ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

utgard14 Second in the Perry Mason film series starring Warren William as the famed lawyer/detective. It's arguably the best in the series. This time around Perry is asked for help by an old flame and winds up investigating her estranged husband's murder. Fun entry with a weird thread involving Perry's cooking hobby. William is having fun as he usually seemed to be. Allen Jenkins is a hoot as Perry's sidekick. Claire Dodd is an enjoyable Della Street. Errol Flynn has a "blink and you'll miss him" appearance in a flashback. This was his inauspicious feature film debut. One of Humphrey Bogart's wives, Mayo Methot, has a small part. The rest of the fine cast includes the always lovely Margaret Lindsay, the always bland Donald Woods, and the always grumpy Barton MacLane. It's a good-looking film, attractively photographed by David Abel with nice direction from the great Michael Curtiz, who would go on to much bigger and better films, including many starring Flynn.

bkoganbing Besides being in the series of Perry Mason films that Warner Brothers did with the urbane Warren William in the title role, The Case Of The Curious Bride is famous for being the American debut film of Errol Flynn. Flynn has no dialog in the film, he's first seen briefly as the corpse and then in flashback the actual murderer relates how Errol got himself dead. Two films later and Flynn, a complete unknown was co-starring with Olivia DeHavilland in Captain Blood and the rest is cinema history.Don't expect to see the business like Raymond Burr interpretation of Perry Mason here. Warren William is quite the romantic here with steady girl friend Della Street played by Claire Dodd and a few old flings constantly showing up. One of those is Margaret Lindsay who is now married to rich young Donald Woods, son of Charles Richman who ain't too crazy about his son's marriage. When Flynn shows up after people thought he was dead making veiled threats of course Lindsay turns to another old flame in Warren William for help.Then when Flynn gets killed she really does need his help. Though the case never gets to trial, Perry earns his fee in finding out the real killer. Warren William has some kind of record, he played the hero/protagonist in three movie series, The Lone Wolf, Perry Mason, and Philo Vance. He's not the Perry Mason a couple of television generations grew up with, still his interpretation is different.

Henry Kujawa I just watched THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE again, the 2nd Perry Mason film. Once more with Warren William in the lead, but with a different Della, and with Allan Jenkins now playing "Spudsy" Drake instead of a police inspector. Perry now has a virtual army of friends & cronies, all of whom seem to be too happy to be hanging around in his sphere. It's almost like a Doc Savage story, except in this case, "Ham" is the hero! There's also a District Attourney who seems genuinely eager to have Perry brought up on charges of murder, or at the very least, disbarred! Michael Curtiz, one of the most successful & popular directors in Hollywood history, did this installment, and frankly, it's got SO MUCH style & character & humor-- TOO much, I think, it seems Curtiz is trying to hard too distract the audience, focusing on almost everything EXCEPT the murder mystery. I'm reminded, a bit, of how I heard that when Orson Welles did TOUCH OF EVIL, he wound up taking an "average" crime story and threw his entire repertoire of skills at it in an attempt to turn it into a "work of art". At least in the restored version, I think he succeeded... In the case of ...CURIOUS BRIDE, I've seen this at least 3 times (AND read the book-- the only Earl Stanley Gardner novel I have read to date), and I find it almost impossible to follow the plot of this thing! From what I remember of the novel, it was much simpler, much more straight-forward, and much easier to follow along with-- much like the 1st film, THE CASE OF THE HOWLING DOG. That was complex-- but complex in a "murder mystery" sort of way. This thing just seems to be getting in its own way trying to be too clever.

JohnHowardReid Although Warren William had already played Perry Mason in Alan Crosland's The Case of the Howling Dog (1935), and would continue to play the attorney/detective in The Case of the Lucky Legs and The Case of the Velvet Claws, it's this second outing that all classic film addicts are anxious to view, chiefly because it marks the Hollywood debut of Errol Flynn.Actually, although Errol's role is important, it's also quite small. He doesn't speak but appears very briefly in a flashback. It's Warren William who steals all the limelight and is given all the brightest lines. With the exception of Olin Howland, the other characters are in the movie simply to supply William with "business"—and this being an "A" production—plenty of it. Even the title heroine, nicely played by Margaret Lindsay, disappears for most of the action. We also see very little of Della Street. It's Mason who makes things happen all the way, as he strides through the vast backlot and studio sets at a frantic pace, trading verbal blows right, left and center.The speed of the narrative is ingeniously reinforced by a snappy quick-zoom/focus-out editing style (which was picked up in a popular TV series 20 years later). Other credits are likewise highly professional, but, despite all this cinematic dexterity, I feel the movie tends to outstay its welcome. The plot is too thin, and Lindsay's dilemma is not made sufficiently dramatic.