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There's a long-standing rumor about John Wayne's connection to Western series Gunsmoke that needs to be put to rest. John Wayne fronted around 80 Westerns in his career, and by the 1950s was one of the most famous movie stars in the world. This was also a period when there was a total dividing line between film and television. Some actors like Steve McQueen were able to leap from TV to film stardom - but this was rare. A star going from moves to television was even rarer, but there remains a legend around Gunsmoke that Wayne passed on starring.

Pretty much any article or retrospective on the classic series opens with this factoid. Even star James Arness was under this impression, stating in a 2006 Scv interview that "When the "Gunsmoke" offer came in, [Wayne] said, "I wouldn't be able to do it, but I have a young man here under...

Godzilla premiered in November of 1954, eight months to the day after the United States set off its first hydrogen bomb. Indebted to but distinct from pioneering giant monster movies like 1925’s The Lost World, 1933’s King Kong, and 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the seminal Japanese kaiju film is more than just another special effects-driven creature feature. Working from a story by Shigeru Kayama, writer-director Ishirō Honda and co-writer Takeo Murata provide an outlet for post-war Japan’s fears.

In the atomic age parable, an ancient, 164-foot creature dubbed Gojira ravages Tokyo after being awakened from its deep-sea hibernation by nuclear testing. Scientist Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), salvage ship captain Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada), paleontologist Kyohei Yamane, and his daughter Emiko Yamane (Momoko Kōchi) are tasked with fulfilling their social obligations to stop the seemingly indestructible beast.

The decision to use an actor (Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka) in a...

It’s ironic that a show about a woman trying to get revenge for her daughter’s opioid overdose death is so addicting, but here we are.

Kathy Bates’ Matlock is one of the 2024 season’s most popular new shows, and with good reason. People love her undercover mission, raw talent, and the twists in every episode.

If you love this show, there are a number of other legal series you have to check out, going all the way back to the late 1980s.

The Original Matlock (1986 – 1995) (NBC/Screenshot)

The original Matlock is very different from Kathy Bates’ version, but if you haven’t seen the ’80s version in a while, you’ll probably enjoy it more now that you can compare it with our Matlock.

Andy Griffith’s Matlock could arguably be seen as a reboot of Perry Mason, or at least based on it. Like the legendary Raymond Burr character,...

With so many in-depth legal dramas on TV these days, any long-time viewer could end up feeling like a lawyer themselves after binge-watching some of the best lawyer shows. Some legal dramas spend less time than others on the law aspect, whereas others have clearly spent months researching and working with real-life defense attorneys. Many lawyer TV shows feature a different case each week, but the very best legal dramas go further than the procedural nature of the genre and take some major risks.

These shows are also nothing new to television and go back almost to the beinning. In 1957, Perry Mason made his first appearance on television in a role that Raymond Burr stretched out for a decade. Matlock followed in a role that lasted just as long in the 1980s. Soon, things changed to show groups of attorneys in the best lawyer shows that focused on both the...

Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection will collect six of the Master of Suspense’s classics on 4K Ultra HD + Digital: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.

Releasing on November 26 via Universal, the six-disc set is limited to 5,150. It’s housed in premium book-style packaging featuring artwork by Tristan Eaton along with photos, bios, and trivia.

In 1954’s Rear Window, “A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.”

It’s written by John Michael Hayes (To Catch a Thief), based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 short story “It Had to Be Murder.” James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr star.

Rear Window special features:

Audio commentary by Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made Film author John Fawell Rear Window Ethics – 2000 documentary Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael...

Unsolved Mysteries, a long-running series since the late 1980s, has released a total of 607 episodes and specials as of July 2024. The show has had a turbulent history with various hosts, network changes, and cancelations, yet has remained popular and enduring. Netflix revived Unsolved Mysteries in 2020 with a new documentary-style format, focusing on single stories per episode for a more immersive experience.

The classic series Unsolved Mysteries is the gift that keeps on giving to cold case and paranormal phenomena fans, with hundreds upon hundreds of episodes to show for and more still yet to come. As its title suggests, the documentary-style TV show created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer explores a range of unexplained cases, from true crime whodunits to supernatural stumpers, and has done so since the late 1980s. In 1987, to be exact, Unsolved Mysteries began as a procession of TV specials before burgeoning into a full-fledged...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Film Noir Gets so Many Studio Notes it Achieves Sentience

I’m not the most important person in the world today who loves Venn Diagrams, but “His Kind of Woman” might be best explained as something that rests at the center of a series of overlapping circles. Almost all of those circles are “Howard Hughes wanted reshoots,” to be fair, but there are a number of factors that make this tropical fever dream a fun film noir b-side, best watched with a rowdy group of friends late at night. Alcohol is optional,...

