Please don't spend money on this.

Awesome Movie

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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.

Associate producer: Sam Bischoff. Copyright 22 September 1934 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. Presented by Warner Bros Productions and The Vitaphone Corp. New York opening at the Rialto: 17 October 1934. U.K. release: 11 May 1935. Australian release: 9 January 1935. 8 reels. 75 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Does a neighbor's dog howl? If so, why?NOTES: First of only two films featuring long-running Broadway stage actress, Helen Trenholme. The only other picture I have for her is "The Firebird" (1934).COMMENT: Fascinating. Based on the 1934 novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, this entry certainly gives the lie to the oft-told story that Alan Crosland's sound films were stodgy affairs and that the brilliant director of such non-talkie classics as Under the Red Robe, Three Weeks, Don Juan and The Beloved Rogue lost his skills under the burden of sound. Crosland was noted for his flashy style in the silent era, but was allegedly unable to bring this expertise to bear on talkies thanks supposedly to the cumbersome sound-boothed and blimped camera. This may have been true in the early days of recording when sound men ruled the set. But by 1934, the camera had been liberated again and directors like Crosland were free to follow their penchant for effectively dramatic panning and tracking shots which give such added impetus to such scenes as the opening in the crowded courtroom and Mason's "chance" encounter with Holcomb in the street. The first shot with its almost 360 degree pan not only shows us how tightly packed the court is, but gives an urgency to Mitchell's address — he is off- camera for most of the shot — which would be lost in a routine cut to a close-up. In the second set-up, the tracking shot clearly shows us not only that Holcomb is shadowing Mason but that the attorney knows it and thus revels in the chance to put one over the flatfoot. The whole film is distinguished by a stylish but not over- worked camera, plus some of the most engaging performances ever presented in a Perry Mason opus. Warren William is perfect, as usual. In fact, more polished, more suave, more sharp, more quick- witted, more intelligent, more charming. He is not only the best Perry Mason ever, but here he appears at his absolute peak. Lovely Helen Trenholme presents such an utterly charming Della Street, one can only wonder why she was not hired for the rest of the series. The other ladies are not far behind in the acting honors: ravishing Mary Astor, who has this vulnerable quality which makes her beautiful face so entrancingly sympathetic; Dorothy Tree, wonderfully mysterious.Warren William faces some excellent competition. As the bested District Attorney, Grant Mitchell has the sort of role he can put over with polish; but watch for Allen Jenkins as the hounding Sergeant Holcomb. It's a straight dramatic part without a trace of humor which Jenkins plays with consummate authority. I also enjoyed Harry Tyler as a bamboozled cab-man, and especially James Burtis as the persistent George Dobbs, one of Mason's investigators who assists Eddie Shubert in shaking down Miss Tree.Other characterizations that deserve mention are Arthur Aylesworth's deputy sheriff, Russell Hicks' playboy millionaire and Gordon Westcott's harried neighbor. Addison Richards brings a nice touch of teasing authority to the role of the judge. What a shame that other entries in the series didn't use this superbly fluid, cleverly scripted and most entertainingly acted entry as the model for all future Masons. In this one, as enacted by Warren William, Perry is much closer to Gardner's conception. As the city's most successful lawyer, Mason presides over a huge suite of offices, chock-a-block with clients and staff. He loves the publicity and success which enables him to be arrogant, masterful, belittling and choosy. With his secretary, Della Street, he is tenderly romantic. Everyone else, he orders about. This is the Mason we like, the Mason that Warren William so persuasively brings to life.

The first Perry Mason film starring Warren William has the famed attorney taking on a client who claims a neighbor is trying to drive him insane with a howling dog. It gets weirder from there as we get into a will and the neighbor having two wives, one of which supposedly runs off with Perry's client. Soon someone winds up murdered and it's up to Perry to get to the bottom of it all.The Perry Mason series is not among my favorites of the many B detective film series of the 1930s and 1940s, but it's enjoyable enough. Warren William plays Perry as a standard tough private dick character rather than the Perry many of us know from watching the Raymond Burr TV show. He does fine but, in my opinion, William's better suited for parts where he can be playful and charming. Helen Trenholme makes for a lovely Della Street. The rest of the cast includes Mary Astor, Grant Mitchell, Gordon Westcott, Russell Hicks, Addison Richards, and Allen Jenkins playing it straight (and sporting a mustache!). Like I said, this series isn't one of my favorites but none of the movies I've seen were terrible. This first one is pretty good and definitely worth a look if you're curious about seeing a different kind of Perry Mason than you might be used to.

