Perry Mason: The Case of the Ruthless Reporter

Perry Mason is at a TV station for an interview. When the star reporter is killed, the police quickly settle on who the murderer is. However, he's smart enough to get Perry as his lawyer, which means that he didn't do it, that there are plenty of people with as good a motive and that Perry will badger one into confessing on the witness stand in this passable but not outstanding entry into the TV movie series starring Raymond Burr as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer-sleuth that began a quarter of a century after the long-running TV series ended.

Burr is back as Perry, Barbara Hale as girl Friday Della Street, as well as William Moses, as his legal associate and field investigator. Jerry Ohrbach shows up as the manager of the TV station, but after that the list of guest stars grows a little thin. The background is the dirty politics of a news station and while the actual murderer is a bit of surprise, director Christian I. Nyby II seems to have to slow down the cutting to make this one come out to its wonted length.