The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop

Dread And Stutter

The Case Of The
Stuttering Bishop
USA 1937
Directed by William Clemens
Warner Archive DVD Region 1

Okay, so The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop was the last of the six Perry Mason films that Warner Brothers made in the 1930s. This final one was directed by William Clemens, who had directed an earlier entry in the series, The Case Of The Velvet Claws (reviewed here) as well as directing the four Nancy Drew movies and a few of The Falcon movies too.

As seems to be the norm here with this series, the regular characters were recast again, following the original novelist, Erle Stanley Gardner, having objected strongly to Ricardo Cortez playing Mason in The Case Of The Black Cat (reviewed here). Instead, we have Donald Woods as Perry Mason, Ann Dvorak as Della Street, Joseph Crehan as Detective Drake and Charles C. Wilson as District Attorney Hamilton Burger.

And, although this is a fast paced movie, to be sure, it once again eschews most of the screwball comedy antics of many of the previous movies and is much more an attempt to do the source novel justice (or so it seems). This one follows the defence brought to Mason by the stuttering Bishop of the title and involves a woman he has to defend, who was once defrauded by a false manslaughter wrap 22 years prior and whose secret child stands to inherit the property of the millionaire who brought the charges to split up her marriage to his son, all that time ago. Meanwhile, another woman has been posing in his house as the secret granddaughter against his will and, it’s down to Perry to defend his client against the murder of the millionaire (when it happens) and also figure out who the real granddaughter was and why an imposter is in her place. And it’s a really convoluted story which, frankly, needs the quick fire pace to cram it all into its allotted running time.

There is still some humour to be found with a bumbling hotel detective who ends up moonlighting for Mason and Detective Drake, played almost completely for comic effect but, his scenes do lighten the tone and give a break in between the high stakes game which, once again, sees Perry Mason’s licence to practice law at stake, as he ends up getting involved in the shenanigans by manufacturing scenarios and stealing evidence (which seems to be something of a theme in the series, it has to be said).

At the end of the movie, though, the breakneck speed does let up as we do at least get a long court scene taking up 20 minutes or so, of the finale to the movie... in more traditional Perry Mason style. But it’s quite an impressive one in that, instead of bringing up each witness in turn, the director just cross cuts between the various people giving testimony so that the chain of evidence and the full plot is clarified in the viewers mind without any distractions... which is a nice way to do it. And, of course, in traditional court room drama style, facts about the case come to light at the eleventh hour and the real perpetrator, unknown even to Perry Mason, breaks down and confesses to save the conviction of someone else... it’s good stuff and then, further to that, even that person gets off and another murderer is found, when it turns out that the victim didn’t die from the same cause of death that was at first assumed. Although, having said that, I’ve no idea why the coroner couldn’t have established the cause of death much earlier in the proceedings, to be honest.

And that’s that. I apologise for another short review but I really don’t have much to say about The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop... other than my dad informing me it’s the one which is closest to the spirit of the novels. I’ve now seen all the Perry Mason movies that I know about and, well, I suspect I won’t be embarking on the much loved Raymond Burr TV series anytime soon. Although I might be giving the new series a spin at some point. This film is definitely one of the more entertaining entries in the series but, since I don’t know the character that well and have no stake in his ‘on screen’ representation, I’d have to say I kinda enjoyed most of these six movies, truth be told. All six can be bought on Region 1 DVD from the Warner Archive collection and, yeah, they're a cracking little set of movies.