The Case of the Howling Dog, the first of the screen's Perry Mason movies moves quickly with pep and zip, has a rather ingenious plot line, and has Warren William give a good portrayal of the most famous lawyer of all time - real or imaginary. Warren William plays Mason in this film with an aloofness that disappears in later films where he played the same role, but in this first film it is primarily used to show us how important Mason is in San Francisco. The story has a nervous wreck of a man go to Mason to ask two questions - what can he do to stop the incessant howling from the next door neighbor's dog and what does he have to do to set up a will(with some further odd questions). Perry now has a case and we get some good old-fashioned mystery here as Mason and his corp of assistants work for their client. The end mystery's unraveling - though hardly realistic - is done with style and creativity. I have not read the Erle Stanley Gardner book, but I am sure that much of the mystery part of it is probably still intact. Beautiful Mary Astor stars as a woman in need of Mason's services. She gives her typical woman-in-peril performance with solid acting. The rest of the cast also all do fine jobs with Helen Trenholme(apparently only making two films in her career) doing a very fine job as a perky and pretty Della Street and Gordon Westcott excelling as the nervous man in a rather brief role. As first films in a detective series go, this one is a fine start to a good series. Warren William, playing the screen's Philo Vance that same year, does his level best to make two distinct characterizations which may also account for the Mason character being a bit stodgy here. In the next film he becomes much more fun and human so to speak.

***SPOILERS*** "The Case of the Howling Dog" is the film that introduced legendary defense attorney Perry Mason, originated on the screen by Warren Williams,to millions of movie goers and some twenty years later, with Raymond Burr in the title role, TV watchers.Perry Mason, Warren Williams, is contacted by a nervous Arthur Cartwright, Gordon Westcott, claiming that his next door neighbor Clinton Foley's, Russell Hicks, German Shepard police dog Prince is driving him crazy. Prince has been howling his head off the last two nights causing Arthur to almost have a nervous breakdown. A bit taken back on what Arthur is telling him Perry is then asked to write out his will leaving everything Arthur has, and it's a lot, to Foley's wife Evelyn! It turns out that Evelyn is not exactly married to Clinton Foley she's only living with him as a mistress in his mansion.The story get's even more complicated when later both Arthur and Evelyn, who it turns out is actually Arthur's estranged wife, disappear from sight leaving Foley to suspect that they planned this all along from the start. Perry now stuck in representing Foley's actual wife Bessie, Mary Astor, whom he dumped for Evelyn Cartwright in that legally she's the woman whom's Arthur, through Perry being his lawyer, left his estate to.Were lead through a maze of subplots in not just the connection between Arthur and the Foley's, Clinton & Bessie, but their dog Prince who's the key to what is later to happen in the film. Bessie Foley is later on the scene at the Foley's mansion where her ex-husband Clinton and his dog are shot and killed by either Bessie or someone hiding inside the house. With Foley's housemaid and what turned out to be his lover Lucy Benton, Dorothy Tree, seen by one of Perry Mason's assistants private detective George Dobbs,James P. Brutis, running from the premises to an awaiting taxi it's assumed by everyone that she may well have shot and killed both Clinton and Prince. Telling Bessie to keep her mouth shut about her being on the scene of both Clinton Foley and Prince, a dog but a murder victim never the less, murders Perry is now committed in not only defending his client but possibly, in his defending her, covering up a crime: Murder. The really out of the blue surprise ending is what makes "Case of the Howling Dog" so ahead of it's time in that it doesn't tie all the loose ends together. The surprise ending does in a very intelligent and realistic way show that the law despite being written in granite is not at all perfect and that there are times when bending it, like Perry Mason does in the film, is really the best way to get justice done.P.S The movie "The Case of the Howling Dog" is such an excellent example of Amercan, or any other free and law abiding country, jurors prudence that it was remade some 25 years later in 1959 as a Parry Mason TV crime/drama episode. The story was so ahead of it's time in depicting the pitfalls and inconsistencies of the law that even then, 25 years later, it shocked the TV audience in it's totally out of the norm, for TV and the movies, surprise ending!