A rather routine melodrama from the bountiful Perry Mason filmography, probably below average for the series, but still above average for most 60s programs.
This episode gets knocked for its use of color, with such statements as: looks like it was colorized, the crew didn't have experience with color, etc. However, I disagree. I find it's use of color above average for TV of the period.
If one were to look at other color programs from the 1960s, one will see that, in general, colors were rather bright, use of contrast or shadows was not great, and there was not much concern over subtlety of shading. This was in particular due to the color TV sets of the time that lacked the significant details and color variations of film, and of what we see with modern TV. This was true until finally in the early 70s some thought was given to increase contrast and color variation in TV sets, as was done with black matrix and trinitron screens.
The idea of color on TV then was to show it bright and brightly lit, and to prompt sales of color sets, quite different from film production. Take a look at the original Star Trek for an example. In fact, for those like myself who can remember this period, TV and Film were entirely two different worlds, and they rarely met except when somebody was able to make the jump from TV to film. It's not like that today.
In regards to this episode, I'd suggest that in fact it used more shading than was common to other color programs of the time, and was actually a better example of good use of color in a medium that lacked such. To the one who thinks it looks colorized, I'd think that was more a product of your own bias that Perry Mason ought to be B&W and not in color, as you know the colorized films ought to be.
To the one who feels the crew lacked experience, well, that's just a big laugh for me because the one thing the Perry Mason crew did not lack was cinematography experience. That's like telling a veteran artist doing a charcoal that he or she probably can't do the same in color, basically an ignorant comment.
This episode gets knocked for its use of color, with such statements as: looks like it was colorized, the crew didn't have experience with color, etc. However, I disagree. I find it's use of color above average for TV of the period.
If one were to look at other color programs from the 1960s, one will see that, in general, colors were rather bright, use of contrast or shadows was not great, and there was not much concern over subtlety of shading. This was in particular due to the color TV sets of the time that lacked the significant details and color variations of film, and of what we see with modern TV. This was true until finally in the early 70s some thought was given to increase contrast and color variation in TV sets, as was done with black matrix and trinitron screens.
The idea of color on TV then was to show it bright and brightly lit, and to prompt sales of color sets, quite different from film production. Take a look at the original Star Trek for an example. In fact, for those like myself who can remember this period, TV and Film were entirely two different worlds, and they rarely met except when somebody was able to make the jump from TV to film. It's not like that today.
In regards to this episode, I'd suggest that in fact it used more shading than was common to other color programs of the time, and was actually a better example of good use of color in a medium that lacked such. To the one who thinks it looks colorized, I'd think that was more a product of your own bias that Perry Mason ought to be B&W and not in color, as you know the colorized films ought to be.
To the one who feels the crew lacked experience, well, that's just a big laugh for me because the one thing the Perry Mason crew did not lack was cinematography experience. That's like telling a veteran artist doing a charcoal that he or she probably can't do the same in color, basically an ignorant comment.