Search - Perry Mason - The Third Season - Vol. 2 on DVD

A minority opinion

Music fan in the Midwest | USA | 09/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"[Note: I entered this same review for Season 3, Vol. 1, too.]

I appreciate the reasons for consumer gripes regarding the Perry Mason DVD releases. Like other Amazon reviewers, I'd like to pay less and see complete seasons rather than half-seasons released at a time.

I'd also like two-dollar gas, killer abs, and a winning lottery ticket, but they're not gonna happen either, so I'll just say here and now that Paramount has done a superb job of remastering the PM series for us diehards, and I encourage the company to stick with the project.

When I look at the quality of the prints, that the episodes have been restored in their entirety, that the episodes are generally longer than most of today's popular dramatic series, and the plain fact that paying several bucks for each episode of one of my all-time favorite shows is no big hit on my wallet when it's spread out over months and years, I'm okay with the pricing and staggered releases. (And no, I don't work for or represent Paramount, and yes, like everyone else I have only so much disposable income in any given month.)

I even bought the PM 50th Anniversary set for its extras and for the lovely Barbara Hale (sometimes joined by series producer/director Arthur Marks) providing the intros. It was worth the price and the duplication of episodes.

I expect many of my fellow Amazon reviewers will take the time to skewer me for my take on Paramount's approach, and that's okay. It's all a matter of opinion and perspective. But for me, the fact that Paramount is providing us fans with such great prints of the PM series is cause for celebration. "You get what you pay for," the saying goes, and my money is being well-spent."

4 Discs

Chuck | 09/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Season 3, Vol. 2 is a set of four discs, not 1 disc. The Amazon information is simply an error."

Rerun it again and again

G. Ware Cornell Jr. | Weston FL | 12/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perry Mason, the one hour television show displayed originally fuzzy black and white on a round screen disappeared from original telecasts in May, 1966. It lived on in re-runs through the end of the millennium and re-appeared as a series of TV movies in the eighties featuring a bearded Mason and the ageless Della.

But 1960 was a special year indeed. Firstly William Talman, who played Hamilton Burger the brilliant but hapless Los Angeles County District Attorney was temporarily kicked off the show following his arrest following a raid at a "wild nude party" in Hollywood in March 1960, resulting in a stream of appearances by lesser prosecutors. As a result he is absent from many of the episodes in this series.

Secondly the Mason series, always a home for some of the better character actors of the era, had in the second half of the season, some amazing cast members. Louise Fletcher, later to win an Oscar, plays Gladys Doyle in The Case of the Mythical Monkeys. Norman Fell, wearing a silly thin mustache, plays a character named Casper Pedley. Joining them is B-movie Diva Beverly Garland. And that is just in one episode.

These episodes are all well-written, although few lawyers ever object as Mason and Burger do that the evidence is "irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent." In "the Case of the Prudent Prosecutor" Burger actually calls Perry to defend his old friend (played by J. Pat O'Malley). In the ensuing preliminary hearing Mason exposes a corporate scandal worthy of the wall street Journal. Barbara Bain appears in another episode the Weary Wildcatter where a con man sells several hundred percent in an oil well that happens to come in.

If you love Perry Mason, this second part of the third season will be rerun as often on your DVD as Ted Turner did on WTBS."

PERRY MASON - SEASON 3, VOLUME 2.

Ron Leabeater | 01/30/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perry Mason - The Third Season - Vol. 2

I found season 3, volume 2 of Perry Mason to be of the usual high standard, and if anything I was even more enthusiastic than the previous seasons, if possible.

I trust that Paramount home video will continue to put out all of the nine seasons in the coming months. Current television programmes could certainly learn a great deal from such shows as Perry Mason with regard to its quality, presentation, interest and high acting quality. It certainly is at times hard to believe that these programmes are over 50 years old.

"