Unsolved Mysteries has been airing, off and on, presented in different styles and by different hosts, for nearly forty years at this point. It all began with specials hosted by Raymond Burr, Karl Malden, and Robert Stack in the ’80s, followed by a series that went for several years with Stack as the host. (And Virginia Madsen being added as co-host eventually.) Dennis Farina hosted a revival that lasted a few years. And in 2020, the Netflix streaming series brought the world their Unsolved Mysteries reboot, which doesn’t have a host at all. The first six episodes of this revival, called volume 1, arrived on Netflix on July 1, 2020. Volume 2, also consisting of six episodes, dropped on October 19, 2020. Volume 3, which consisted of nine episodes that were released over a period of three weeks, came along in October and November of 2022. All five episodes of Unsolved Mysteries volume 4 will be streaming on Netflix...

Unsolved Mysteries has been airing, off and on, presented in different styles and by different hosts, for nearly forty years at this point. It all began with specials hosted by Raymond Burr, Karl Malden, and Robert Stack in the ’80s, followed by a series that went for several years with Stack as the host. (And Virginia Madsen being added as co-host eventually.) Dennis Farina hosted a revival that lasted a few years. And in 2020, the Netflix streaming series brought the world their Unsolved Mysteries reboot, which doesn’t have a host at all. The first six episodes of this revival, called volume 1, arrived on Netflix on July 1, 2020. Volume 2, also consisting of six episodes, dropped on October 19, 2020. Volume 3, which consisted of nine episodes that were released over a period of three weeks, came along in October and November of 2022. Now Netflix has finally confirmed that Unsolved Mysteries volume 4 will be streaming in July!

True Crime is a part of everyday media that the TV series, specials, films, and documentaries all about it have been around forever. But actually, that’s not the case. The format we now see, wasn’t the norm at all in the 80s when Unsolved Mysteries began its iconic run. A weekly series built around cases and interviews with the people who were a part of them, re-enacting the crimes…had never been done before.

But then one day a series came along that would not only showcase True Crime but would also give us ghosts, UFOs, and all points in between. Not only that, but the theme song would cause Ptsd in most kids my age who had the fortune or misfortune to hear it. That series is Unsolved Mysteries, a series so popular that it changed not only pop culture but the way investigations within law enforcement were conducted.

The original Japanese version of Ishiro Honda's kaiju classic "Gojira" -- previously bowdlerized by American translators as "Godzilla" -- wasn't released in American theaters until 2004 to coincide with the film's 50th anniversary. Up until then, American audiences had to content themselves with the 1956 film "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!," a heavily re-edited version of "Gojira" that included new scenes of actor Raymond Burr narrating the action. The footage was directed by Terry O. Morse.

When "Gojira" was finally released in 2004, not every critic was pleased. Most audiences accepted that Honda's film more or less birthed the kaiju genre, and established a persistent pop culture icon that persists to this day. Roger Ebert acknowledged that "Gojira" could be significant while also being completely shabby. He gave the film only one and a half stars, saying it was "idiotic." "Godzilla at times looks uncannily like a man in a lizard suit,...

Clockwise from top left: American Fiction (Amazon MGM Studios), Psycho (Universal Pictures), The Idea Of You (Amazon MGM Studios), Pearl (A24)Image: The A.V. Club

A new romantic comedy starring Anne Hathaway, the Oscar-winning American Fiction, Mia Goth in the horror prequel Pearl, and a number of Alfred Hitchcock classics...

When 1980’s Airplane! proved to be a massive hit, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year – up there with The Empire Strikes Back and Best Picture winner Kramer vs. Kramer – it was inevitable that it would get a sequel. But how often are comedy sequels good anyway? When have they ever really recaptured the magic and the laughter of the original? Well, Airplane II: The Sequel gave it a go…by basically being the same movie. Except this time around, Zaz wisely opted out, leaving the production without the strong leaders who reinvented the spoof genre. Instead, they got the guy who wrote Grease 2, one of the most notoriously awful sequels ever! So, strap in – no, not to an airplane but a space shuttle – as we find out: Wtf Happened to This Movie?!…The Sequel!

1980’s Airplane! did incredibly well upon release, making just under $85 million on a $3.5 million budget,...

