Leofwine_draca
THE CASE OF THE SILENCED SINGER is a solid addition to the PERRY MASON series. The story is fast-paced and the mystery actually feels mysterious instead of just going through the motions. I did like the solution to the mystery as well, which manages to feel fresh albeit a little unbelievable. This episode has a blaxploitation feel as a singer is murdered, apparently by her husband, and the episode takes place in the music business. William R. Moses spends his time flirting with a pretty nightclub singer while grappling with a slasher-like brawler so there's plenty going on to enjoy here.
sol1218
***SPOILERS*** Coming to the defense of his good friend and former law student Jack Barnett, Tim Reid, in the murder of his wife rock singer Terri Knigt, Venessa Williams, Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, can't make heads or tails in who would want to have murdered her! The sweet kind and lovable Terri didn't seem to have an enemy in the world. Sure things weren't exactly going right for Terri in her relationship with her hubby Jack but that seemed to have been ironed out with Jack now in charge of Terri's upcoming L.A live concert that's to net her, and Jack, a cool million dollars. Terri in fact hasn't been herself the weeks before her death becoming impossible to both work as well as in Jack's case live with. Something was on her mind that was eating away at her and made her a paranoid personality! Was it the upcoming L.A concert that she may have felt she wasn't 100% ready to do or was it something else! Something that was just too depressing for her to confide in with the many friends who were around and more then willing to help her out with! Checking out all the clues in Terri's murder Perry's assistant PI Ken Manlansky, William R.Moses, doesn't come up with the reason Terri was murdered but come up with who's the person or hit man who was hired to murder her! It still takes a while for Perry to unearth a motive for Terri's murder and when it finally comes to the surface in his cross-examining of Terri's good friend Becky De Leo, Marilyn Jones, it's absolutely mind bending! ***SPOILERS**** No doubt about it Terri Knight was brutally murdered but the reason behind her murder is so out of the ballpark or courtroom that it made you, as well as Perry Mason, feel that in Terri being killed was in fact the best thing that could have ever happened to her! That in preventing Terri from facing the horror she was to face in what was waiting for her in the very near future!
edwagreen
Another very good Perry Mason film where a singer, with a changing personality, is murdered and her second husband is arrested for this.As always, Perry uncovers a slew of others who could have done the victim in.You know that something is really amiss when of all people, Alice Ghostley, is killed by the killer as she same him at the scene where he didn't want people to know that he had been there.Other potential suspects include the woman's first husband, and two female friends.The ending, as always, is a real shocker. You'll almost feel empathy for the killer until you realize that he or she tried to blame the first husband out of revenge for his previous affair.As the singer, Vanessa Williams sparkles. Her singing, in flashbacks, is absolutely sparkling. Wonder if she did her own singing.
Mark-129
The Silenced Singer, along with "The Lost Love" is perhaps the apex of the "Perry Mason" mystery series. While the plot follows the same tried and true formula, there seems to be an effort to evoke memories of the classic movie "Laura," with suspects remembering how murdered singer Terri Knight (a luminous Vanessa Williams) affected their lives. All this over a wistful soundtrack featuring several songs performed by Williams. In this case, Perry Mason defends the husband of superstar singer Knight, who was murdered after a loud argument in front of witnesses. The trick for Mason is, that, although Terri had been cruel to members of her inner circle, they all loved her, each in their own way. So who would murder her? The guest cast includes several TV favorites, like Tim Reid, Nia Peoples and Rex Smith and offers an early performance from Angela Bassett. The resolution is unusual and almost tragic.Really top notch!
AD
