The Case of the Black Cat (1936)

That was an excellent one.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is the fifth film of the early Perry Mason series of movies made by Hollywood, and the first without Warren William in the lead role. Ricardo Cortez was an OK actor, but movie-goers were used to seeing a quite different character as Perry Mason. That, and a script that was very poor, an entirely different cast with some really stinking acting and very poor direction, and it's no wonder this one failed at the box office. Some scenes in "The Case of the Black Cat" make one wonder if the film was edited at all. It has some pauses or freezes in action and then abrupt changes in scenes. Several of the supporting cast seem to be rank amateurs. I don' know what the producers were thinking of with this film. The only reason I give it six stars is because of the mystery itself. This is one that played many years later by Raymond Burr and was a very intriguing and entertaining movie. But here, the lackluster approach, script and change in character just leave this film flat. Again, it rates a 6 in my book only because of the fine plot.

Typical Perry Mason mystery from Warner Bros. in the '30s, features RICARDO CORTEZ as a much less abrasive version of the famous sleuth than Warren William--and much less cocky. The result is a good Mason yarn with a fine supporting cast. GARY EVANS supplies some humor as sidekick Paul Drake.JANE BRYAN is the young woman who is cut out of her grandfather's will. Grandpa is an angry old man played by HARRY DAVENPORT. JUNE TRAVIS is a more serious minded Della Street helping Mason solve his case, and CRAIG REYNOLDS is one of the main suspects.The mystery is cluttered with sub-plots involving the theft of diamonds but the twist at the end comes as a real surprise.Some cryptic dialog helps a lot. "Sam doesn't like cats or old men. He thinks both should be put out of their misery." Another surprise is the fact that the cat in the story is not a black cat at all but a gray and white one that doesn't seem to mind being handled by anyone and yet in the story is a cause of much distress with its noisy howling.

I like Ricardo Cortez in everything I've seen him do. He was an excellent actor who never really became a major star. Here, he is a fine Perry Mason. His Mason has a sense of humor. He's stylish. And he's not entirely admirable, which seems to me just right.I also like Jane Bryan, who is most appealing as the female member of a troubled household. The other performers are fine, though not memorable.It's hard not to wonder why Warner Brothers used a gray and white cat for the title character. Surely it would have been easy to find a cat that would have been both black and well behaved on the set.There are a few other inconsistencies. One I noted is that Mason calls the caretaker of this wealthy family at their home. Is it, was it ever, standard to call servants at their employers' primary number? (Sure, my cleaning guy, who's here for two hours every two weeks, gets a call now and then; but he is a painter and this is far from a mansion.)

Because no actor has ever been more closely associated with his character than Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, modern audiences are often unaware that Earl Stanley Gardner's books and character predate the television series by over twenty years.It is unfortunate indeed that the actor most commonly associated with the role of Perry Mason in the 1930's is Warren William, not at all attractive and with an annoying tendency to play Mr. Mason as a less-than-scrupulous drunken buffoon of whom one marvels he was even able to find his way out of a gin joint, let alone find a murderer. With each successive Perry Mason film, Mr. William's portrayal grew more drunken and buffoonish, probably an attempt to cop the fantastically popular Thin Man of the day.Sorry folks, but Ricardo Cortez IS Perry Mason. In the only Mason film to cast Cortez in the lead role, Mr. Cortez ruins the role for all others and particularly blows Mr. Warren out of the water. Cortez is everything Mason is supposed to be; beautiful, rich and elegant, sophisticated and brilliant. No drunken buffoon here.As for the story, I remain clueless why the American version of this film was re-titled "The Case of the Black Cat". The book, and the episode of the television series some 25 year later, were named "The Case of the CARETAKER'S Cat", and even the cat that appears in the 1936 movie is not black. Aside from this peculiarity, this is a great story and well worth the watch. Easily the best of the Perry Mason movies produced during this time period, it compares favorably to the Philo Vance and Thin Man serials of its era.