Perry Mason: The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host (1993 TV Movie) User Reviews

When Talk Turns Into Action

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 14 October 2008]

Raymond Burr and the team are called in to defend Mariette Hartley, a friend of Barbara Hale's who is a psychologist with call in talk show on a talk radio station run by Regis Philbin. When Philbin is shot to death, Hartley is arrested for his murder.

One big problem with Perry Mason: The Case Of The Telltale Talk Show Host is the casting of Regis Philbin as the victim. Of course as they go in Perry Mason movies there are loads of alternative suspects. Philbin was going to revamp his whole station format and that got all of his stars very upset. Now Regis is a great host of a talk show himself, but as a no good slime bag of a station owner, well let's face it, the man is not an actor.

In this episode we see who murders Philbin, it's a contract killing and Hartley is rather elaborately framed for the crime. The hit-man however can't get to his money right away and as it turns out he's one unstable fellow. I would think you would need better nerves for that line of work. Anyway his instability gives away the individual who hires him. In fact the very elaborateness of the crime should give you some idea of the murderer if you look down the cast list.

Still it's a good entry in the Mason series, but I really would not have cast someone with that big a reputation as a nice guy as the mean victim, especially not someone who couldn't be mean on screen if he tried.

I liked it

[cleverfox · 7/10 · 31 December 2009]

I've been a Perry Mason fan since the original B&W TV series in the '60s. That being said, I enjoyed the re-introduction of the Burr character with the series of made for TV Mason movies of which, sadly, this was among the last.

As has already been mentioned by others, the formula was getting a little old. In this show, as in several others, there were so many characters introduced in the opening several minutes to whom the victim was so rude and mean that killing them was an obvious solution, that it reached ridiculous levels. What was even more ridiculous was Lt Brock immediately seizing upon the fact that the good doctor was the only viable suspect. Yeah, I know that other evidence was presented which supported the theory that the doc did the killing but even dedicated cops are supposed to fully investigate all aspects of active cases. Sorry, but he was too quick to jump on the obvious evidence and too aggressive at ignoring and discounting alternative theories. This was evident not only in this episode but several others around the same time, as well. This made Brock not only annoying but irresponsible as well. In the Perry Mason universe - He likely would never actually investigate a case which ever got successfully prosecuted due to his incompetence!

Who Wanted To Kill Regis Philbin Besides Me?

[boblipton · 7/10 · 11 February 2019]

Mariette Hartley is being pestered by someone, so she calls in old friend Raymond Burr for advice, legal and personal. When Regis Philbin, her boss at the talk radio channel she works at, is killed, she's on trial for hiring the hitman. Good thing Perry Mason is her friend and lawyer. That means it's only until the end of the show until someone confesses on the witness stand.

This one has more humor than usual, with Barbara Hale, playing Della Street, plying Burr with various tisanes. By this point, the role of William Moses as Ken Malansky, Perry's investigator, is overtly humorous. Of course he gets knocked around. Of course he teams up with a beautiful woman to investigate. This is in hilarious contrast to his boss' dealing with witnesses, all of whom he hits.... with a subpoena.

It's the next to last time Burr would play Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer-investigator. Despite Miss Hale's healthful concoctions, he would die before this TV movie aired.

Nothing more than the usual formula

[bob the moo · 9 February 2003]

Radio talk show host Dr Judith Jansen feels she is being stalked by someone and calls her friend Della Street for help. Perry and Ken come to see her and arrange to meet the staff at her radio station in order to find out who might be doing it. Dr Jansen sets up Perry to have an interview on one of the shows but during his visit a staff meeting is called by the station's boss, Winslow Keene. At the meeting Keene announces that the staff are all being moved to night shifts to make way for music shows. Later that night Keene is killed and Dr Jansen's car is seen driving away from the scene. She is charged and Perry steps in to defend her while Malansky sets out to track down the man who bought the gun and acted as a hitman.

The Perry Mason formula continues with this entry in the series that meets the normal level for this series but fails to stand out. The plot is the usual fare although the reason for Mason's involvement is very weak here. Dr Jansen is being stalked which brings Mason into picture, however this element is totally lost and not followed through - I had assumed there would be a link to the murder mystery but there wasn't - it was just simply dropped! The use of a hitman is starting to tire me a little bit because I have seen it so many times and it is simply to give Malansky something to do while Perry goes after the person who hired him. It's not bad bit it is an element of the formula that I hadn't noticed before.

