Watch Perry Mason: The Case of the Wicked Wives For Free

Wonderful character development!

The acting in this movie is really good.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

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.

Stepping into the place of Raymond Burr after his demise is Paul Sorvino who made his one and only appearance as opera loving gourmet attorney Anthony Caruso. As we see in the opening he operates like Perry Mason as he gets a confession and the evidence on the real murderer.Right after that Caruso is retained by Kathy Ireland the fifth and current wife of Eric Braeden who is a world famous fashion photographer who has seen his better days. But Braeden is planning a comeback and he's going to shoot a new show with five models whom he made world famous icons. Like Ireland, the other four have been his wives as well.But when Braeden is murdered it's Ireland who Detective James McEachin of the Denver PD arrests. Now Sorvino is Ireland's attorney and he gets the use of Perry Mason's office along with Barbara Hale and William R. Moses. There's never any explanation of what happened to Perry Mason.William R. Moses has an especially bad time in this story trying to track down a witness whose relationship to one of the ex-wives is the key to the whole case. He has to go into the Brokeback Mountain country and be at the mercy of some cowboys who are definitely not Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.Although I liked Sorvino apparently either he did not want to do a series or the viewers didn't take to him because Hal Holbrook came in with a different character.Probably folks would accept no other in Perry Mason's shoes.

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.

Perry is away in Washington so Anthony Caruso covers his practice for him for a short while. Anthony is busy helping out his friend David Morrison to bring together al his old models for a retrospective photography collection. However David's ex-models are all his ex-wives and the animosity between them is very clear. On the first night of the shoot a witness sees David's current wife kill him and flee the scene. Anthony believes she is innocent and steps in to defend her. Meanwhile Ken goes after another woman who may have been having an affair with David and has since vanished.Perry is `in Washington' for this film, which sounds like something you'd tell a child instead of having to explain that Granny has died. Indeed that is the case as Burr was dead and never made another Mason movie. However rather than have the taste and sense to finish the series, the producers decided to spin it out. In this instance that decision was ill-advised. The plot doesn't work. In order to get Anthony involved in a big case, it as to be with people he knows – thus the tortuous opening where he gets all the ex-wives together. This makes the film feel ill at ease with itself – Anthony never really rips into or exposes the suspects as they are all friends – plus none of the group seem to struggle with this at all, making it seem like they are strangers. Malansky's investigation is long and dull with moments thrown in just to try and liven things up a bit.The conclusion is silly even by the standards of this series. Would you take something from the murder scene? Would you have it on you when you are in the witness box? No? Well the guilty party does and it is this that traps them – it's daft and he/she is totally unbelievable and it feels so very lame that it's hard to really care!Sorvino is an interesting choice to play in the lead but he doesn't work. It doesn't feel natural having him walk round singing while one of his friends is a murderer and too much is made of him being an Italian. Aside from that I found it very hard to shake the image of Goodfella's Paulie from my brain and half expected him to order Ken to whack somebody! Sorvino struggles with a role that ties him into a case emotionally but doesn't allow him to express anything – I suspect he didn't want a second try and he didn't return for another role in the series. Moses is OK as is Hale but they are exposes without Burr and Hale has little to do. The support cast are OK but none are as interesting as the usual array of red-herrings etc. They are only good as eye candy as they are a few models etc – Johnson standing out cause she looks a lot better here than she has recently!Overall this is a pretty poor film and it highlights how good burr was in holding everything together in a familiar way. This has a plot that is a bit of a mess, characters who don't ring true in a silly situation and the whole thing just crawls to it's dumb climax, by which time I'd long since given up caring!