THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE

 

This is one of the Perry Mason films produced by Warner Bros. in the 1930s, and I caught it on Tubi last night. The Warner Bros. version of Perry Mason has very little to do with the Raymond Burr version of the character, despite the fact that Warners based their films on the Mason novels written by Erle Stanley Gardner. 

San Francisco attorney Perry Mason (Warren Wiliam) is asked by an old flame named Rhoda (Margaret Lindsay) to investigate whether her first husband, who supposedly died four years ago, is still alive. Rhoda wants to remarry, but the first husband is very much alive and attempting blackmail--until he's found dead, after a visit from Rhoda. Mason uses his wits--and some shady maneuverings--to save Rhoda from a murder conviction. 

I've read a few of the Perry Mason books written by Erle Stanley Gardner, and the main character is just like he is portrayed in the famous TV series--solid, focused, hard-working, and a straight-arrow type. For their Perry Mason movie series Warners decided to jazz the character up. Casting Warren William as Mason must have seemed like an inside joke to the studio--William was the King of Pre-Code, an actor who played fellows that steal candy from a baby, and then try to sell the treats back. William's Mason is a dandy who carries a cane, has a sardonic wit, speaks in very florid tones, and has a sideline interest in gourmet cooking. He also isn't above bending the rules to his advantage, something that must have driven Erle Stanley Gardner crazy (his novels are filled with all sorts of explanations about legal ethics). 

Gardner probably wasn't too happy about the choice of actress to play Della Street (Perry's loyal and efficient secretary) in this movie either. In this entry Della is played by Claire Dodd, who had her own Pre-Code reputation as a scheming other woman. Perry Mason and Della have an ongoing relationship in the Warners series (I believe they even wound up getting married in one of the later films). 

What makes THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE stick out is that it was directed by the legendary Michael Curtiz. To say that this movie was not up to Curtiz's talents is an understatement. Curtiz keeps things moving along at a rapid clip, and he uses a novel way to transition between sequences--the picture starts going out of focus, and the viewer is introduced to a new setup when things become clear again. 

Curtiz might have used such a rushed pace because he knew there wasn't much to the story. There's only one death in the entire film--that of Rhoda's lost husband--and the revelation of how the man died is a bit of a letdown. It's the Warners Bros. style, rather than the whodunit aspects, that makes this entertaining--the snappy dialogue, quirky characters, and attitudes of the cast members. (It must be stated that the poster shown above is far more atmospheric than anything in the film.) 

The role of Rhoda's lost husband is played by none other than Errol Flynn, in his first American film appearance. Flynn only shows up in a flashback showing how his character died, and he doesn't even get a line of dialogue. There's nothing in his screen time that would make one think he would soon turn out to be a Hollywood legend--or that he would pair with Michael Curtiz several more times in a number of classic pictures. 

The rest of the cast is filled out with all sorts of faces that make Warner Bros. films of this era so welcome, faces like Barton MacLane, Warren Hymer, Mayo Methot, and Wini Shaw (who gets to sing). Perry Mason's right-hand man Paul Drake is here transformed into a goofy mug called "Spudsy", and he's played by the ultimate goofy mug, Allen Jenkins (who has almost as much screen time as Warren William does). Donald Woods plays one of the suspects, and ironically he would wind up playing Perry Mason in THE CASE OF THE STUTTERING BISHOP. 

Warren William would go on to play Perry Mason a couple more times, but he would move even farther away from the Erle Stanley Gardner version of the character, as Warners tried to make the attorney into a Nick Charles type. William was replaced by Ricardo Cortez, who, if anything, had more of an onscreen con guy image than William did.