Perry Mason: The Case of the Heartbroken Bride (1992 TV Movie) User Reviews

Missed the end!

[lucyrfisher · 8/10 · 10 April 2016]

I was enjoying this, but Tivo failed to record the big reveal! I liked the scenes in the club, and the young fans of "Kaitlynn". 1992 fashions are also worth a look. Linda Blair is good as one of the suspects. And Kaitlynn's fiancé (a soap opera actor) comes good as he channels Al Pacino to thwart some Bad Men.

Merle Kennedy is awful as the 16-year-old fan Suzy. She gazes wide-eyed at random points in the air, runs like a four-year-old and chomps food in an unmannerly fashion.

I'm from the UK, so I was frustrated at the way many of the actors dropped their voices and mumbled so I missed the dialogue. Had to look up IMDb to find out what the victim was called (Warren Fox? Lorne Hox? Actually "Lon" for Alonzo, Hawkes.). Perhaps the sound quality wasn't terribly good.

There are too many youngish men with dark hair and I found it hard to tell them apart.

Another high point - the over-the-top decor in the office of the record company exec. One weird note: the exec, and many of the dodgy or music biz characters, wore tiny, lame pony tails.

A Very Personal Case

[Mark-129 · 8/10 · 7 April 2002]

An interesting entry in the "Perry Mason" TV movie series. This time, Perry has to solve the murder of an unsavory interloper at a celebrity wedding. Of course, the accused, his "niece", is not the true killer. What makes this case above the norm is the courtroom fireworks and the insinuations throughout that Mason has very personal reasons for solving this paticular case.

Always A Lawyer, Never A Bride

[boblipton · 7/10 · 7 February 2019]

Heather MacAdam is discovered standing over the dead body of her uncle, Beau Starr, holding a bloody knife, with more blood on her hands and bridal gown. That's pretty damning circumstantial evidence. However Raymond Burr is a guest at the wedding. He tells her to answer no questions. Since Perry Mason is her lawyer, there's no doubt she didn't do it and the culprit will confess on the witness stand. It makes you wonder why they bother to even charge her.

It's a very good entry in the series of TV movies that Burr starred in during the last seven years of his life. Part of the pleasure is a stellar cast of actors: not only Burr, Barbara Hale as Della Street and William Moses as his investigator, but Paul Dooley as the certain-to-lose ADA, but Ronny Cox, Linda Blair and Diane Baker show up.

Mostly, though, it's a well-written show (Brian Clemmens and Gerry Conway are credited), with a lovely series of red-herring subplots to incriminate Miss MacAdam and add texture to the story. Enjoy.

What I found interesting

[brett5355 · 14 September 2011]

What I found interesting and different in this one was that the courtroom scenes were all at a hearing instead of a trial. Not sure if hearings are usually this detailed, but different nonetheless. The main thing was that I amazed my wife by picking out Stephen Stills in a cameo role. Would love to know the story of how he got in this one. Thanks to Flix for showing this series often and part of the fun of watching this one and all the others is to see the use of the "latest technology" at the time, especially the "mobile phones" that are bigger than some laptops now, and the computers that are in just about every scene in the police and lawyers offices.

The case of a heartbroken Bride

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 23 May 2023]

Pop star Kaitlynn Parrish (Heather McAdam) is getting married, a major event with the press and her fans trying to get a glimpse and some gossip. Perry (Raymond Burr), a long time friend of Kaitlynn and her father Max (Ronny Cox), is at the wedding with Della (Barbara Hale) but things turn a bit awry when the groom's drunk uncle, Alonzo Hawkes (Beau Starr) crashes the wedding, angry at being kept away whilst holding an envelope claiming it will reveal all the dirt on Max. After being knocked out by a punch from a security guard, Alonzo is put in another room to sleep it off but later on is found murdered with Kaitlynn standing over him. With Perry being a family friend he sets about defending Kaitlynn and finding out who the real murderer is.

Quite an enjoyable mystery with a nice nostalgic look at 80's pop music. It's very formulaic, however there's a liveliness to the proceedings with some interesting suspects.

Always Implying - Never saying

[gene-07202 · 10/10 · 18 April 2024]

There was always constant sexual tension between Perry and Della Street in all of their encounters. But rarely anything out in the open. Perry and Della talk about how Perry knew the family. He is introduced as an "Uncle". Not a real one but a close friend. There were implications throughout this movie that Perry is the biological father of the Bride. Subtle, but it is there. And no one comes out and says it. Even at the end when the bride's mother wants to say something to Della, and she responds you do not have to say it. I already know!... What? That she and Perry had an affair eons ago? Or that Perry is more than just a pretend "Uncle" and at one point he states that no one knows how far he would go to hlep this young Bride to be.

Crashing The Wedding

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 18 May 2008]

A really nasty tempered drunken individual in Beau Starr crashes the wedding of his nephew and confronts the father of the bride over some ancient grudges. He gets cold cocked and put to rest on a coach. But later on Starr is found with a knife in his chest and the would be bride, Heather McAdam standing over him.

