Perry Mason: The Case of the Wicked Wives (1993)
Anthony Caruso, an old friend of Perry Mason, comes to Denver on the request of Dee Morrison. She's married to famed photographer David Morrison, who wants to shoot a photo featuring his former models. The tricky thing is that all of his former models are also his former wives. But Dee knows Anthony can convince them to do it which he does. And David shoots them. Later Dee catches David it what appears to be in an inappropriate situation with his assistant. They have an argument and she leaves. Later David is found dead and she's arrested and Anthony defends her. And he suspects it could have been one of the wives
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
Sorry, this movie sucks
Memorable, crazy movie
Fresh and Exciting
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
THE CASE OF THE WICKED WIVES is a workable PERRY MASON mystery and the first made after the death of star Raymond Burr. This time around, the similarly bulky Paul Sorvino plays a similarly hotshot lawyer rival of Mason's, taking on the murder of a fashion designer and fighting to clear the name of the man's accused wife. A flirty assistant and no less than four ex wives muddy the waters somewhat, so there are a great deal of sub-plots and back stories to pad out the running time. Barbara Hale and William R. Moses are still present in the story, the latter getting involved in some outdoor shenanigans that have very little to do with the central legal story. It does feel dated and low budget in parts, but it's not the worst of the series either.
With the passing of Raymond Burr, Paul Sorvino stepped into the brilliant lawyer's part with interesting results. Sorvino proved his resourcefulness here but did we have to have the opera singing? We know that Sorvino, in real life, could hit the operatic notes but good, but that wasn't necessary here.Still, we have a very good story with 4 ex-wives of a real cad coming together to work with the latter. Naturally, when the cad, played with relish by Eric Braeden, is murdered, suspicion falls on each of the women. Since his current wife was arguing with him over his latest flirtation, she is the one who is arrested.That ending, as always, was totally unexpected but had the real Mason touch.Barbara Hale looked like she was grieving here in her brief stint as Della Street. William R. Moses, Ken Malansky, had plenty of physical footwork here and is to be commended for great physical dexterity. Or, what there a stuntman involved?Surprisingly, McEachin, who played the black detective always sarcastically involved in words with Mr. Mason, has none of that here and that is missed.
I am not sure where they went wrong on this one. They tried to throw a curve by having the obvious suspect actually be guilty. They continued the trend of showing Ken Melansky bumbling around again before getting bailed out by others to do his job. The casting is inspired, with 4 beautiful actresses lead by Octopussy (Maud Adams) herself. They replace Burr with an Italian Tenor / Chef attorney. They even cast Eric Braeden, TV vet of the Young & Restless & the Rat Patrol as the victim.I think the big problem is a flat script. It's kind of like the production company itself lost a lot of inspiration on Burr's death. If they had thrown in a funeral for Perry, it would fit the mood. There is very little fun in this one. I only wish they could have given the lady actresses more scenes & more to do, but the story prevented that. I think you should skip this one unless your desperate for a mystery or perhaps like looking at an interesting casting experiment. That is all there is too this one.
I thought this movie was OK. The cast seemed to be doing their best but in my opinion they were missing someone essential! Raymond Burr who would usually play the main character of Perry Mason died before this movie was made. It's still an OK story but having seen other TV movies with Burr in, I don't think this one is quite so good.