Fantasy can cross over into several genres where you wouldn’t expect it to be found. Horror is one, of course; I dare you to watch Pan’s Labyrinth and not tell me it’s a horrific fantasy. But another is Science Fiction. Sci-Fi and Fantasy go hand in claw, and no more so than when it comes to Godzilla and his family of monsters.

In this edition of Fantasizing About Fantasy Films, we’re doing something a little different. We’re going with the new modern classic Godzilla Minus One. The return of the King of the Monsters from his home country of Japan and an origin story never previously witnessed. Prepare to be amazed as we see a Godzilla story told in a way that will surprise you, and which became one of the biggest hits of 2023 as we fly toward the monster in Godzilla Minus One.

Godzilla is,...

With Godzilla and Kong preparing for a titan-sized team-up in this weekend’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, now seems like as good a time as any to revisit the first time these larger than life monsters crossed paths: 1962’s King Kong vs Godzilla. The third film in both franchises and the first in both franchises to be presented in widescreen and color, this entry was a major turning point for the Godzilla seres in particular and is often credited with keeping the series alive after the disappointing Godzilla Raids Again.

Yet despite its massive influence, the film is also strangely difficult to come by in the West. Universal released a bare-bones Blu-ray of the English dub in 2014 and the Japanese version is included in The Criterion Collection’s “Godzilla: The Showa Era” box set; but both versions are strangely absent from that set’s digital release; on top...

Every town seems to have that one house. The one that children walk by with hushed tones and dare each other to sneak onto the porch or ring the doorbell of. In the movies it’s the Myers House, 1428 Elm (at least in the later movies), or the House on Neibolt Street—usually run down and harboring a frightening history. In my neighborhood growing up, it was not a dilapidated old house, just one that seemed very out of place among the homes of the working class that surrounded it. It was a huge two-story white house, buttressed with gigantic pillars, and surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. I never saw anyone come in or out and I always wondered who lived there. In my mind it was a rich old Mrs. Deagle from Gremlins type, and I wondered, “what’s going on in there?” That question is the engine that...

Elderly television viewers in the 1980s and '90s had an amazing Hollywood ally in Dean Hargrove.

The small-screen veteran got his start in the 1960s as a writer for "My Three Sons" and "The Bob Newhart Show" (the unsuccessful precursor to the wildly successful 1970s sitcom of the same name), and received credit for some of the best episodes of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." He wrote on arguably the greatest mystery series to ever air on network TV (we're not arguing if you read that passage and immediately thought "Columbo"), and kept Dennis Weaver employed as a producer on "McCloud."

But his most lasting impact on the medium was his 1985 - 2002 run as the producer of such old-people-go-a-sleuthin' shows as the "Perry Mason" television movies, "Jake and the Fatman," "The Father Dowling Mysteries," "Diagnosis: Murder" and the grandpappy of them all, "Matlock."

Hargrove's genius was turning America's favorite TV...

Rod Serling is primarily known for creating and developing the majorly popular anthology series "The Twilight Zone," on top of being the charismatic host who bookended every episode with valuable insight. Airing for five seasons, "The Twilight Zone" was home to tales that ranged from the nostalgic to the macabre, often sprinkled with a touch of science fiction and horror that reflect everyday societal ills. Interested in telling stories that pushed the boundaries of network TV while evading censorship, Serling and his talented team of writers came up with scripts that forayed into a liminal space they dubbed The Twilight Zone, where anything was possible and nothing could be taken for granted.

Serling's legacy eclipses "The Twilight Zone," of course, as the screenwriter/playwright was also involved in penning the scripts for films like "Patterns," which was televised by the Kraft Television Theater in 1955. He additionally wrote scripts for shows...

Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock made a film starring Shirley MacLaine and John Forsythe? Did you know he made a broad comedy? Did you know he shot an entire film in Craftsbury, Vermont?! Well, I guess the last one isn't so shocking. And "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", Hitchcock's Carole Lombard-starring screwball comedy from 1941, is quite well-known and liked.

But I'm not talking about "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." I'm talking about the other comedy made by the master of suspense. 1955's "The Trouble With Harry" represented several firsts for Hitchcock -- his first dark comedy, the first film he made after obtaining American citizenship (he had been living and working in the country for 16 years by that point), and the first film he made after commencing production on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." That series quickly became popular with audiences and was cemented in short order as an American institution,...