Heather's a reigning pop star like Jessica Simpson and she's marrying her own Nick Lachey in Adam Storke. But there's a whole host of suspects. However she's got one thing in her corner an 'uncle' who's a well known attorney and who never loses a case.

This is one of the few times where we get a hint of a relationship with Perry Mason and someone else. This never happened in the hour television series back in the day. Of course he's not a biological uncle, but you can draw your own conclusion as to what happened way back when with Raymond Burr and McAdam's parents, Ronny Cox and Diane Baker.

I found this film, one of the weaker Perry Mason stories. Had it not been for the bride and her fame and the fact that she was found with the body, the real motive of the crime would have been apparent from the start and the police in the person of James McEachin would have focused their attention in the right direction.

Still I do love my Perry Mason stories so.

Uninvited Guest

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 8 February 2011]

***SPOILERS*** Trying to have everything go right for his teenage daughter rock music superstar Kaitlynn Parrish's, Heather McAdam, wedding honcho talent agent to the stars Max Parrish, Ronny Cox, gets the shock of his life when his mentally disturbed former business partner and the groom's Gary Hawke, Adam Storke, uncle Alonzo Hawkes, Beau Starr, burst into the wedding hall and crashed the party making a complete jerk of himself in public. The very disturbed and unpredictable Alonzo, also known as Lou, had been in the state pen for a criminal assault conviction for the last three years! Unknown to Max as well as Alonzo's savagely beaten, by him, niece Hannah, Linda Blair, who's a guest at the wedding Alonzo had been given an early release by the appeals court!

Frantically waving an envelope and accusing Max of every crime in the book including embezzling his talent agency Alonzo is immediately belted in the jaw and knocked out cold by one of the wedding security man Dave Tyanan, Michael McGrady,and then taken away unconscious to an outer room away from the wedding ceremony. It's later when Max goes into the room to check on Alonzo's condition he finds him stabbed to death with his daughter,the bride,standing over him with her snow white wedding dress and gloves covered with Alonzo's blood and a bloody knife at her feet.

Perry Mason,Raymond Burr, a guest at the wedding and the bride Kaitlynn's favorite uncle gets on the case right away by him and his private secretary, also a wedding guest, Della Street, Barbara Hale, finding a false reporter ID pass on the floor that belonged to a Kaitlynn Parrish groupie Suzy Richards, Merle Kennedy, who tried to crash the wedding party. As things turned out in all this confusion Suzy was hiding in a closet and very possibly saw whoever murdered Alonzo Hawke!

The movie starts to get really complicated, if it wasn't complected enough already, with its story going into a number of unrelated incidents involving the late Alonzo's unsavory past in him stealing $250,000 worth of bootleg audio tapes, of Kaitlynn latest album, from the mob. Mistaking Perry's leg man and private investigator Ken Malansky, William R. Moses, for Alonzo almost has him knocked off by the mob who seemed to have not heard or read the latest news reports on Alonzo's murder! That's even after Malansky proved to the mob hit-men, who obviously weren't provided with a photo of Alonzo, that he wasn't the person whom they were after!

***SPOILERS*** Things start to look real bad for the accused Kaitlynn Parrish when her father Max is forced to admit in court that he's under investigation in the embezzlement of some $250,000.00 from his talent agency giving his daughter who said in public that she would do anything to keep her father's name from being dragged through the mud by a creep like Alonzo a perfect motive for his murder! Perry uncovers a complected plan of stealing $250,000.00 from Max's talent agency and then having him framed for it! The plan falls apart when one of the conspirators gets a bit too greedy for his own good by grabbing all the loot, after knocking off Alonzo, at the expense of his partner! what Alonzo's killer never expected was that the stolen cash was secretly marked with invisible dye, that's seen under ultraviolet light, that he unknowingly ended up marking himself with. It's later after he got his greedy hands on the money that he ended up cooking his goose when Perry shined the light, ultraviolet light, of truth on him in a hushed up and darkened courtroom!

Passable entry

[bob the moo · 23 February 2003]

Perry Mason is invited to the wedding of his niece, a famous popstar. During the wedding ceremony things are disrupted by the bride's uncle threatening her father. Security overpower him and take him into a side room, but later he is found dead with the bride standing over him. She is arrested as evidence is found that the bride's father, Max Parrish was being investigated for extortion. Perry takes up the case while Ken goes after a young fan who had sneaked into the wedding and may have seen the murderer.

Mason films usually suffer when they try to shoe-horn the lawyer into the case rather than just having him being taken on by a client. However this doesn't suffer as bad as some of the other ones, although it does make things a little more difficult than they should be. The personal involvement in the plot makes things a little more complex and awkward rather than upping the emotion (as was the hope I guess). However aside from this it moves along at the usual pace for these films. Malansky's bit is not as good as usual and only the `side-kick' being a soap actor makes it a little amusing, but Mason does make good use of the emotional involvement in his courtroom presence.

Burr is good but seems a little at odds having to deliver a more involved performance this time around. Hale has little to do but tries to up the hinted romance by being possessive and such. Moses is good but has less to do. The support cast are interesting with Ronny Cox and Linda Blair being the well-known faces.

