk” (October 14, 1973), Mason defends a man who is implicated in a murder on the basis of a tape recording of him conspiring to commit the crime.47 When he tells Mason how he planned the murder, the production makes use of voice-over narration over the images of a trunk being prepared to dispose of the body. Three individuals, including Mason’s client, were to take part in the murder. Each person’s part in the murder is illustrated by use of postproduction optical processing and different colors—red at one point, green at another, and blue at the third. This visual trickery was standard in the rest of the series. Such novelty as this was accompanied by numerous car chases and fistfights in each weekly narrative. The new series had as much in common with the police action programs of that era as with the original Perry Mason narrative structures. As I have argued earlier, the Mason character serves as the narrational guide for each episode. The New Perry Mason followed more of the classic detective formula without the same level of variation as its predecessor. Whether Gardner’s noninvolvement with the series at this point was a factor is arguable. Although much of the production staff of the original series was back for this version, crucial elements were not there. The missing elements were the levels of variation, Gardner’s script-by-script analysis, the historical context of the original television series, and Raymond Burr in the role of Mason. Considering the 1957–1966 television series, several things can be argued. The transtextual conventions based in genre give the plots their direction. The detective genre foregrounds the need for what Dennis Porter calls “backwards construction.” This type of plot construction delays revelation of the real meaning behind various motivations until the final expositions. With delay being as important to the construction as revelation, the detective genre demands an active interaction of audience and artifact.48 Plot and character motivate the use of devices in presenting the formula. The motivation of formula serves another function. Gardner’s formula was painstakingly produced in a series of charts and outlines that covered such things as the construction of story titles and the various motivations for murder.49 As the television series was developed, Gardner’s control over the character he called “one of my closest friends”50 strengthened into a single vision of how the character and series should progress. Gardner “rode herd” over the production of each script, causing the writers to feel that the work was not well-paid.51 Perry Mason as Formula Character The Mason persona is shaped in a different direction in the television series than it is in the film, radio, or novel versions. The establishment and evolution of Mason on television can be seen in two oddly styled episodes. Each is produced late in the series, and it is through their examination that the range and limitations of Gardner and Burr’s Mason can be seen. The first of these odd episodes is the only one of the series to be shot in color. In “The Case of the Twice-Told Twist,”52 several things occur. There is a strong effort to make the episode “hip” by using a strong nondiegetic jazz score throughout.53 This music, an updated and up-tempo variation on Fred Steiner’s Perry Mason series theme, permeates each scene as Mason and his facilitators try to establish the innocence of his client, Lennie. The story draws elements from Dickens’ Oliver Twist, with the actor Victor Buono as Benjamin Huggins—a Fagin-esque leader of a group of juvenile car thieves. There is even a character named Bill Sykes—also from the Dickens’ story—who kills Lennie’s girl, Robin Spring, a lounge singer. This allows for many scenes in the lounge where Robin worked, which provides motivation for the ongoing hip theme that accompanies the search for the real killer. Huggins is finally implicated by his Mexican girlfriend in the courtroom climax. The diegetic music, in the early rock-and-roll vein, seems specifically situated throughout the episode to bring in the “young crowd.” What it does instead is afford Drake and Mason scene after scene in which they look old and out of touch with the youthful decade into which they seem to have wandered. Drake looks old and outpaced as he chases a witness through an exotic-looking Mexican city. Mason just looks generally out of place. Of these three devices—music, allusions to Dickens, and color—the decision to move into color photography occurs largely in response to the competition on another network. Bonanza was produced in color and was dominating the ratings: 31.8 for the season and placing it at number one.54 It is probable that the decision to switch to color was made before the notice of cancellation was received by the production team. The idea of adding color was a logical effort at meeting the competition on more-even ground. The use of color serves another function. During the early-to-middle 1960s there was a switch from black and white to color (Bewitched; Gomer Pyle, USMC; The Fugitive) and many shows were premiering in color (Batman; Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color; Green Acres). Black and white signifies two things. First, it connects Perry Mason to the 1950s rather than the 1960s. The series becomes a holdover, a dinosaur, from the previous decade. Also, black and white costs considerably less to shoot. After the