Perry Mason (2020): In the Service of a flabby lawyer

In the 1930s, the grass was greener and the air cleaner, for objective reasons. On both sides of the Pacific Ocean, the USSR and the USA built, in their own way, colossal powers. Prohibition and the Great Depression took no less lives than collectivization and repression, which does not prevent the current viewer from being nostalgic for the times when men dressed smartly without turning into hipsters and metrosexuals, and cute cars with a depressing amount of horsepower under the hood groaned along the roads.

God-fearing citizens did not shy away from transporting illegal swill, Catholics and Jews were especially successful. The black ones flashed smiles mostly in their neighborhoods, trying not to run into the cheerful groups of Smurfs in white caps, the Chinese squinted prudently from their chinatowns. Jazz is at the top, Sidney Bechet and King Oliver are alive, it seems that music will still be able to turn the patchwork quilt of the States into a “melting pot” for all races and religions. To her dashing accompaniment, Hollywood starlets of the nascent sound cinema are twitching, they are what half-starved hard workers need, starlets and illegal schmurdyak to forget about the existence of Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.

Earl Stanley Gardner, a lawyer from Merced, California, turned out to be a much more prolific and fascinating writer. Having published his first novel, The Case of Velvet Claws, in 1933, Gardner curtailed a successful law practice, giving himself up to writing one hundred percent with a tail. Perry Mason, also a lawyer, albeit a fictional one, has become the central character of more than eighty literary works and one of the longest-running TV series on TV.

Mason’s personality, like Holmes’ personality, was fascinating, hiding in itself the same tiny flaw as Sherlock’s: the lawyer and the detective in combination was less a living person, more a mathematical function designed to solve certain problems. To correct the character and fill in the gaps in the biography of the hero eighty-seven years after his appearance, Timothy Van Patten undertook. Director, screenwriter, producer, Tim devoured Cerberus at the gatherings of such iconic shows as “Underground Empire”, “Deadwood”, “Wiretap” et cetera.

The resulting product with the unambiguous name “Perry Mason” would be suitable for the subtitle “the beginning” or even “the beginning of the way”, but we don’t have comics here, and so it will do. In 1931, Perry (Welshman Matthew Rhys, KGB agent in “The Americans”) is a veteran of the First World War, now a private detective, who trades mostly dirty photos at the request of his boss’s clients, and Bi Jonathan, Esquire and brachiosaurus (John Lithgow, one of the most popular supporting actors for forty years).

Perry is the owner of his father’s farm, which, under the careful supervision of the offspring, inevitably turns into junk, a van with the inscription “milk” and a fatally caustic sense of humor. Somewhere on the side, Perry has an ex-wife, a small-time schoolboy and a certain uncle-with-a-mustache who looks after them. The current passion is a sultry Mexican, the dream of Pachuco Lupe, a duet with which gives the viewer one of the most hilarious bed scenes in history. Mason’s partner is his exact opposite.

Pete Strickland (Shay Whigham – Eli Thompson in “Underground Empire”) is almost an exemplary family man and jokes more down to earth, visits to whores rightly consider the costs of the profession. Pete and Perry’s dialogues, like all other dialogues, are perfectly written by people who have read not only Twitter, which is becoming a rarity in the products of Liberal States. True, Della Street (Juliet Rylance, Knickerbocker Hospital) was still made a lesbian, but secretive, as befits the era; among other things, this explains why Mason never married her in all eighty books. Yes, even Paul Drake (Chris Chalk, “Justice”) There was a Negro here… Just a Negro.

Which is not uncommon for Los Angeles, the city of fallen angels has scorching sun and pitch shadows. Terror lurks in these shadows. A baby was kidnapped from a young Dodson couple. The ransom was given, but the child was returned dead. Tycoon Herman Baggerley (Robert Patrick), patronizing the Dodsons, hires And Jonathan Bee, a lawyer and triceratops, to protect the unfortunate parents from police insinuations. The spiral begins to unwind, in the best traditions of noir, illuminating the ribs sticking out of the wardrobes and false teeth lost in the doorways.

Along the way, the drama of Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany/Maslany, benefit in the TV series “Dark Child”), a preacher and star of the largest Baptist church, is being debunked. Contrary to the slowness of the narrative, “Perry Mason” became a real hit of the HBO channel, while Nick Pizzolato, who abandoned the project, which he approached even five years ago, failed with the third season of his “True Detective”.

Competent directing, clever script, excellent selection of actors made the story of the famous lawyer’s formation close and exciting, although horns, legs and names remained from the literary source. Also, not a single Italian with a “Chicago hurdy-gurdy” at the ready appeared in the frame for eight episodes, which in itself is unique. This brilliant piece of neo-noir with elements of body horror and black comedy is recommended for viewing after midnight in the company of a permitted (hallelujah!) a drink with two ice cubes in a four-sided glass. And midnight is already here, Moon Dogs.