The usual element of Malansky's strand is the side kick and it is present here. I enjoyed it more than the usual bland female that is put with him to flirt with and this time he has a black cop who is sassy (although a little bit of an ethnic stereotype is in there). The investigation is to the norm and the climax is not a surprise so much as an inevitability.

Burr helps the climax by being his usual self. My only problem with him is that he wears a hat during this film that doesn't really suit him. Hale is OK as Della and has a repeat joke to make - however the kiss that occurs between them is not very good as it fouls the platonic relationship that they have, nothing else comes of it in later films and it just felt that they had nothing else to do with the film to spice it up a bit. Moses is OK as normal without trying too hard. Datcher is pretty hot as Paxman and her sassiness helped the film feel more energetic that it actually is, maybe I'm a little biased as I found her quite sexy and ignored her clichéd black character. The support cast are all pretty bland and the `oh look, it's ...' faces this time are chat show host Montel Williams and `Millionaire's' Regis Philbin.

Overall this is a reasonable entry in the series that is OK is you like the formula but to be honest it is not as good as some of the other ones. Big bits of the plot go AWOL and the story feels like a formula rather than adding anything fresh to it. Fans will enjoy it (as I did) but it is unlikely to win over those demanding more than the basic formula wheeled out again.

Perry Mason: The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host

[JoBloTheMovieCritic · 6/10 · 20 July 2019]

6/10 - Perry and the gang are back for an entertaining whodunnit

Plot slowly twists

[duyapunk · 6/10 · 24 October 2022]

This TV movie about a fictional talk radio station owner's murder has location shots in Denver. (It is not about the assassination of radio host Alan Berg there by the Aryan Brotherhood in 1984).

Filmed in 1992, the cast includes some notable names from the decade.

The facial expressions Mason directs toward G. Gordon Liddy are priceless. Better yet, Liddy stoically inhabits his own political/media personality with dialogue and body language- the original right-wing firebrand.

Also interesting to see Mariett Hartley and Montel Williams cast early on in their careers.

Burr delivers some astute subpoena-serving and courtroom dialogue, even if plot credulity is a stretch.

Very Entertaining Perry Mason entry.

[jtbwriter-1 · 9/10 · 25 June 2007]

Unlike those who take these way too seriously, Raymond Burr actually has fun with the cast of characters in this entertaining who-done-it! The poignancy of this movie is that it is one of his last appearances... but it is the only one I can say I enjoyed. Mariette Hartley's character of Dr. Karlan is one of pathos and strength, never stooping to the level of her fellow radio hosts, and thus an easy victim to be framed. The schoolboy naughtiness of Fritz and Fred, well played by real life weatherman/comedian Fritz Coleman and Emmy-award winning sportscaster Fred Roggin quickly disappears when confronted by the master lawyer. Joined by real-life Watergate criminal G.Gordon Liddy, master of talk Montel Williams, Cristina Ferrere, and a very believable Regis Philbin, this next to last appearance by Burr doesn't slack off in the courtroom drama or interpersonal play between Della and Perry.

I saw it last night,and it still plays well!

I did what I had to do

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 25 February 2011]

***SPOILERS*** A bit over-plotted and lukewarm Perry Mason mystery movie despite an all-star cast of talk show hosts that includes Rigis Filbin as 98.4 KCDM around the clock radio talk show owner Winslow Keene and Gordon Libby as the super patriot pro-gun and survivalist advocate Clark Hunter as well as Montel William as former football great as well as now sport talk show know it all the recently retired, because or injuries, Boomer Kelly.

It turns out that on the air pseudo KCDM psychiatrist Sheila Carlin, Marielle Hartley, has been getting obscene phone calls over the last few weeks that escalated with her house being broken into and a mannequin left hanging in the middle of her living-room! Dr.Carlin gets in touch with her close friend Della Street, Barbara Hale, Perry Mason's, Raymound Barr, private secretary to help her out but Perry as well as the local police tell her that there's really nothing that they can do about it.

