Let's be realistic.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Perry Mason is back in court to defend a news station's co-anchor Gillian Pope (Kerrie Keane) who has been charged with the murder of her anchorman Brett Huston. There is much circumstantial evidence pointing to her guilt, but the ace attorney discovers that just about all of Gillian's colleagues had reasons for wanting him dead. They include Huston's ex-wife Twyla Cooper (Susan Sullivan) who hated him playing her for a fool with his numerous affairs. Gary Slate (Peter Jurasik), the weatherman, was angry because Huston stole his girl from him and Chuck Gilmore (Philip Michael Thomas), the sports commentator, believed that he was trying to implicate him in a drugs scandal at Briggs College. In addition, a leaked memo by Huston demanded that they all be fired from the KGGY TV news station. Huston, it seemed, had a lot of power over the station's manager Vic St John (Jerry Orbach), but why?A standard and largely to formula entry in the seemingly never ending series of Perry Mason revival TVM's. Fans of them will be kept more than happy and only people with the "If you've seen one you've seen them all" view will have any reason to complain.The story plays fair with the audience (for the most part) but at the end it falls into what was the weakness of some of the other films by throwing up evidence out of thin air without any insight as to how Perry solved it or reached that conclusion. Yet, it must be said that the vital clue that finally got Perry his man is ingenious and only somebody as observant and as eagle eyed as him could have spotted it. Without wanting to spoil it for people who haven't seen it I will confine myself to say that it involves a film, fast food chains and a discrepancy involving a neon sign. Puzzled? Watch it and see.The standard of the acting is generally of a high standard throughout, but there isn't really all that a challenging part for anyone in the supporting cast. Burr is as good as always as Perry Mason and is a commanding presence in his courtroom scenes. Barbara Hale has very little to do in her scenes as Della Street. William R Moses does his usual action man bit as Ken Malansky, which this time sees him journeying to LA to track down a TV cameraman who is a witness to a murder. In this episode, Malansky falls for a young news reporter called Cassie Whitfield (Mary Page Keller) who was blackmailed by the murdered man. Ken thinks that an explosion which killed her engineer may have been intended to kill her, but is Cassie as much of a victim or as innocent as she appears?Overall, this should delight fans of the Perry Mason revival series, but to people who are less fond of it will most probably see it as another routine courtroom drama.

THE CASE OF THE RUTHLESS REPORTER is a very ordinary PERRY MASON TV movie, watchable enough at the time but completely forgettable afterwards. Mason himself is involved in the murder at the outset, as he's axed from an appearance on a news show and the man doing the axing is subsequently found murdered. It turns out he has lots of enemies, of course, so Perry and co. must work out which of them did it. This one goes through the motions throughout and half of it seems extraneous at least, but the presence of veteran stars like Jerry Orbach and Andy Romano just about sees it through.

****SPOILERS**** By blackmailing his boss Vic St. John, Jerry Orbach, top Denver station KGGY news anchor Brett Huston, John James, has gotten practically everything he wanted. Now the low down scheming heel wants to have the entire on the air news cast co-anchorwoman Gillian Pope,Kerrie Keane,sportscaster Chuck Gilmore, Philip Michael Thomas, weatherman Al Shockly, Earl Billings, as well as his ex-wife producer Twyla Cooper,Susan Sullivan, fired by threatening to reveal their past indiscretions. With the news of Huston's latest venture,in a leaked memo, made public everyone at the station has it in for the slime-ball! It's after he's finished doing his newscast Huston is finished for good in him being found shot to death in the TV station's underground garage! It's co-anchor Gillian Pope who's picked up by the police in her not only publicly threatening Huston's life, and throwing a can of face cream at him, but being spotted at the garage, where she claimed that she wasn't, moments before the shooting. Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, taking Gillian's case feels she innocent but her lying to him about her whereabouts at the time of Huston's murder makes things far worse then better for her. Finally coming clean and telling Perry the truth Gillian admits that she indeed was at the garage the time that Huston got it but not to kill him but plead with him to get her job back. As things turned out someone got to Huston before she did and ended up whacking him with two bullets in his gut!It takes a lot of shoe leather as well as flying time for Perry's private investigator Ken Manlansky, William R. Moses, to track down a key witness in Huston's death KGGY news cameraman Sam Garza, Gary Glem, who checked out of Denver and ended up in L.A in order for him to both avoid the long arm of the law as well as Perry Mason's cross-examining him on the witness stand! Malansky finally gets the very agile and Tarzan-like vine or cable swinging Garza who in trying to avoid capture ends up electrocuting himself!***SPOILERS*** Unknown to Huston's killer Perry pulled a rabbit out of his hat on him, or her, in making him believe that Garza was killed, This shocked him to admit his crime when the "dead" Garza suddenly appeared in court to contradicts the killers testimony in that it was Garza, whom he figured wasn't around to defend himself, not him that did the killing!Another bullseye for Perry Mason as he hits his target dead center as a defense attorney by weeding out all the innocent persons, including his client Gillian Pope, who were suspected in Brett Huston's murder. Perry uncovered the truth that eventually lead to the fast food restaurant chain "Happy Hamburger" that finally implicated Huston's killer. It was at that "Happy Hamburger" joint, said to have the best and most juicy hamburgers in town, that at the end of the movie where Perry took his entire staff including Gillian Pope, with him picking up the tab of course, out for dinner.

This Perry Mason movie finds Raymond Burr defending a television news reporter who had taped an interview with him. Before airing the segment the arrogant anchor of the show had it cut from broadcast, arousing the ire of reporter Kerrie Keane.But it turns out that anchor John James as per usual in these films has a lot of enemies. But when someone puts two slugs in him in a parking garage and Kerrie Keane is arrested of course she sends for Perry Mason.As we all know guilty people just don't hire Mason as an attorney. So it's up to Burr, Barbara Hale as Della Street, and young associate William R. Moses to investigate and find the real culprit.They don't teach you to be an action hero in law school, but that's what Moses has to do to get a key witness. Then again he sees more action outside the courtroom than in as Burr traps the guilty party with the fruits of the team investigation.One thing about this particular episode, the guilty party is a bit of a surprise since it's someone the team got somewhat close to. That happens a few times in the Perry Mason films as opposed to the old hour long TV series. Then again, the two hour format allows for more character development.A good entry in the Perry Mason series, there ain't any bad ones.