decision had been made to cancel the series, there was no reason to add the expense of color for the remaining episodes of the season. Color affects the look, narration, and even the persona of Mason. There is more attention to exterior scenes. There is space given to long traveling shots and views of Los Angeles and Mexico, something not afforded the black-and-white episodes. More attention is paid to background detail. In Huggen’s apartment, the loud velvet red tapestries and wall paper overshadow Mason’s dark blue business suit. Instead of standing out, Mason appears lost in the background. In the lounge, the decor is early-1960s Rock—a holdover from modern to late Jazz coffee houses with the addition of colorful walls and go-go dancers. Coupled with the music, interior shots at the club also identify Mason as an anachronism rather than ‘with it.’ In “The Case of the Dead Ringer”55 Mason is about to win a case for his client in a dispute over a patent. The opposing group, lawyers representing a large corporation, decide to discredit Mason before a jury. A grizzled merchant marine named Grimes, found drinking in a dockside tavern, bears a striking resemblance to Mason. After cleaning him up and fitting him with a suit, Grimes approaches one of the key witnesses in the case and represents himself as Mason. In front of witnesses, Grimes gives the witness an envelope of money as a bribe. The incident is recounted in court, and the case goes against Mason’s client. When the corporate executive who won the case is killed, Barbara Kramer, Mason’s client, is accused. Mason successfully defends the case by getting Grimes to confess to murder after trying to escape the courtroom. Grimes, also played by Raymond Burr, offers up a lively performance. Burr as Grimes speaks with a strong cockney accent, uses colorful language, and manages to spit and drool throughout much of his time on screen. This stands in relief from Burr’s years of reserved performances as Mason. It also illustrates how the introspective persona of Mason was not a natural outgrowth of Burr’s acting style. Instead, Burr’s scenery-chewing acting as Grimes recalls his earlier film work as Lars Thorwald in Rear Window. A comparison of the physical characteristics of Mason evidenced in the early and late episodes reveals distinct differences. He is larger, less physically active, and visibly older and weaker. This is attributable to Burr’s own physical changes over the course of the series. Yet on the personality level Mason’s character as presented in dialogue and action appears much more easygoing than either the novels or the film versions. In a telling scene at the close of the episode, as Grimes is held by the bailiffs as he tried to escape, he spews out angrily at Mason. Grimes points out to Mason, “If not for the fancy suit and the big talking, you and I are just alike.” As Grimes slumps in resignation, Mason simply stands there with his emblematicly stoic expression. If Mason is supposed to have any internal turmoil, it is not revealed in his face. Mason stares at Grimes, but unlike other instances, there is a passiveness in this cool stare as the intellectual power of Mason becomes mute before the physical power of the actor Burr. The physical and psychological dimensions of the Mason persona are thus seen in relief through the physical and psychological oppositions. Throughout the series Mason uses his stare and his smile as key gauges of his intellectual power. Mason is very cerebral and fights with his wits and voice. He stares down witnesses in order to ‘force’ confessions. His smile is broad when he deals with those he respects. It is very close to a smirk when trying to hide a winning hand. This range—smirk to broad smile—rarely led to a full laugh. Mason keeps most of his feelings internal, always out of range of his facilitators or his clients. In the color episode, Mason is physically out of synchronization with the background (vivid color, modern music). In much the same way, Perry Mason as a series was becoming out of place when compared to the full-color westerns and more-physical crime dramas that were gaining popularity in the early-to-middle 1960s. In the dual-role episode, Burr-as-Mason is psychologically situated in opposition to the highly charged acting of Burr-as-Grimes. This reflects Burr’s intellectual portrayal of Mason also in comparison to the growing influence of the more broadly played action dramas. The early decision to present Mason as intellectual, introspective, and physically underplayed results as much from Gardner as from Burr. The persuasiveness of genre and formula as transtextual motivations is evident in the television series. The key unifying narrative element of the formula is the Mason persona. Narrative, formula, and the Mason character are also present in the original Gardner novels and the Warner Bros. films but with different results. It is the Burr-CBS television series that finds a privileged position in the Perry Mason narrative system. To effectively analyze how this privileging of a particular media version other than the source novels as the ‘best’ version, the next chapter evaluates the comparative levels of transtextual influence on the compositional, artistic, and realistic motivations moving in Perry Mason. This is done by identifying and examining the various plot and character constructions that are used in novels, film, and episodic television. NOTES |