Shelia feels that her boss at KCDM Winslow Keene is behind all this in that he's been trying like hell to make her on the air life miserable by planning to change her daytime hours on the station into a 14 hour staggered schedule ending up in the wee hours, from midnight to 3:00 am in the morning. And whats worst of all not even being compensated, by working 14 instead of 3 hours a day, in pay for it! As it turns out Keene is not only about to change Shelia's hours on the station but the entire crew of talk show hosts as well by making KCDM and all day music station! A few days later after his big announcement Keene gets a late night delivery of flowers for what turned out to be hired hit-man Paul Turner, Eugene Butler, who in among other things he had in for him, like Keene not giving him a tip, ends up blowing Keene away!

Turner by leaving the murder scene and being identified in driving away in her car with the personal license plate "Shink" on it has a shocked and confused Shelia picked up by the police for Winslow Keene's murder. It also becomes obvious that a call that Shelia got on her show from Keene the night of his murder was in fact planted by her murderer in it being recorded, not live, by the person who murdered him planning to frame Shelia! That in making it look like she used it, the fake on the air phone call, as an alibi in not being at Keene's home the moment that he was killed! The call came in at 1.15 am three hours after Keene was actually killed at 10.00 pm that evening!

It should have been a no-brainer for the police and the court for them to see that Shelia was in fact set up but instead they went full-tilt in getting her arrested and indited in Keene's murder by overlooking a number of strong clues that contradicted her guilt! That all made the D.A's case so full of holes against Shelia that it was bound to be thrown out of court when, with the assistant of Perry Mason, they were to come to the surface.

With Keene's killer Paul Turner now out on the lamb he begins to get a bit edgy when the person who hired him doesn't come up with the $10,000.00 he was to pay him in whacking Keene. We have Perry who's now a bit too old to check out suspects going around town giving out subpoenas with the help of his leg man and assistant the take it on the chin Ken Malansky, William R.Moses, running down a number of leads that lead him straight to Turner at his moonlighting job as a neighborhood pimp!

***SPOILERS**** Getting the help of a Denver lady undercover vice cop Alex Patcher, Cathy Paxton, posing as a hooker Malansky tracks down Turner through his #1 lady of the evening Doris Lester,Tracy Ellis, who also happened to be a classmate of Alex in high-school.

Turner by having his cover blown and about to be arrested by the police is now more then determined to take out, gangland style, the person who hired him as well as welched on paying him his fee of $10,000.00 for knocking off Winslow Keene. And it's that person who's just about to take the stand in the Keene murder case when a crazed and completely out of control Turner, disguised as a plumber, opened fire in the crowded court-room that has him give himself away by reorganizing Turner and thus, in preventing from being shot, making a quick exit out of the place!

Going through the motions this time around

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 18 April 2017]

THE CASE OF THE TELLTALE TALK SHOW HOST is one of the last of the PERRY MASON adventures, featuring a visibly aged Raymond Burr looking more weary than ever. The story is about the titular character, a brash talk show host who is murdered by persons unknown, but the way that Burr is introduced to the case (via a stalking sub-plot that's suddenly dropped without mention after the murder) is very clumsy.

The rest of the production looks cheap and dark, probably made on a limited budget that doesn't allow much in the way of originality. Every element of the story has been done better previously, and this is a case of the series going through the strictest of motions. William R. Moses features in an action sub-plot that feels more extraneous than ever, and the only interest lies in the casting of a couple of real-life personalities, Montel Williams and G. Gordon Liddy, in support. My favourite character is the vibrant female cop, played by PASSENGER 57's Alex Datcher, who goes undercover as a prostitute in one sub-plot.

A largely routine case that certainly isn't the best, nor is it the worst.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 14 May 2018]

KCDM Talk Radio host Sheila Carlin (Mariette Hartley) has been the victim of terrifying phone calls and incidents at her home. Now she finds herself accused of killing her boss, Winslow Keen (Regis Philbin), who she did not get along with because he had been trying to break her contract. But, unlike the prosecution and Lt. Brock (James MacEachin), Perry looks beyond the circumstantial evidence and discovers that all of Sheila's colleagues had reasons for killing Keen. They include Clark Hunter (G. Gordon Liddy), who hosts a controversial political programme, celebrity gossip host Judith Jansen (Christina Ferrare), drivetime presenters Fred Fisher (Fred Roggin) and Fritz Moore (Fritz Coleman) and sports commentator Boomer Kelly (Montel Williams). Keen had been trying to drastically change their broadcasting schedules thus saving all the best airtime for himself. But, there was very little they could do about it because he knew things about each of them that enabled him to blackmail them. The astute Mason discovers that on the night before the murder all five of them had attended a secretive meeting at an oyster bar. There was also a sixth person, which they all deny, and the ace lawyer must discover who that person was and determine whether or not they were plotting to do Keen harm or perhaps even kill him...

