Billy Travis (David Hasselhoff) is a retired tennis champion who has married the wealthy mine owner Sarah Wingate (Doran Clark). Sarah is haunted by disturbing childhood memories of she and her sister being kidnapped some fifteen years ago in which the latter was murdered, her body dumped in a lake and never found. Everyone around Sarah disapproves of her marriage to Billy believing that he is only after her money. They include her idle cousin, Skip, who has a well paid job with her mining company; only he does not appear to do any work and just takes the salary. The president of the firm, Doug Vickers (John Beck), was very close to Sarah's father and was a deputy sheriff at the time of the kidnapping and helped trap one of the kidnappers. Out of gratitude, Vickers got the top job on the mining firm. Like Skip and others, he resents Billy and feels that he has been persuading Sarah to sell the mine which would mean he would be out of a job. In addition, Billy's brother, Frank (George Deloy), had a motive because he was heavily in debt due to his gambling addiction and was forever pestering Billy to bail him out. After the murder, he vanished. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) has plenty of suspects to probe when Sarah is murdered and her body dumped in the same lake where her sister drowned all those years ago. Billy is the prime suspect and Perry is convinced he is innocent. But who is trying to create the impression that history is repeating itself by killing Sarah and disposing of her body in the lake?
One of Raymond Burr's more accomplished revival movies as the world's best defence attorney Perry Mason. Skilfully directed by the talented Ron Satlof, a series veteran whose other TV work included episodes of the classic Quincy series, who exploits some attractive location work to maximum emotional and dramatic effect - the beautiful, yet dark and sinister lake, the mountainous countryside of Colorado and the Wingate's beautiful lodge house. Everybody in the film seems untrustworthy and has something to hide and their supposed concern for the vulnerable Sarah's welfare only seems to be to protect their own material interests. You will have fun working out which one of them did it and the film's twist ending is generally well built up to with all the plot turns and twists leading into one logical whole so that it seems credible in the audience's mind and that adds to the fun. Burr is on fine fettle as Mason and his grilling of the witnesses - "Isn't it true?" repeated several times over - is effective in the sense Perry commands great authority and respect in the courtroom. David Hasselhoff is very good as the accused man and it makes a refreshing change from seeing him in Knight Rider and Baywatch. On the downside, some of the supporting cast is very weak and their performances range from the competent to the barely passable as was the case with some of the other latter day Mason movies.
This, along with most of the other Perry Mason TVM's, is often repeated on satellite TV, but finding them on DVD is quite difficult in Britain and can only be obtained via European imports which are Region 2.
One of Raymond Burr's more accomplished revival movies as the world's best defence attorney Perry Mason. Skilfully directed by the talented Ron Satlof, a series veteran whose other TV work included episodes of the classic Quincy series, who exploits some attractive location work to maximum emotional and dramatic effect - the beautiful, yet dark and sinister lake, the mountainous countryside of Colorado and the Wingate's beautiful lodge house. Everybody in the film seems untrustworthy and has something to hide and their supposed concern for the vulnerable Sarah's welfare only seems to be to protect their own material interests. You will have fun working out which one of them did it and the film's twist ending is generally well built up to with all the plot turns and twists leading into one logical whole so that it seems credible in the audience's mind and that adds to the fun. Burr is on fine fettle as Mason and his grilling of the witnesses - "Isn't it true?" repeated several times over - is effective in the sense Perry commands great authority and respect in the courtroom. David Hasselhoff is very good as the accused man and it makes a refreshing change from seeing him in Knight Rider and Baywatch. On the downside, some of the supporting cast is very weak and their performances range from the competent to the barely passable as was the case with some of the other latter day Mason movies.
This, along with most of the other Perry Mason TVM's, is often repeated on satellite TV, but finding them on DVD is quite difficult in Britain and can only be obtained via European imports which are Region 2.