Perry Mason: El caso de la novia con el corazón destrozado

An interesting entry in the "Perry Mason" TV movie series. This time, Perry has to solve the murder of an unsavory interloper at a celebrity wedding. Of course, the accused, his "niece", is not the true killer. What makes this case above the norm is the courtroom fireworks and the insinuations throughout that Mason has very personal reasons for solving this paticular case.

Pop star Kaitlynn Parrish (Heather McAdam) is getting married, a major event with the press and her fans trying to get a glimpse and some gossip. Perry (Raymond Burr), a long time friend of Kaitlynn and her father Max (Ronny Cox), is at the wedding with Della (Barbara Hale) but things turn a bit awry when the groom's drunk uncle, Alonzo Hawkes (Beau Starr) crashes the wedding, angry at being kept away whilst holding an envelope claiming it will reveal all the dirt on Max. After being knocked out by a punch from a security guard, Alonzo is put in another room to sleep it off but later on is found murdered with Kaitlynn standing over him. With Perry being a family friend he sets about defending Kaitlynn and finding out who the real murderer is.

Quite an enjoyable mystery with a nice nostalgic look at 80's pop music. It's very formulaic, however there's a liveliness to the proceedings with some interesting suspects.

Heather MacAdam is discovered standing over the dead body of her uncle, Beau Starr, holding a bloody knife, with more blood on her hands and bridal gown. That's pretty damning circumstantial evidence. However Raymond Burr is a guest at the wedding. He tells her to answer no questions. Since Perry Mason is her lawyer, there's no doubt she didn't do it and the culprit will confess on the witness stand. It makes you wonder why they bother to even charge her.

It's a very good entry in the series of TV movies that Burr starred in during the last seven years of his life. Part of the pleasure is a stellar cast of actors: not only Burr, Barbara Hale as Della Street and William Moses as his investigator, but Paul Dooley as the certain-to-lose ADA, but Ronny Cox, Linda Blair and Diane Baker show up.

Mostly, though, it's a well-written show (Brian Clemmens and Gerry Conway are credited), with a lovely series of red-herring subplots to incriminate Miss MacAdam and add texture to the story. Enjoy.

A really nasty tempered drunken individual in Beau Starr crashes the wedding of his nephew and confronts the father of the bride over some ancient grudges. He gets cold cocked and put to rest on a coach. But later on Starr is found with a knife in his chest and the would be bride, Heather McAdam standing over him.

Heather's a reigning pop star like Jessica Simpson and she's marrying her own Nick Lachey in Adam Storke. But there's a whole host of suspects. However she's got one thing in her corner an 'uncle' who's a well known attorney and who never loses a case.

This is one of the few times where we get a hint of a relationship with Perry Mason and someone else. This never happened in the hour television series back in the day. Of course he's not a biological uncle, but you can draw your own conclusion as to what happened way back when with Raymond Burr and McAdam's parents, Ronny Cox and Diane Baker.

I found this film, one of the weaker Perry Mason stories. Had it not been for the bride and her fame and the fact that she was found with the body, the real motive of the crime would have been apparent from the start and the police in the person of James McEachin would have focused their attention in the right direction.

Still I do love my Perry Mason stories so.

What I found interesting and different in this one was that the courtroom scenes were all at a hearing instead of a trial. Not sure if hearings are usually this detailed, but different nonetheless. The main thing was that I amazed my wife by picking out Stephen Stills in a cameo role. Would love to know the story of how he got in this one. Thanks to Flix for showing this series often and part of the fun of watching this one and all the others is to see the use of the "latest technology" at the time, especially the "mobile phones" that are bigger than some laptops now, and the computers that are in just about every scene in the police and lawyers offices.