Raymond Burr's penultimate case as Erle Stanley Gardner's ace defence attorney Perry Mason is a pretty routine offering, but it certainly isn't the worst nor is it the best. The most enjoyable aspect of this one has to be the scenes between William R. Moses' Ken Malansky and Alex Datcher who plays a streetwise and resourceful cop called Cathy Paxton who assists him as he tries to track down the hitman who shot Winslow Keen. As ever, Malansky doesn't like people interfering in his work, but like so many of the other people who he has reluctantly accepted help from, she is always one step ahead of him. "If you're chasing a killer, you're gonna need me", she says. "I had you cold in that pool hall without breaking a sweat. You do the leg work and I'll take care of the bad guys." There is some amusing comedy between them and the chemistry makes it worth the watch.

Burr is his usual impressive self as Mason, and with what little she has to do, Barbara Hale does well as Della Street. The supporting cast, however, are largely average and while they are competent no one really sets the screen alight.

The mystery side of things is generally adequate, but the script goes awry towards the end when Perry unmasks the killer in his usual inimitable way. The way he reveals the truth about the radio hosts' secretive meeting at the restaurant is logical and smart enough. He traps them by quizzing them about the quality of the oysters and they all said that they liked them. But, they were clearly lying because the smart lawyer uncovered that no oysters were delivered that day. Indeed there was a sinister motive behind the meeting, which leads the judge to recommend that Mason move for a dismissal of all charges against Carlin. But, in the interest of justice, Mason calls two more witnesses, one of which is the guilty party. Here, it succumbs to the fault that sometimes ruined other Mason TVM's. We are suddenly bombarded with evidence out of blue sky, which wasn't hinted at earlier in the film and we cannot logically see how Mason arrived at his conclusion.

The case of the telltale talk hosted

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 24 May 2023]

After a series of threats Dr Sheila Carlin (Mariette Hartley) calls her friend Della (Barbara Hale) who along with Perry (Raymond Burr) and Ken (William R. Moses) comes to assist. With Sheila believing it is someone at the radio station where she works behind the threats Perry agrees to go in to be interviewed on air by Winslow Keene (Regis Philbin) who not only hosts a show but is the station owner. When Keene informs everyone that there are going to be changes to everyone's shows it doesn't go down well especially as he will sack anyone who complains. After Sheila confronts Winslow over things she ends up sacked but then later on chief suspect when Winslow is murdered. Fortunately she has Perry, Della and Ken in her corner who set about solving who it was who hired a hitman to kill Winslow.

Starts out well with the "suspect" getting gaslighted, however that story goes out of the window and it treads the usual formula - it's an ok entry, though gets heavily convoluted and not too engaging. Routine entry with some weak moments.

Never leave any loose ends or witnesses.

[Xjayhawker · 4/10 · 11 March 2013]

It would be nice to see actual actors in films and television "plays", but it seems as if in the Perry Mason tele-movies that to get people to watch they had to go out and bring in "faces" or celebrities..people whose faces were well known and easily recognized..in this case Gordon Liddy, Regis Philbin,Montel Williams..but in this episode the acting by actors is sub-par and irritating..the "actors" act as if they were in a high school play..why would an undercover police operative let herself be taken so easily..why when Ken Mulansky is searching for her in the house he acts as though he's sleep walking and when he finds her he doesn't rush to her side to see if she's still alive, he casually walks over..and when they are aware of the threat at the courthouse, no one bothers to alert anyone that a man is on the way with a gun and to take precautions..there are just so many things that ordinary people would not even do that these professional police or investigators do it just makes for a really annoying episode..I do not make a habit of saying some production is badly done but in this case I make the exception..Sorry, but this is not a well-done entry in the franchise.