When Raymond Burr passed away at age 76 on September 12, 1993, he was in the midst of a career resurgence. The Emmy-winning Perry Mason star who ruled the courtroom with style and smarts from 1957 to 1966, was once again playing novelist Erle Stanley Gardner’s brilliant, benevolent defense attorney in a series of TV movies with original costar Barbara Hale. He’d even reunited with the gang from his 1967-75 police drama Ironside for a telefilm that year. Thirty years after the charismatic actor’s death from cancer, and more than 65 years after the show’s premiere, Perry Mason remains a fixture on nostalgia channels like MeTV and Fetv, and streaming services such as Paramount+ and Freevee. Streamer Pluto TV even hosts a channel that plays the series round the clock. Burr is so identified with that iconic role that it can be disarming to see him out of character, as in these clips,...

Bruce Lee had a limited onscreen presence in kung fu movies, but his acting career extended to TV shows, where he made appearances in five different shows. One of his notable TV appearances was in the iconic Batman series, where he guest-starred as Kato in a crossover episode with The Green Hornet. Apart from Batman, Lee also made appearances in Ironside, Blondie, and Here Come The Brides, showcasing his martial arts expertise and acting skills in diverse roles.

In addition to his kung fu movies, Bruce Lee made also appearances in five TV shows. As an adult, Bruce Lee was only active as an actor for a few years, hence why his onscreen presence is limited largely to just four kung fu movies. However, it’s worth noting that these films aren’t the extent of his work.

Lee was actually an actor for a substantial portion of his life.

Take cover because the monster of mass destruction, Godzilla, is coming to Pluto TV next month, with a channel devoted to the kaiju legend — and a few other iconic monsters. Hey, come to think of it, Godzilla Goes to Pluto would be a great movie!

In an official statement, Pluto hyped their Godzilla channel with the following: “The King of the Monsters has made landfall on Pluto TV! Emerging in 1954, Godzilla has become a global icon and symbol that has transcended time and pop culture. After debuting as a terror that descended upon Tokyo, Godzilla has fought numerous foes and gained new allies over several distinct eras. While each film stands alone in its own moment in time, the evolution of Godzilla followed advancements and film and technology along with cultural trends, yet always staying rooted in the origins from 1954. Today, fans can celebrate one of the world’s most...

When Kieran Culkin confirmed in late April that he will submit in Best Drama Actor at the Emmys for the fourth and final season of “Succession” after two supporting bids, it set off a flurry of reactions. One was that it’s the correct call, given the increased focus on Roman (Culkin), Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) this season in the wake of Logan’s (Brian Cox) death in the third episode. Another was that he would split the vote with Strong, the 2020 champ, and Cox, who later confirmed he was staying in lead, paving the way for someone else to triumph. But if either Culkin or Cox pulls out the win, though the latter seems less likely, “Succession” will join rarefied air as one of just two series to win the category for two different people.

Eleven dramas have nabbed multiple wins in the Best Drama Actor category,...

Network: HBO

Episodes: 16 (hour)

Seasons: Two

TV show dates: June 21, 2020 -- April 24, 2023

Series status: Cancelled

Performers include: Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Shea Whigham, Tatiana Maslany, John Lithgow, Justin Kirk, Diarra Kilpatrick, Eric Lange, and Katherine Waterston.

TV show description:

A detective drama, the Perry Mason TV show is a prequel that provides a reimagined origin story for the legendary criminal defense lawyer. Most viewers know the character from the 1957-66 TV show that stars Raymond Burr.

Read More…...

The verdict is in… and it’s bad news for Perry Mason fans. HBO has cancelled the courtroom drama starring Matthew Rhys after two seasons, according to our sister site Deadline.

“We are tremendously grateful for the remarkable work of Matthew Rhys and the unrivaled cast and crew of Perry Mason for their reimagining of such a treasured and storied franchise,” HBO said in a statement. “While we won’t be moving forward with another season of the series, we are excited to continue working with the brilliant creatives at Team Downey on future projects.”

More from TVLineKatherine McNamara Opens...

HBO has returned an unfavorable verdict on Perry Mason.

The drama starring Matthew Rhys as the title character has been canceled after two seasons. The series, a reworking of the classic courtroom show of the 1950s and ’60s, is produced by Robert Downey Jr.’s Team Downey.

“We are tremendously grateful for the remarkable work of Matthew Rhys and the unrivaled cast and crew of Perry Mason for their reimagining of such a treasured and storied franchise,” HBO said in a statement. “While we won’t be moving forward with another season of the series, we are excited to continue working with the brilliant creatives at Team Downey on future projects.”

Perry Mason premiered in June 2020 to solid audience numbers, and Rhys would earn an Emmy nomination for his lead role. HBO renewed the series midway through its first season.

