If you are a lover of courtroom dramas you will adore this film.  If you happen to be a fan of soap operas too you will appreciate it even more because much of the action takes place on the set of a daily show.  Having a sense of humour will also increase your enjoyment of the movie, because it takes a wry poke at life in a soap opera and the egos of the personnel involved.

Fans of Sean will not have to wait long to see him, as he features in the very first scene.  He plays a character called “Mark Stratton”, an actor in a soap called “Mile High” and it becomes apparent early on that Mark has a bit of an attitude problem because his leading ladies frequently complain about the way he continues with the “action” long after the director has called “cut”.

Early on in the movie, Mark announces his engagement to an actress called Charlotte Grant, one of his co-stars on the show.  This announcement is greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm by certain members of the cast and crew, notably Kris Buckner, who plays Mark’s love interest in the soap.  When Kris learns that Charlotte’s character is virtually set to take her place she storms off and tells Mark she could kill him for having arranged this. 

A few days later, whilst filming is in progress, there is a sudden and very dramatic turn of events.  Mark treats Charlotte to a long, passionate and totally unscripted kiss.  Although Charlotte makes no complaint (presumably because she is his fiancee!) Mark is rebuked by the director but insists that it is only a bit of harmless fun.  Moments later, Mark is gasping for air and collapses on to a table.  When it becomes evident that he has gone into shock as a result of an allergy from which he suffers, his allergy kit is brought to him and he injects himself.  Moments later he is dead.

It is not long before Kris Buckner is charged with the murder of Mark Stratton.  All the cast and crew witnessed her telling him that she could kill him for what he had done and the detective who is investigating the case reveals that Charlotte’s lipstick had been heavily laced with walnut oil (to which Mark had a severe allergy) and that his syringe had been filled with the stuff.  Fortunately for Kris all is not lost because she has a wonderful ally in the form of legendary lawyer Perry Mason (brilliantly played by the late, great and very much missed Raymond Burr) who sets about proving her innocence.

Perry wastes no time in beginning his investigations and before long he and his team unearth some startling revelations.  Mimi Hoyle, the show’s production assistant, had had an affair with Mark and had had an abortion, paid for by him.  She bitterly confesses to Perry Mason that after this he dumped her and although that, together with his subsequent engagement to Charlotte Grant, had made her angry enough to kill him, she denies having committed the act.  Another actress in the show hated Mark because of the way he treated her after she pulled strings to have him cast in a TV movie’s leading role.  She, too, denies murder as does Charlotte Grant who, it transpires, was actually married to someone else at the time of her engagement to Mark Stratton and for obvious reasons would not have wanted Mark to discover her duplicity. 

As Perry continues with his investigations, his associate explores other avenues.  He pays a visit to Stratton’s house and is attacked by a portly man who is ransacking it.   Then, assisted by an obsessed fan who had been hanging around outside the house and the TV studio, he makes his way to a sleepy town called Cedar Grove, the place where Mark Stratton grew up.  Incarcerated in jail, the associate learns that the town’s sheriff is none other than the man who he caught ransacking Mark Stratton’s house.  Perry comes to his aid, however, and as the story reaches its conclusion we learn that the person responsible for murdering Mark was none other than the show’s slimy, long-standing producer.  This man had lived in Mark’s home town, Cedar Grove, and, together with the man who was now sheriff, had been responsible for murdering a child over twenty years previously.  Mark, upon reaching adulthood, had managed to piece this together and had used his knowledge to blackmail the producer.  He would remain silent in exchange for “help with his career”.

There is absolutely nothing to fault with this brilliant movie.  The story flows at just the right pace and it has all the ingredients that a good film needs.  I particularly loved the ironic humour  (Della Street receiving odd looks from Perry Mason when he discovered she was a soap addict) and the way the obsessed fan, who had been hoping for an adventure, got exactly what she wanted and more!  The entire cast (some of whom were starring in GH at the time) deserve praise and fans of Sean will adore him in the role of Mark Stratton.  It was a pity that Mark had to be done away with so early on but, as they say, that’s showbusiness!