Erle Stanley Gardner wrote crime fiction, and while many of his 100 or so works are unknown to most of us, he created a character who has become as identified with criminal lawyers as any other in fiction. It was in these crime novels that Perry Mason first faced a courtroom. He developed a style where he would investigate these terrible crimes his clients were on trial for. He would find the real killer, and in what has become a Hollywood cliché, reveal his findings in a crucial moment during the trial. While we may not remember the novels, we all remember the man in the persona of Raymond Burr.  Burr had a commanding presence on our screens and enjoyed a well-deserved 11-year run as the clever lawyer. What makes this run so amazing is that the show followed pretty much the same pattern the entire time. We always know what’s going to happen, but we wait eagerly for that gotcha moment when Perry faces the witness on the stand. We know when he’s got the guy squarely in his sights, and we can’t sit still waiting for him to pull the trigger. OK, so maybe that’s a little over the top, but so was Perry Mason. From the moment you heard that distinctive theme, the stage was set. To say that Perry Mason defined the lawyer show for decades would be an understatement. Folks like Matlock and shows like The Practice are strikingly similar to Perry Mason.

Perry Mason officially ended in May of 1966, but that wasn't going to be the end. Twenty years later the surviving cast members reunited for Perry Mason Returns. It was Perry and Della back together again. Both Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale returned to their roles. William Hopper had died in 1970, so William Katt joined the reunion as Paul Drake, Jr. Katt might not have really been Drake's son; he was Hale's son. When Katt left the films he was replaced by William R. Moses as Ken Malansky. Ken was a young law student helped by Perry once when he was framed in law school for a rival's murder. He ends up being both a legal assistant and investigator for Perry in the reunion films. Ken's girlfriend is Amy, played by Baywatch's Alexandra Hastings. Amy was a rich girl who had too much time on her hands. It led to her involving herself in Ken's investigations. The films also often starred James McEachin as Lt. Brock, the cop on many of the cases.  M*A*S*H's David Ogden Stiers would often play his rival in the prosecutor's office Michael Reston. The team would continue to do 30 television movies from 1985-1995. CBS has now begun to package these reunion films in collections like this. You get six films on three discs. The discs appear in a plastic case, and the cases are held by a cardboard slipcase.

When it comes to revenge, Hollywood has exploited the theme in just about every conceivable way.   It’s a genre that has been done so much that it’s hard to find a fresh hook to bring the audiences in, much less create a story that will motivate the audience to root for this blood thirsty protagonist.  Getting the audience on your side as your hero hunts down individuals for retribution is asking a lot, but still there is always going to be an audience that will fill theater seats.

As for how Piggy fares in the lexicon of revenge films, unfortunately this was a film that seemed to be doomed from the start.  I had caught a trailer for the film, and for the most part it left me at least optimistic about the possibilities.

The World War 2 genre has been done to death by Hollywood, but The Monuments Men gives us a fresh look at the war and delves into a story that is a breath of fresh air to the genre.  Despite all my history classes that delved into the atrocities of World War 2, it was never discussed about what happened to the great landmarks that were spread throughout Europe and encountered the cold hand of war.  Granted, when measured against the staggering amount of lives lost throughout the war, the thought of a sculpture being destroyed or a Picasso painting being incinerated simply seems petty by comparison.

In 1943 as the war seems to be making its final push toward the defeat of the Nazi party, Frank Stokes (George Clooney) delivers a pitch to President Roosevelt about the importance of preserving the art of the past before the war destroys it all. His pitch is passionate though idealistic, but still it is enough to convince the president that assembling a small unit simply to help preserve certain classical monuments couldn’t cause any harm.  Stokes goes on to gather a team of scholars, most of whom are well past their prime, to join him on this quest to protect and preserve the past.