The Changing Characters of the Perry Mason Cast
Not long ago, I wrote a blog post on Ellery Queen, noting that characterizations and backstories of the famous sleuth changed so much over the course of four decades, that it was likely that it wasn’t just one man whose exploits were being told, but multiple men who were solving crimes and writing books all under the same name.
In a comparable vein, I’d like to take a look at Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novel series, which spanned four decades from 1933 to 1973. When the average person thinks of Perry Mason, they may have the image of the classic television series starring Raymond Burr in their minds, featuring an ethical, upright, and unflappable defense lawyer Perry Mason; a dignified and almost matronly secretary Della Street; a calmly efficient private detective Paul Drake; and District Attorney Hamilton Burger, who invariably initially prosecutes the wrong person but who places justice above his personal reputation and who deeply respects Mason as a lawyer and a man. It’s a terrific television show and one of my favorites, but these portrayals of the characters are not the individuals in Gardner’s original novels, at least, not at first.
In the early Perry Mason novels, the tone is a bit grittier, perhaps “pulpier.” Not a lot of time is spent in courtrooms, and in his introductory scene in The Case of the Velvet Claws, Mason could be mistaken for a hard-hitting private eye with a solid working knowledge of the law. Mason makes it clear that he is a fighter for his clients, and in the early novels, Mason’s willing to bend the law in order to clear his client and himself. Della is portrayed as young and fun-loving, and it’s often stressed that she’s her relationship with Mason is more than just professional. She frequently expresses her affection for him in a physical manner, and her personality can even be described as passionate. Paul Drake is generally portrayed as effective and dedicated, but he often is badly frayed by lack of sleep and a steady diet of greasy hamburgers and strong coffee.
Over the course of the series, the trio’s characters would change, and by the 1950’s, they’d start taking on more attributes of the TV show’s interpretations. In 1935, the Mason of the novels was happy to plant false evidence at a murder scene in order to clear his client. A little over two decades later, influenced by the straight-arrow persona of the TV character, Mason would never dream of committing such an infraction. Likewise, Della became increasingly demure and some of her comments became less barbed. Paul Drake was still put-upon, but incredibly effective.
The biggest difference between the novels and the TV show, and the most significant metamorphosis throughout the novel series, was that of Hamilton Burger. In Burger’s first appearance in the novels, he’s a genial sort who is happy to accept Mason’s solution to the crime and the reputation burnishing that comes with unravelling the truth. Several novels later, Burger has become the persona of the establishment who believes that the justice system can do no wrong, and has become condemnatory of Mason’s corner-cutting and courtroom theatrics, and sees it as his duty to censure a man bringing shame upon the profession. Flash forward several more years, and Burger has almost become caricaturized, a man whose main mission in life isn’t to get justice, but to beat Mason in court, and preferably, to get Mason disbarred and even jailed for unscrupulous behavior. Burger became a comic villain, driven by revenge and a repeatedly bruised ego.
The recent HBO series Perry Mason revises some of the characters and backstories so dramatically as to make them completely unrecognizable. There, Mason is a down-on-his-luck divorced dad, scraping by as a morally compromised private eye before remaking himself as a defense lawyer. Della Street is reimagined as a lesbian estranged from her family due to her orientation, with a desire to become a lawyer herself. Paul Drake became a Black police officer, who eventually leaves the force due to his exasperation over the force’s entrenched racism and corruption, balancing his ideals with incipient fatherhood. And Hamilton Burger becomes a closeted gay man who seeks to form an alliance with Mason in order to advance his way up the ladder at the D.A.’s office.
Changing Gardner’s characters is nothing new. A series of six 1930’s adaptations starring William Warren, Ricardo Cortez, and Donald Woods painted Mason as a debonair man-about-town, and at one point, the head of a massive law firm. At times, Della Street resembled a put-upon love interest in a screwball comedy film, and Paul Drake had his name changed to “Spudsy” and became incompetent and pathetic comic relief.
These are iconic characters, but it’s important to remember how altered they are in different forms of media, and how they changed over time.
–Chris Chan
Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3rd. His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7th. His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there). It is also available in a Kindle edition.
