THE CASE OF THE HOWLING DOG (1934)

Sharp programmer sees Warner Brothers trying Perry Mason on for size in the first, and likely the best, of these early adaptations.  Later entries added generic elements and more comic relief, but here Warren William, who’d repeat for most of the series, hunkers down investigating & lawyering for a neurasthenic man who’s come to make a new will and sue a neighbor for his continually howling dog.  Shootings, disappearance, a pretty wife (Mary Astor) charged with murder, a false witness ‘arranged’ by Mason to nullify testimony (Perry skirting legality in these early films), nice period flavor and a rattling pace for a dialogue heavy film; just about everything one of these modest double-bill offerings ought to have.  The writers get a couple of things wrong: should Mason really be running a huge office firm with dozens of specialty lawyers, private dicks, rows of secretaries and banks of phone switchboards & operators?  And the relationship with secretary Della Street ought to be implied rather than activated, no?  (That’s lovely Helen Trenholme as efficient Ms. Street in the first of only two credits.  Pity.)  But the spirit of the case and how Mason runs it makes sense and is twisty without being impossible to follow.  (Based, for once, on an actual Erle Stanley Gardner novel.)  Neatly handled by Alan Crosland (note the quick pans instead of edits), a Warners contract director who’d slipped badly from his late-silent/Early Talky heyday; dead in a car accident two years later.  This one good enough to think he might have come back to prominence.  Fun stuff.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Out a few months after the Production Code went into strict effect, they still manage to let someone off the hook for murder.  And note that while there’s no real musical score, some interesting diegetic choices get made, like having an upbeat song from DAMES/’34 play during the murder.

DOUBLE-BILL: Utility player on Warners’ leading men contract list, William likely got this assignment after his stellar turn two years back in THE MOUTHPIECE/’32.