Paularoc
I have long enjoyed Warren William's films. He could play a cad as well as the witty detective. However, for me only Raymond Burr is Perry Mason. It doesn't matter to me who best represents the Mason character in the books - Raymond Burr is Perry Mason. So I did not care as much for this movie as so many of the reviewers did. That said, the mystery itself was quite good and the ending perfectly fitting and somewhat surprising. Mary Astor was particularly good. As was the dog. Leslie Howard Adams' review of the movie with its brief history of the career of the dog Lighting was very interesting and informative and is one reason I enjoy reading others' reviews - it's a fun way to learn a bit about movie history. This movie is certainly watchable but not great.
sol1218
***SPOILERS*** "The Case of the Howling Dog" is the film that introduced legendary defense attorney Perry Mason, originated on the screen by Warren Williams,to millions of movie goers and some twenty years later, with Raymond Burr in the title role, TV watchers.Perry Mason, Warren Williams, is contacted by a nervous Arthur Cartwright, Gordon Westcott, claiming that his next door neighbor Clinton Foley's, Russell Hicks, German Shepard police dog Prince is driving him crazy. Prince has been howling his head off the last two nights causing Arthur to almost have a nervous breakdown. A bit taken back on what Arthur is telling him Perry is then asked to write out his will leaving everything Arthur has, and it's a lot, to Foley's wife Evelyn! It turns out that Evelyn is not exactly married to Clinton Foley she's only living with him as a mistress in his mansion.The story get's even more complicated when later both Arthur and Evelyn, who it turns out is actually Arthur's estranged wife, disappear from sight leaving Foley to suspect that they planned this all along from the start. Perry now stuck in representing Foley's actual wife Bessie, Mary Astor, whom he dumped for Evelyn Cartwright in that legally she's the woman whom's Arthur, through Perry being his lawyer, left his estate to.Were lead through a maze of subplots in not just the connection between Arthur and the Foley's, Clinton & Bessie, but their dog Prince who's the key to what is later to happen in the film. Bessie Foley is later on the scene at the Foley's mansion where her ex-husband Clinton and his dog are shot and killed by either Bessie or someone hiding inside the house. With Foley's housemaid and what turned out to be his lover Lucy Benton, Dorothy Tree, seen by one of Perry Mason's assistants private detective George Dobbs,James P. Brutis, running from the premises to an awaiting taxi it's assumed by everyone that she may well have shot and killed both Clinton and Prince. Telling Bessie to keep her mouth shut about her being on the scene of both Clinton Foley and Prince, a dog but a murder victim never the less, murders Perry is now committed in not only defending his client but possibly, in his defending her, covering up a crime: Murder. The really out of the blue surprise ending is what makes "Case of the Howling Dog" so ahead of it's time in that it doesn't tie all the loose ends together. The surprise ending does in a very intelligent and realistic way show that the law despite being written in granite is not at all perfect and that there are times when bending it, like Perry Mason does in the film, is really the best way to get justice done.P.S The movie "The Case of the Howling Dog" is such an excellent example of Amercan, or any other free and law abiding country, jurors prudence that it was remade some 25 years later in 1959 as a Parry Mason TV crime/drama episode. The story was so ahead of it's time in depicting the pitfalls and inconsistencies of the law that even then, 25 years later, it shocked the TV audience in it's totally out of the norm, for TV and the movies, surprise ending!
rarpsl
Plot Spoiler Follows - Read at your own Risk ** * * * This is the infamous "Perry has a Guilty Client" story. It is based on the FIRST Perry Mason Story and Perry is not yet the character we are used to (he is still willing to cut corners to defend his clients - a habit he loses in later books when he defended them but did not create fake evidence or tamper with existing evidence).If you can find the movie or the book, do so and enjoy the original version of Perry Mason.
