As far as television courtroom dramas go this is one of the best. Anything to do with Perry Mason is usually great. Raymond Burr stars as the famous defense attourney in the two cases on this DVD. He was great on the television series and continues on these television movies to inhabit the character. I cannot picture anyone playing the iconic character better.

 

The Case of the Shooting Star:

Movie star Robert McCay (played by Joe Penny) has been friends with talk show host Steve Carr (played by Alan Thicke) for years. Tension arises between the two while Robert is making a film and, of course, it is over a woman and jealousy. At a restaurant one night Robert and Steve get into a public fight over Robert’s co-star Kate Huntley (played by Mary Kane).

 

The next day Robert approaches the props guy on the film and asks for a gun with blanks as he wants to play a prank on Steve. That night on Steve’s show Robert walks on set, unannounced on live television and shoots Steve. Only Steve is really dead. Somehow the blanks in the gun had been switched to actual bullets. Robert is charged with murder.

 

Perry takes the case to defend Robert despite the fact that he is friends with Steve’s widow, Alison (played by Jennifer O’Neill), and step-daughter, Sharon (played by Lisa Howard).  As usual, he brings in Della (played by Barbara Hale) and Paul Drake Jr. (played by William Katt) to help.

 

The Case of the Lost Love:

While at a legal conference Perry Mason runs into a former love, Laura Robertston (played by Jean Simmons), who is being considered for a vacant government position. What he doesn’t know at the time is that her campaign for the position has been put in jeopardy because a blackmailer (played by Jonathan Banks) has gotten his hands on the documents concerning her mental breakdown and treatment from seven years ago. The blackmailer has contacted her husband, Glenn (played by Gene Barry), and asked for $50,000 for his silence.

 

When the blackmailer turns up dead in his motel room and the night clerk remembers Glenn being there leads to Glenn being accused of murder. Perry comes to his former love’s aid and tries, with the help of Della and Paul, to get to find out if her husband is guilty of murder.