Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) was on the panel of judges that rejected Lieutenant Colonel Parks' appeal against his conviction of murdering Amy Beth Sawyer (Dotty Coloroso). Eighteen months later, Mason has done some digging and has found a witness in the form of Lester McCarren (Joel Colodner) who has evidence to prove that Parks was nowhere near the murder victim's apartment at the time she was killed. However, it isn't all going to be plain sailing since McCarren is shot dead in a restaurant and somebody has cleverly planted circumstantial evidence at the crime scene to implicate Parks for this crime too. Having abducted him from the courthouse at the hearing and kept him out of the way until McCarren was disposed of, the real killer then dumped him at a spot placing the gun in his hand and dutifully informing the police. Police Sergeant Brock (James McEachin), as usual, thinks he has got an open-and-shut case. However, Mason and Della Street (Barbara Hale) investigate and reveal some shady goings on within a real estate company owned by Jason and Althea Sloan (Charles Siebert and Patty Dukes) concerning a deal they did over a plot of land with the air base where Parks was stationed. It also transpires that Jason Sloan was infatuated with the murdered girl much to the anguish of his wife and gave her a job in the family firm. In addition, part of the evidence against Parks was that he was also on friendly terms with Amy Beth as well...
All in all, The Case Of The Avenging Ace, emerges as a pretty standard entry in the series of Perry Mason revival movies. It attempts to break the run-of-the-mill formula but not in an entirely successful way. Usually Mason's clients accused of murder were old friends of the attorney's, which caused audiences to ask themselves, "How many old friends can Mason really have?". Here the film opens with a prologue set in the past where Mason was still a judge before he stepped down to become a defence lawyer again after Della Street was accused of bumping off her new employer in the very first episode, Perry Mason Returns. But here Mason had a special attachment to Lieutenant Colonel Parks' case since unlike everyone else concerned, he was convinced of his innocence, which isn't exactly original either. It finally settles down into being a fairly engaging mystery but unfortunately it falls victim to the lacklustre writing, in which at the denouement, there is a sudden twist in the story as to how the crime was committed. This is supposed to surprise us but as is all too often the case with the latter day Perry Mason films, the solution is thrown at us out of nowhere without any insight or plot logic as to how Perry Mason worked it out so we are left dissatisfied rather than surprised. In addition, predictability was also a major fault with this series since you always knew that Perry Mason would win his case and it was a problem for the screenwriters to inject any originality into his adventures.
Raymond Burr is always reliable in his courtroom scenes and it was always fun to watch him grilling the guilty party on the witness stand. The battle between Mason and the prosecution attorney, Michael Reston (played by David Ogden Stiers) who is always objecting to Mason's line of questioning towards witnesses and more often than not being overruled was always good to look at. William Katt (Barbara Hale's real life son) gets to do his usual action man bit as Paul Drake running around all over the place trying to locate somebody vital to Mason's case with a few stunts and fist fights thrown in but more often than not they added little to the proceedings. This is very much the case here even though he gets aided by Captain Terry O' Malley (Erin Gray), a colleague of Parks' at the air base , with whom he sparks up a bit of a friendship but it is insufficiently developed to be of much interest. The rest of the supporting cast act their parts competently but they don't exactly set the screen alight.
Overall, The Case Of The Avenging Ace, is really only for die-hard fans of the Perry Mason revival series as the casual viewers will only see it for what it is, a run-of-the-mill television courtroom drama.
All in all, The Case Of The Avenging Ace, emerges as a pretty standard entry in the series of Perry Mason revival movies. It attempts to break the run-of-the-mill formula but not in an entirely successful way. Usually Mason's clients accused of murder were old friends of the attorney's, which caused audiences to ask themselves, "How many old friends can Mason really have?". Here the film opens with a prologue set in the past where Mason was still a judge before he stepped down to become a defence lawyer again after Della Street was accused of bumping off her new employer in the very first episode, Perry Mason Returns. But here Mason had a special attachment to Lieutenant Colonel Parks' case since unlike everyone else concerned, he was convinced of his innocence, which isn't exactly original either. It finally settles down into being a fairly engaging mystery but unfortunately it falls victim to the lacklustre writing, in which at the denouement, there is a sudden twist in the story as to how the crime was committed. This is supposed to surprise us but as is all too often the case with the latter day Perry Mason films, the solution is thrown at us out of nowhere without any insight or plot logic as to how Perry Mason worked it out so we are left dissatisfied rather than surprised. In addition, predictability was also a major fault with this series since you always knew that Perry Mason would win his case and it was a problem for the screenwriters to inject any originality into his adventures.
Raymond Burr is always reliable in his courtroom scenes and it was always fun to watch him grilling the guilty party on the witness stand. The battle between Mason and the prosecution attorney, Michael Reston (played by David Ogden Stiers) who is always objecting to Mason's line of questioning towards witnesses and more often than not being overruled was always good to look at. William Katt (Barbara Hale's real life son) gets to do his usual action man bit as Paul Drake running around all over the place trying to locate somebody vital to Mason's case with a few stunts and fist fights thrown in but more often than not they added little to the proceedings. This is very much the case here even though he gets aided by Captain Terry O' Malley (Erin Gray), a colleague of Parks' at the air base , with whom he sparks up a bit of a friendship but it is insufficiently developed to be of much interest. The rest of the supporting cast act their parts competently but they don't exactly set the screen alight.
Overall, The Case Of The Avenging Ace, is really only for die-hard fans of the Perry Mason revival series as the casual viewers will only see it for what it is, a run-of-the-mill television courtroom drama.