The Case Of The Lucky Legs

Leg-ality

The Case Of
The Lucky Legs
USA 1935
Directed by Archie Mayo
Warner Archive DVD Region 1

The Case Of The Lucky Legs is the third of only six Perry Mason movies ever made (that I can find out about, surely some other countries made some?), all within a very short period during the 1930s. This one, however, has none of the experimental and sometimes sophisticated visual language of the former film, which incorporated some interesting camera movements and dissolve fades to drive the visual syntax. So in terms of film-making, this one comes across as pretty pedestrian compared to the previous entry. However, what the studio did do was push the humour they’d brought into the second film and take this fully into, pretty much, ‘screwball comedy’ mode... which is, of course, a very 1930s genre. Director Archie Mayo would, just over a decade on from this movie, direct The Marx Brothers in the final film in which all three appear on screen at the same time, A Night In Casablanca... so it could be said he was a director who had a flair, or at least an aptitude for these kinds of comedy shenanigans. However, even though I don’t know the character that well, it seems to me that trying to ‘comedy up’ a character like Perry Mason is a bad idea.

Once again, Warren William plays Perry Mason and William Jenkins returns as Spudsy Drake. There are a few other returners in terms of actors but, like the last movie, they returned to different but sometimes similar parts. One person who was new again to the series was the actress playing secretary/future spouse Della Street, the third in as many films, performed here by Genevieve Tobin. This time they’ve given her a succession of equally comic, witty lines to match Perry quip for quip so, yeah, most of the time this film rockets along merrily, so fast you feel you should maybe stand back in case the movie takes off from the screen and damages someone.

This time, the film is about the winners of various Lucky Legs contests across America. It’s a scam and the guy who brings the idea to each state takes all the money from each sponsor and, also, he leaves town before each winning lady can collect on the $1000 they won. Patricia Ellis plays one such girl, who is holed up with another former winner and they both get involved with the murder of the swindler, complicated by the presence of two meddling boyfriends and a sponsor who is also in love with one of them. Luckily for them... and their fortunate legs... Perry Mason is on the case. Not only is he almost implicated in the crimes himself but, to make the comedy shenanigans even more uproarious, his doctor has denied him to eat anything but healthily, due to a bizarrely false diagnosis being brought on by Perry sucking on a ice cube to help cure his hangover. So in addition to the sprinkling of hindering husbands and plodding policemen, we have the various comedy routines where he’s drinking milk and pilfering food from clients fridges. Not the Perry Mason I remember from those few brief glimpses of Raymond Burr in the part on the famous TV show.

Once again, the writers eschew having any kind of court scene for the film... something which I’m told was always the big feature the books would lead up to. Instead, Perry has a moving feast of suspects and law enforcers circulating from his office, to his doctor’s and then back to his office as he sums up his case and proves who the real murderer is. It’s all a bit loopy and, while I love this kind of stuff, I don’t think you’d be able to get away with something like this today and, of course, all the drama of the situation is deliberately stifled by the exclusion of the courtroom... so I can see why the writer of the novels, Erle Stanley Gardner, would be none to happy about the way his legendary lawyer was progressing in his screen adventures.

All in all, being as I have no familiarity with the character, I found myself fairly entertained and intrigued by the direction the writers were taking with The Case Of The Lucky Legs... which was mostly to make the lead character appear and act as ridiculously as possible, aided by his equally ridiculous friends but somehow still managing to save the client’s, not to mention his own, neck. Fans of 1930s screwball should have a fairly breezy time with this one, I reckon. Fans of Perry Mason... maybe not so much. Warren William would play the character only one more time after this so, yeah, I’ll watch that one and report back here to sum up my conclusions fairly soon.