Our guest from the vault this week is one of the world's best known fictional lawyers. Perry Mason's literary legal career began in 1933 with The Case of the Velvet Claws, and author Erle Stanley Gardner went on to write another fifty or so Perry Mason mysteries. He also created a number of other significant characters, but it is largely for Perry Mason that he continues to be remembered. The old TV series from the 1950s and 60s were my introduction to Perry Mason, as portrayed by actor Raymond Burr. Here we are half a century and more later, and those old TV dramas continue to pop up on late-night television marathons. Heck, my wife binge-watches them every day! I thought it might be worthwhile looking back again at The Case of the Velvet Claws, and I offer below the text of the audio review which I wrote and recorded for the Classic Mysteries podcast. As usual, there has been some light editing.
- 0 -
“I’m a paid gladiator. I fight for my clients. Most clients aren’t square shooters. That’s why they’re clients. They’ve got themselves into trouble. It’s up to me to get them out. I have to shoot square with them. I can’t always expect them to shoot square with me.”
You might call that kind of a defense lawyer’s manifesto. Certainly it serves that purpose for one of fiction’s most popular lawyer-detectives, Perry Mason. The creation of author Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason made his fictional reputation as the champion of the wrongly-accused (or sometimes, perhaps, not-so-wrongly accused). That declaration about how Perry Mason views his clients – who do not, indeed, always shoot square with him, as he says – is at the heart of the very first Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Velvet Claws.
The first several years of Erle Stanley Gardner’s career were spent writing stories for the so-called “pulp” magazines, the inexpensive magazines that churned out more-or-less hard-boiled detective stories for an avid audience. He wrote about a variety of characters, including many who fall into the category of “gentleman thieves.” The one thing most had in common was that they fought for the little guy (or little gal) against a variety of villains, including corrupt politicians, officials, and police.
So it comes as no surprise that when Gardner created the lawyer who would become his best known character, Perry Mason, he made him a defense lawyer, a man who said he never judged a client’s behavior – that was up to a jury to decide. As far as he, Perry Mason, was concerned, he owed that client the best and most vigorous defense he could provide; it would be up to a jury to determine guilt or innocence.
And so Perry Mason made his first appearance, in 1933, in The Case of the Velvet Claws. If you’re used to the suave Perry Mason played on television by Raymond Burr, you’ll find the 1933 version a lot rougher around the edges. Gardner’s work certainly bordered on the hard-boiled, and it fits nicely into the kind of noir fiction so popular today.
In The Case of the Velvet Claws, a woman comes to Mason’s office to hire him – she wants him to prevent a story from being published in a scandal and gossip sheet that is actually the cover for a blackmailing operation. Mason quickly learns that the woman is being anything but straightforward and honest with him. And when the man who is behind that blackmailing operation is murdered, Mason finds himself on the run and suspected for murder – a murder that his client may well have committed herself.
And so Perry Mason’s code of behavior – the way he believes a defense attorney should operate – comes into play. And despite the fact that his client appears to be incapable of making a true statement about anything, Mason continues to represent her and fight for her rights to the best of his ability…even as he finds himself staying one step ahead of the police, who appear to be ready to arrest him for murder. Even his secretary, Della Street, is furious about his handling of the situation – she wants him to drop his client. Mason tells her:
“When you’re representing clients, Della, he said, you can’t pick and choose them. You’ve got to take them as they come. There’s only one rule in this game, and that is that when you do take them, you’ve got to give them all you’ve got.”
And there you have Perry Mason’s philosophy in a nutshell. As I say, this is a remarkably dark and noir-ish book; if you’re looking for happy endings, there isn’t much to offer here. Also, if you are looking for one of those great courtroom scenes, which became commonplace in later Perry Mason stories as well as in the television series, you won’t find one in The Case of the Velvet Claws. Perry Mason investigates and solves this case largely outside the legal system. His character would become smoother and more sophisticated as the series progressed, but his dedication to his clients never changed. If you want to see where Perry Mason was coming from in his earliest incarnation, then you’ll certainly enjoy Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Velvet Claws. It’s available in e-book format, including an Amazon Kindle version and I think there's an Audiobook version as well.
- 0 -
You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.
Next: The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan, by Stuart Palmer.
Comments