The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

The greatest movie ever made..!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Warren William stars in the first of four films as Erle Stanley Gardner's attorney, Perry Mason in "The Case of the Howling Dog." In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I believe Warren William was the first actor to portray "Perry Mason" on film. I will be reviewing not just this film but all four films here. It opens with a man whose nerves are shot because his neighbor's dog won't stop howling. He comes to Perry Mason for help and also about the distribution of his assets in his will. Perry wants to dismiss this frivolity about the dog but finally acquiesces to help him when he is paid a fee of $10,000.00 cash up front and he finds out that the man wants to leave his money to the woman residing in his neighbor's house. The story picks up from there. Mary Astor, who has always been great in everything she does, gives good support in this lively and complicated tale of murder and dogs. I have always liked Warren William in his films with his strong and vociferous voice, as he is usually a strong force to reckon with, either a unscrupulous cad or as the law. Obviously, this is the latter. This film is the best of the four and "The Case of the Velvet Claws (the fourth with my rating of 8) comes a close second, as they center on the story and less on comic relief. My main complaint of the second two, "The Case of the Curious Bride" (rated a 7) and "The Case of the Lucky Legs," (rated a 6) is that they rely too much on comedy and paints Perry as a boob, despite his reputation as a first- class attorney. He is also seen as a bit money-hungry and superficial. Three actresses played Della Street, Claire Dodd in the second and fourth and Genevieve Tobin in the third. Ms. Tobin was my least favorite as Della, despite the fact she is a competent actress. "The Lucky Legs" (#3,) concerning a beauty pageant, was too flighty a film with little to no suspense. "The Curious Bride" has Margaret Lindsay as a past amour of Perry who now needs helps and while the film was modestly good, directed by "Casablanca" director Michael Curtiz, it was not as compelling as the first, despite the presence of Errol Flynn in a flashback as the victim in question. The last one, "Velvet Claws" is quite good with clever lines. In fact, these films are peppered with quick one-liners, but the addition of Allen Jenkins as "Spudsy," his right-hand man and his antics gets a bit tiresome. All in all, despite my dissatisfaction of too much comic relief, I think you'll be entertained. I particularly liked the twist ending of sorts in "Velvet Claws." Please discover Warren William as Perry Mason and then find his other films like "Skyscraper Souls" and "The Match King," and you'll see what you've been missing with such a prolific and dependable actor of the 1930s and early 1940s. He was very good when they used his dramatic skills to deceive and defend you.

I liked this one because it was mysterious - and mysteries should be mysterious, don't you think? Lots of pictures billed as mysteries really aren't, especially when they give away the murderer too soon. That doesn't happen with "The Howling Dog", which goes right down to the wire before all is revealed. Warren William makes his debut in this, the very first Perry Mason movie, He is very good, especially with his authoritative, stentorian voice. Most everyone else is just a supporting cast member, including Mary Astor, who is better than the rest.Warning: if you watch this movie, pay attention! You will be lost if you get up and go to the fridge, as the plot is intricate and can be a chore to follow. There are two couples involved but they become so intertwined you will need a road map to keep things straight. There a couple of curves and knuckleballs toward the end - information we didn't have while the story was unfolding. Ordinarily, you could yell foul, but the picture is so entertaining and the mystery so confounding that, if you are like me, you'll just go with it.

In this very first big screen portrayal of Perry Mason he does some very unMason like things for those of us used to watching Raymond Burr operate. The Case Of The Howling Dog involves Gordon Westcott retaining Mason to write a will leaving his assets to a neighbor who is the wife of a womanizing abuser, Russell Hicks. When Hicks is later killed along with his dog and Westcott goes missing, Mason conceives his duty to defend the beneficiary Mary Astor from a murder charge.Don't think for one minute you will see the business like Raymond Burr type of Perry Mason. Perry's quite the lady's man here and the romance between him and Helen Trenholme as Della Street is far from understated. And she's in a long line of conquests.In fact The Case Of The Howling Dog breaks one of THE cardinal rules for those of us who see Raymond Burr in action. Can't tell you because it wouldn't be right, but think of all the Perry parameters from television and I think you can guess.The Mason movies were good, not as popular for William as Philo Vance or The Lone Wolf, but good. Mason as a character never got real traction with the public on the big or small screen until Raymond Burr did the role.

***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!