If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

As Good As It Gets

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I missed the beginning of this movie. I enjoyed Perry Mason with Raymond Burr while growing up, so I was fan of enchanted to stumble upon this movie, which I also learned is part of a series that I will now look for. I watched this on TCM. Missing the beginning scenes might be why I was left confused & missed the point of the title. One really needs to pay close attention or you'll not be able to follow it very well & I sure missed something as I was left wondering where the real Janice was - or did the fake Janice also turn out to be the real one?But one thing I didn't miss was was a production goof in which the courtroom chairs & defendant's table are suddenly empty in the midst of Mason's cross of Brownings grandson! As the camera pans back & forth from Perry to the grandson, those chairs & table are filled with people, only to become empty, then fill up again! And that scene lasts for several seconds. Quite funny!

As with "The Case of the Black Cat," this film has an almost completely new cast, including the lead. Some reviewers have panned the plot of this one, but I think it is an excellent story – and the only reason I give it six stars. But what the producers did to the plot is a mess. As with Black Cat, this is the case of a good actor just not fitting in the part. Donald Woods comes across as Wooden at times. And, again, the acting seems very amateurish, and the directing and editing are poor."The Case of the Stuttering Bishop" is one of the dozens of Erle Stanley Gardner's mysteries. All of which were made into great episodes of the Raymond Burr Perry Mason series in later years, and/or TV movies. I too enjoyed the long run of Perry Mason on TV, and the many movies through the early 1990s. But I can't agree with those reviewers who pan these early mystery films – comparing them to the later Perry Mason. I think the first four, with Warren William, were very good and highly entertaining. Yes, they were much more comedic, and not the way Gardner wrote the character. But I enjoyed the humorous approach of those first four films. Had the makes been able to stay with William and keep the humor but refined it some, I think many more of the early Perry Mason films could have been made and would have been successes. We only have to look at other films that were hits during the rest of 1930s and into the 40s. MGM had real winner with the Nick and Nora Charles films of the Thin Man series. And, William himself was excellent in some later films as detective Philo Vance and as the Lone Wolf, Michael Lanyard. I'm one who enjoyed the Raymond Burr Perry Mason, with the steadier cast over the years. But I also find very enjoyable and entertaining the earliest four the Perry Mason mysteries that starred Warren William. I think anyone will enjoy the first four films for themselves – if they don't try to compare them to the later films and TV series. Unfortunately, the last two of the early films, weren't up to the standards of the sharp, crisp and witty scripts of the first four.

This really isn't a particularly exciting or even entertaining story, but to be honest I only watched it strictly out of curiosity. I belong to a generation that only knows Raymond Burr as Perry Mason - and only in syndication, since the series was on the air several years before my time. Even in syndication, I never made a habit of watching the show, but I caught enough episodes that I associate Raymond Burr with the part, so I was curious as to how well another actor would work in the role.In this case, the other actor was Donald Woods, with whom I'm slightly familiar. He was quite passable in the role - not especially exciting (as fits the story to be honest) and very different than Burr, but passable. All the normal characters are there. Ann Dvorak was quite good as Della Street, Joseph Crehan as Paul Drake and Charles Wilson as Hamilton Burger. Like the TV series, Perry really acts more like a detective than a lawyer, and the courtroom scenes are restricted to the last 20 minutes or so of the movie and they move at quite a frenetic pace. The story itself is confusing. It deals with Mason being asked by an Australian bishop to help defend a woman accused of manslaughter many years before. The bishop then basically disappears from the story so the title is somewhat misleading, and there's questions about an inheritance and another murder. The whole thing becomes very complicated to be honest, which makes it less compelling.Having said that, it's worth watching for a look at "early" Perry Mason, and has definite value as a curiosity on that basis. (6/10)

Donald Woods and Ann Dvorak were fine as Perry Mason and his secretary, Della Street, but it took me a while to get used to not seeing Raymond Burr in the Mason role. The complicated plot involves two women named Janice who claim to be the heir to the fortune of Douglas Wood, and an Australian bishop who asks Mason to see Mira McKinney, who can prove which one is the real one. But Wood is killed going to the rendezvous with McKinney, who is charged with murder. In customary Perry Mason style, there is a final courtroom scene (in this case only a hearing) where Mason flushes out the killer and the phony Janice. I enjoyed trying to follow the plot and the comedy that was prevalent. Tom Kennedy suddenly remembers an important item when he hears the name "Sampson," because it involves a ship called "Delilah." Woods always asking Dvorak to remind him to give her a raise when she gets a good idea (a running gag). Even the bishop, who explains he stutters only when under some emotional stress, provides some comedy at the end. He sheepishly stammers "g-g-goodness g-g-gracious" when three of the principal women kiss him goodbye.