Jack Amiel and Michael Begler (The Knick) served as showrunners on season two,...

“Our job is to fight for the show,” reveals executive producer Susan Downey on the goal for any good producer on series like their period drama “Perry Mason” and fantasy “Sweet Tooth.” For our recent webchat alongside her Team Downey partner Amanda Burrell, she adds, “We’re trying to be critical and trying to make sure we’re keeping the true north and supporting the vision of our showrunners and our filmmakers, and if you’re taking risks along the way and you’re doing things that you know make you a little bit nervous, then that’s certainly what we strive for. But you really hope that they work. So, it is nice to finally get Season 2 of both shows out into the world and see that people have been responding favorably.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

SEECelebrating 90 years of Perry Mason

“Perry Mason” was created by Rolin Jones...

Growing up as an immigrant in a non-English-speaking household, subtitled movies were pretty standard for me. In fact, I still have the bad habit of turning on subtitles whenever they’re available, regardless of language. As a young man, it never occurred to me that this wasn’t the norm, and that’s why I always thought it was strange that American studios would remake foreign films in English instead of simply distributing them normally.

Obviously, there are a myriad of cultural and economic reasons explaining why this isn’t the case, but it’s also worth noting that not all remakes are created equal. I may have spent a large chunk of my life lamenting every time an American remake of a foreign horror flick was announced, but even I have to admit that some filmmakers are actually capable of successfully translating the elements that made scary stories effective...

It's become something of a cliché that, when in doubt, a studio or network simply needs to go the dark and gritty route in remaking an old IP and modernizing it for a new audience -- whether it fits the material or not. In decades past, old-school detective procedurals were all the rage on cable television. Oftentimes, these episodic and formula-driven shows kept the violence and gore entirely off-screen, instead focusing on the central private eye and his (it was always a "him") investigators as they sought to discover the truth and save the day for their innocent clients.

The original "Perry Mason" absolutely fell under that umbrella, airing on CBS back in the mid 1950s to the late 1960s and based on author Erle Stanley Gardner's detective novels (who was also a credited writer on the series many times). Led by actor Raymond Burr as the eponymous criminal defense lawyer,...

William Hopper, the actor who played the stalwart private detective Paul Drake on the hit 1957 legal drama "Perry Mason," was a notoriously prolific smoker, often seen with a cigarette hanging from his lips on camera. In 1970, Hopper suffered a stroke and succumbed to smoking-related health issues a month later. He was 55 years old. 

As Paul Drake, Hopper was a cynic, a more grizzled presence built to balance Perry Mason's serious intellect. He was the Dr. McCoy to Perry Mason's Spock. For those unfamiliar with the series, "Perry Mason" was about a Los Angeles defense lawyer, played brilliantly by Raymond Burr, who was always careful to investigate the clients he was hired to defend. Typically, innocent people came to Mason, and he was always curious about the details of their case. Mason would always face off against the L.A. District Attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman), who never won a case against him.

Since his first appearance in Erle Stanley Gardner's 1933 book "The Case of the Velvet Claws," Perry Mason has remained consistently popular due to several film, TV, and radio adaptations. But when HBO decided to reboot the private investigator turned criminal defense lawyer for the 21st century, they naturally put a new spin on the character and those around him. The hardboiled, pulpy debut season of "Perry Mason" ended with Matthew Rhys' P.I. embracing the role of a lawyer for which he's so well known, accompanied by his new lead investigator Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) and legal assistant turned co-counsel Della Street (Juliet Rylance).

But rather than Drake being the droll P.I. of previous iterations, the HBO show's version is a conflicted and embattled former LAPD street cop, struggling to support his family and navigate the treacherous landscape of a deeply racist 1930s Los Angeles. And whereas the...

Gunsmoke set a record as the longest-running scripted television show on primetime with 20 seasons under its belt between 1955 and 1975. It went down in history as one of the greatest Western dramas ever to hit the screen, but some fans would argue that the awards season didn’t give it the attention that it deserved. Gunsmoke won five Emmy Awards over its 20 seasons, although none of them went to lead actor James Arness.

‘Gunsmoke’ had a terrific ensemble cast L-R: Amanda Blake as Kitty Russell, James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon, Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode, and Milburn Stone as Dr. Galen ‘Doc’ Adams | CBS via Getty Images

Gunsmoke initially started as a radio show in 1952 before it made its way to television. Diehard fans of the radio show were upset to hear that the voice cast wouldn’t return to play the iconic characters on television. Nevertheless, Gunsmoke...

