The TV series was revived in 1973 as The New Perry Mason, with a completely different cast led by Monte Markham, but it only lasted one season. It was, at the time, the longest-running, and most successful lawyer show on television, and is still what most people think of when they hear the name. It featured Raymond Burr as Mason, Barbara Hale as Della Street, and William Hopper as Paul Drake. The original Perry Mason TV series debuted in 1957, and ran through 1966. It focused more on action than courtroom drama, and Gardner eventually withdrew his support for the show, which then went on to be adapted into the television soap opera, The Edge of Night. The final movie retooled the Perry Mason concept beyond all recognition into the western crime comedy Granny Get Your Gun. Seven movies were theatrically released between 19 the first four all starred Warren William as Mason. The first was 1933's The Case of the Velvet Claws, and the last was The Case of the Postponed Murder. As a straightforward genre piece, it also misses the mark because it runs on a little too long for its own good, the leads are not very interesting and, with the exception of two fairly impressive sequences (a desert chase and the opening stanza of the final set-piece), the action scenes are equally forgettable.There were eighty novels in the series by the time Gardner died in 1969, and two more were published posthumously. There is, I suppose, a way to laugh at the sight of someone with a chain embedded in their skull, but this film never quite finds it. In either case, the attempts to mix humor with extreme gore fail miserably. As satire, it fails because it brings up its reasonably provocative ideas early on, then nearly forgets about them until the last ten minutes or so. As a spoof, it doesn't work because it is more concerned with winking at viewers than of giving them funny something to wink about. The film wants to work both as a post-apocalyptic saga in the grand tradition of the "Mad Max" films and as a tongue-in-cheek goof on such things, and never quite succeeds as either. Gary Busey turns up for a couple of scenes in such a random manner that he appears to have drifted in from another movie, no doubt to the immense relief of the other movie. And like Boll's films, it even offers up brief and inexplicable appearances by familiar faces. Like many of Boll's demented offerings (especially "Postal" and "Assault on Wall Street"), the film mixes together chintzy CGI effects, gallons of ersatz gore, dialogue that is almost literally unspeakable, incoherent editing and a political sensibility that could politely be described as confused. Heads really do roll, and ledgers are covered with more than red ink.Īlthough directed by relative unknown Henry Saine and based upon an obscure graphic novel, some trash-film fanatics may be forgiven for thinking that "Bounty Killer" is the work of the infamous Uwe Boll, often regarded as the worst filmmaker of our time and possibly of the history of the cinema entire. (Plot point.) Eventually, Drifter's past catches up with him in the form of former flame Catherine ( Kristanna Loken). Along the way, he is pursued by Mary, naturally, along with a corporate-owned hit squad known as Yellow Ties (all looking like refugees from the Serious Moonlight tour) and the possibly cannibalistic Gypsies, who seem to have a particular interest in learning what he knows about Mary. Along with his trusted gun caddy ( Barak Hardley), he decides to set off on a treacherous journey across the bombed-out remains of a post-apocalyptic world on a suicide mission to reach the Council of Nine and plead his case. As a result, the bounty killers become celebrities with the two key players being he laconic Drifter ( Matthew Marsden) the very first bounty killer, and the sexy Mary Death ( Christian Pitre), who has gone from being Drifter's protege and lover to being the most popular killer of them all.Īs the story open, it turns out that Drifter has a more complicated past than previously assumed and as a result, he now has a bounty out on his head. A secret Council of Nine declares white-collar crimes to be punishable by death, and creates a group of so-called "bounty killers" to track corporate weasels down and make them pay for their crimes in the messiest manner possible. Their continued lust for power and profits will reduce nearly the entire plant into a smoking ruin while those in charge take off with the remaining wealth for parts unknown. In the not-too-distant future, according to some helpful expository narration, corporations will take over the world's governments. Are you consumed by an overwhelming desire to fork over the price of a movie ticket in order to see the kind of meagerly funded nonsense that the SyFy network provides for the price of a basic cable package? If the answer is yes, then "Bounty Killer" is right up your alley.
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