If your gift list includes a lawyer, don’t get them the new Perry Mason DVDs. Twenty episodes per volume – why, that’s thirty billable hours wasted. But anyone who remembers the show or wonders how the TV courtroom drama began will love these DVDs. Then again, it’s not necessary to buy them all. One will do. Every show, after all, was exactly the same.
The opening music sets the tone: the tremulous anxious strings, followed by chords that sound like law books dropped on a desk. Teeeee-deeeeee, DA DAH. In case you didn’t get the point: Teeeee-deeeeeee, Da DAH DAH. Then the main melody rose like a big man standing up, and it was cool, aloof, implacable. There’s not a trial lawyer over fifty who wouldn’t want this played at his funeral when the pallbearers walk the box to the hearse.
Read all of James Lileks’s analysis of the Perry Mason formula here.
2 comments:
You could also look at getting your lawyer friend one of the books, even better way of wasting their time than the dvd box set. And much better value for hour wasted with many of the old books available you could buy a dozen for the price of the box set!
Any opinion in favor of reading books has my support!
Post a Comment