Sharon Acker, the Canadian actress who portrayed Lee Marvin’s unfaithful wife in the 1967 neo-noir classic Point Blank and the right-hand woman Della Street opposite Monte Markham on a rebooted Perry Mason in the 1970s, has died. She was 87.

Acker died March 16 in a retirement home in her native Toronto, her daughter Kim Everest, a casting director, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Star Trek fans know Acker for her January 1969 turn as Odona, a desperate woman from an overpopulated planet, on the third-season episode “The Mark of Gideon.”

She also starred on a 1976-77 CBS adaptation of Executive Suite, playing the wife of Mitchell Ryan‘s Dan Walling. (Acker and Ryan assumed the parts performed by William Holden and June Allyson in the 1954 MGM film directed by Robert Wise.)

In John Boorman’s Point Blank, Acker’s character takes up with John Vernon’s Mal Reese after he shoots Walker (Marvin...

For nearly a century, defense attorney Perry Mason has been the fictional face of the wrongly accused, a crusader for justice who's determined to clear his clients' names using every trick in the book. The character was first created by author Erle Stanley Gardner, whose works were adapted into a radio show and, eventually, the formative CBS courtroom drama starring Raymond Burr. No matter the circumstances, the Perry Mason of the halcyon days of television could rise to the occasion.

But television has changed a lot since the 1960s, and so has Perry Mason. HBO's reboot of the series, now in its second season, stars Matthew Rhys as a version of the attorney who's both deeply jaded — there's a noirish tone to the updated show — and deeply committed to the cause of justice. A bit like Atticus Finch if he had a death wish and a penchant for dramatic courtroom reveals,...

Erle Stanley Gardner’s brilliant and savvy criminal defense attorney Perry Mason has been on the case since 1933’s “The Case of the Velvet Claws.” The attorney describes himself in that first novel as a “lawyer who has specialized in trial work, and in a lot of criminal work…I’m a specialist on getting people out of trouble.”

Inspired by the famed Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers who only lost three of his 77 murder trials, Mason was featured in 82 novels and four short stories, six Warner Bros. murder mystery movies, a long-running radio series, the beloved 1957-66 CBS series starring Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale as his true-blue assistant Della Street, movies and a 1973-74 series with Monte Markham. Matthew Rhys (“The Americans” ) plays the latest incarnation in HBO’s stylish “Perry Mason” series, currently in its second season.

Set during the Great Depression, the HBO drama has a real “Chinatown” feel,...

We are living in the Golden Age of Television… I.P. Whether it’s NBC rebooting “Night Court” or Netflix reliving “That 90’s Show,” intellectual property is the name of the game. Heck, “The Lord of the Rings” can’t even finish one reboot before the next comes along. Viewers are so inundated with old ideas rehashed into something new, they may not even notice how thoroughly I.P. has infiltrated their entertainment. Marvel comics were adapted into Marvel movies, which were extended into Marvel TV shows, which were then connected back to Marvel movies, which, by then, were incorporating old Marvel actors right alongside new Marvel actors — both playing the same role. I’m not even sure that winding, snakelike sentence holds together, but the point remains: We’re hearing the same stories about the same people over and over and over again. Hollywood has found a way to turn ouroboros into pure profit.

Perry Mason is back on the case. Season 2 of HBO’s reimagined take on the classic legal drama premieres Monday, March 6, with Matthew Rhys again stepping into the title role. The Americans star has said he didn’t watch Raymond Burr’s iconic take on the character before season 1, which aired in 2020. But for many TV viewers, Burr is Perry Mason. The actor played the crusading defense attorney from 1957 to 1966, and again in a series of TV movies from the mid-80s through the early ‘90s.

Burr’s run as Perry Mason ended with this death in 1993. But are any other original Perry Mason cast members still alive?

‘Perry Mason’ star Raymond Burr died in 1993 Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, right, and Ray Collins as Lt. Arthur Tragg ‘in ‘Perry Mason’ | CBS via Getty Images

The Canadian-born Burr had a long career in Hollywood, including roles in classic films such...

Three years ago, I championed HBO’s bold decision to reinvent Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic hero Perry Mason as a downtrodden, chronically rumpled gumshoe turned lawyer in Depression-era L.A. As played with forlorn pugnacity by Matthew Rhys, as if channeling the cinematic spirits of Bogart and Mitchum, the new/old Perry Mason felt like he fit into the film noir world of legends like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Perry’s first-season redemption arc made for compelling TV, but heavy-handed storytelling lets him down in Perry Mason’s long-awaited but disappointing comeback. Lured back to criminal law to defend Latino brothers from a Hooverville slum being railroaded for the murder of an oil-family scion, Perry enlists his lesbian partner Della Street (Juliet Rylance) and Black investigator Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) ...

Plot: Months after the Dodson case has come to an end, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. When the Da goes to the city’s Hoovervilles to pinpoint the most obvious of suspects, Perry, Della, and Paul find themselves at the center of a case that will uncover far reaching conspiracies and force them to reckon with what it truly means to be guilty.

Review: When Perry Mason debuted in 2020, it was as a limited series. The stellar whodunit introduced a new generation to a grittier take on Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic literary creation previously associated with Raymond Burr’s performance. Matthew Rhys brought a different edge to Mason alongside Juliet Rylance and Chris Chalk as Della Street and Paul Drake. Thanks to critical acclaim, HBO decided to turn Perry Mason into an ongoing series. Three years later, the sophomore run is here with a new case,...

“Despite all your brooding cynicism, you still believe in justice!”

This is Hamilton Burger, personal friend and professional nemesis to the title character of Perry Mason, in the legal drama’s long-delayed second season premiere. The first season occasionally used Burger (played by Justin Kirk) as a mouthpiece for all the ways this take on the character wouldn’t resemble either the Erle Stanley Gardner novels or the black-and-white TV series with Raymond Burr. At one point, for instance, he warned Perry (Matthew Rhys) that “No one confesses on the stand,...

Kaiju movie Tokyo 1960 has been lost but was it actually connected to Toho's Godzilla? The original Godzilla was a bleak, despairing monster movie that accidentally gave birth to a decades-long franchise. The original was a thinly veiled metaphor for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2, but Godzilla slowly morphed from villain to savior of humanity in later entries. He was eventually exported to America for a 1998 movie and Legendary's MonsterVerse movies, and to the latter's credit, they never portray Godzilla is never portrayed as a hero.

More than spawning a series that is still running, Godzilla also inspired countless giant monster/kaiju movies. These include Mothra, Gamera or Gorgo; a young John Carpenter even made a Godzilla Vs Gorgo fan film. The franchise now consists of over 30 movies and various other spinoffs, including animes and video games. The "King of the Monsters" is likely to reign...

Svengoolie, a.k.a. Rich Koz, has been working as a horror host since 1979, and over the decades his show has grown from airing in select areas – Chicago, Milwaukee, and South Bend, for example – to being broadcast nationwide on the MeTV network. And in 2023, Svengoolie’s show is going to be growing in a different way. It’s going to be 30 minutes longer!

Fangoria broke the news that, staring in January, Svengoolie will now air from 8pm to 10:30 pm (Eastern) on Saturday nights. The show’s timeslot had previously been from 8 to 10. Here are the first batch of movies that will benefit from the show’s extended running time:

The Raven: Saturday, January 7 – 8pm-10:30pm Et

Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Jack Nicholson (1963) – Horror

Inspired by the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem, a magician, who has been turned into a raven, turns to a former sorcerer for help.

Matthew Rhys is back in the first trailer for HBO’s Perry Mason season 2. Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels formed the basis for the legendary television series starring Raymond Burr as the (almost) unbeatable defense lawyer. In 2020, Perry Mason got a very gritty period-set reboot, starring The Americans’ Rhys as Gardner’s complicated-but-heroic attorney. Then in July 2020, HBO announced that Perry Mason would be back to tackle another case in season 2.

It’s unfortunately taking quite awhile for Perry Mason season 2 to be delivered after that 2020 announcement. But now the second season is indeed officially on the way, with a premiere date set for March 6, 2023. And fans can finally catch their first glimpse of what’s in store for Perry Mason season 2, thanks to a new trailer just released by HBO. See the clip in the space below:

Related: Perry Mason: Why Matthew Rhys Replaced Robert Downey Jr....

Perry Mason finally has a return date. HBO announced the second season premiere of the drama with the release of a trailer. Starring Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Shea Whigham, Eric Lange, Justin Kirk, Diarra Kilpatrick, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis, Fabrizio Guido, Peter Mendoza, Mark O'Brien, Paul Raci, Jen Tullock, Jon Chaffin, Onahoua Rodriguez, Jee Young Han, Sean Astin, Tommy Dewey, and Wallace Langham, the series is intended as an origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason. The character first appeared in novels in 1933 and was later portrayed by Raymond Burr in a successful television series and a run of sequel TV movies.

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When you watch enough movies and shows, you start to pick up on certain little recurring trends. Chief among them has to be the instinct to create new adaptations of classic, pulpy characters ... but with a dark, brooding, and adult-only sheen layered on top. After all, how else would you know to put the "prestige" in prestige television?

Well, as eye-rolling and clichéd as this tendency may be, I'm here to admit that I'm a complete and total hypocrite, because I happily ate that up and asked for more when HBO gave the same exact treatment to the classic character of Perry Mason. Initially a 1957 legal drama on CBS, with the eponymous private investigator played by Raymond Burr and based on the books and short stories written by author Erle Stanley Gardner, creators Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald saw fit to make a new "Perry Mason" adaptation -- this time,...

The 1984 slasher "Body Double" is one of director Brian De Palma's most blatant Hitchcock homages. If "Obsession" is "Vertigo" and "Dressed to Kill" is "Psycho," then "Body Double" is "Rear Window," as both are murder mysteries sparked by voyeurism. Struggling actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) is house-sitting for an acquaintance and spends his nights spying on his new neighbor Gloria (Deborah Shelton) via telescope. After a brief tryst, Jake witnesses her murder and sets about unraveling the foul play.

A key difference is how the murders unfold. In "Rear Window," Jeff (James Stewart) has been observing his neighbors while he heals from a broken leg. He falls asleep by the window one night and hears a scream. He then notices Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) leaving his apartment throughout the night and, over the next day, realizes Thorwald's wife Anna (Irene Winston) is missing. Part of the murder mystery is...

Unsolved Mysteries has been airing, off and on, presented in different styles and by different hosts, for thirty-five years at this point. It all began with specials hosted by Raymond Burr, Karl Malden, and Robert Stack in 1987, followed by a series that went for several years with Stack as the host. (And Virginia Madsen being added as co-host eventually.) Dennis Farina hosted a revival that lasted a few years. And now a new version of the show that doesn’t have a host is set up at the Netflix streaming service. We’ve been watching and being disturbed by episodes of Unsolved Mysteries for a long time – and you can find out what we have to say about the Stack era of show in the new episode of the Horror TV Shows We Miss video series. Check it out in the embed above!

Created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer,...

Powerhouse Indicator’s first foray into the Universal library yields six noir thrillers, all crime-related and all different: the list introduces us to scheming businessmen, venal confidence crooks, black-market racketeers, a femme fatale, a gangster deportee and baby stealers. The B&w features are enriched with some of the best actors of the postwar years, and the titles themselves are a litany of vice and sin: The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported and Naked Alibi.

Universal Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported, Naked Alibi

Powerhouse Indicator

1948-1954 / B&w / Street Date November 14, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, Vincent Price, William Bendix; John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelly Winters, Dorothy Hart; Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton; Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Raymond Burr; Marta Toren, Jeff Chandler, Marina Berti, Richard Rober; Sterling Hayden,...

Can you believe it’s been 68 years since we first heard the pitter patter of Godzilla’s city-crunching feet? And the excitement has never abated. “He’s an all-purpose monster,” as director John Carpenter enthuses while sitting down with Den of Geek. “Anything you need, he’s there for you.”

Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira), directed by Ishirō Honda, is a horror landmark and a science fiction legend. Its atomic-powered star, the enormous, atomically mutated dinosaur we call Godzilla, is the embodiment of a country’s fears and a beloved icon of destruction. Produced and distributed by Japan’s premiere monster factory Toho Co. Ltd, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, Honda’s 1954 film created the kaiju (big monster) genre, reinventing the motion picture industry by miniaturizing more than budgets for maximum payloads, and spawning almost 30 sequels.

Shout! Factory TV thinks that is a reason to celebrate. Beginning on Godzilla...

Celebrate International Godzilla Day with John Carpenter with his Masters of Monsters movie marathon. Hosted by the iconic horror director and Shout! Factory TV, the special marathon is comprised of the filmmaker's four favorite movies directed by Godzilla's co-creator, IshirÅ. Honda, and features breakdowns of his fondness for each.

Beginning November 3 at 6 p.m. Pst, the Masters of Monsters marathon will run for four days and feature the original 1954 Godzilla, 1956's Rodan, 1964's Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, and 1966's The War of the Gargantuas. Acting as the ultimate celebration of the iconic kaiju and the other creatures created by Honda and his creative team, Carpenter's marathon is the perfect way to celebrate Godzilla's long-lasting legacy.

Related: Someone Please Ask John Carpenter To Score Their Video Game

In anticipation of it kicking off, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with John Carpenter to discuss Masters of Monsters, where his love for Godzilla began,...