Overall a passable but not great entry in the series. A good ending that isn't too much of a blue-sky twist and a reasonable plot make for solid fare for those of us who enjoy this type of thing.

A material girl faces murder charges.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 21 August 2023]

Obviously in an effort to get younger viewers to tune in to what would be considered their grandparent's show, the writers of this Perry Mason TV movie brought in a Madonna lookalike. But Heather McAdam only compares to looks and a similar image in videos that she's appearing in, facing scandal at her wedding when she emerges from a room with blood all over her like a virgin dress, and uncle Perry (Raymond Burr) agrees to defend her.

The aide of long time assistant Barbara Hale and partner William R. Moses helps along with the case which adds on an unpossesssd Linda Blair, Ronny Cox, Diane Baker and Paul Dooley. I found the case after a while rather tedious and found it easy to drift off after a promising weekend. The efforts to make Perry Mason cool isn't a complete bust, but it drags far too much, and even the Perry/Della scenes lack in the spark of others in the TV film series.

Paint-by-numbers Perry Mason TV movie

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 28 February 2017]

THE CASE OF THE HEARTBROKEN BRIDE is a Perry Mason TV movie that begins with a wedding taking place during which one of the guests is found murdered. Of course, the famous lawyer and his friends just so happen to be present and thus immediately involved in the case. Perry must work his way through a cast of red herrings and the usual suspects in order to figure out the identity of the murderer.

As far as this series goes, HEARTBROKEN BRIDE is a paint-by-numbers entry. It feels episodic at best, benefiting from some of the guest performances but let down by the join-the-dots nature of the plotting. Certainly Raymond Burr seems to be on autopilot here and his 'action' scene involving a stand-in at the climax is a laugh. As usual, William R. Moses is here just to shoehorn some more explicit material into the production, namely shootings and gun threats from small-time criminals.

The best part of the film is the presence of two actors in support, both playing possible suspects. Ronny Cox came to this after TOTAL RECALL although he's not the bad guy this time around, instead the father of the bride. Funny how his character turns out to be quite murky though. Linda Blair is here too, in a funny turn as a karate-chopping suspect. As usual each suspect has to have his or her own motive for the murder and a back story that either implicates or exonerates them.

Strictly standard entry into the series, but largely enjoyable.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 17 May 2018]

Perry Mason is invited to the wedding of his niece, the pop idol Kaitlynn Parrish (Heather McAdam), but the big day is ruined when her uncle, Alanzo Hawkes, bursts in hurling insults at her father, Max (Ronny Cox), and brandishing an envelope supposedly containing money. "This will show everyone exactly who you are", he screams before he is knocked out by security and taken into the study to recover. Later, Kaitlynn is discovered standing over Hawkes' body with blood on her hands and a knife at her feet. Lt. Brock (James McEachin) arrests her for the murder and her motive is believed to be connected to her talent agent father who is under investigation for allegedly embezzling his clients' money. Perry, however, believes her to be innocent and sets out to find the real killer...

A strictly standard entry into the seemingly never ending series of TVM's based on the classic 1950's-60's courtroom drama series Perry Mason. But, on the whole, it is no less enjoyable for it and certainly fans of the show will love it and for those who have never watched it before it is as good a place as any to start. The only part that doesn't really work is the central theme of Mason representing his niece on a murder charge. It is meant to install an emotional element into the story, but it doesn't really have that much of an effect because in virtually all of these films the client is usually an old friend or acquaintance of Perry's. It seems very tired and repetitive and all too often we ask ourselves "How many old friends can he really have?"

The story was written by Brian Clemens, best known as one of the key creative talents behind the seminal British fantasy series The Avengers, and he laces his script with enough intrigue and plot turns to keep murder mystery fans happy. Burr is his usual impressive self as the ace defence attorney, and as usual, he goes all out to defend his client, and in the course of that he exposes other wrongdoers responsible for completely unconnected crimes to his case in order to get at the truth. In this case, as well as clearing his niece for murdering her uncle, he also clears her father of embezzling money from his clients' funds and sees to it that the real culprit faces justice.

There is some entertaining action comedy in the scenes involving Mason's attorney - detective sidekick, Ken Malansky (William R Moses), who reluctantly accepts the help of Kaitlynn's fiancé, the soap star Gary Hawkes (Adam Storke). In this feature, Malansky discovers that the murder victim was involved with a gang of ruthless gangsters whom he double crossed in order to extort money from the FBI over bootleg cassettes. The gang mistake him for the murdered man and plot to kill him since he knows too much. Hawkes employs his acting skills as a fake gangster in order to save his life in a hilarious scene. They overpower his would be assassins and Hawkes is a little miffed that Malansky seems ungrateful. "Yeah, I am, Pacino couldn't even cut it" says Malansky in a not entirely successful bid to show his gratitude. You can see that he is slightly embarrassed that he had to be saved by an actor and he never likes people interfering with his cases.

There are some interesting faces amongst the supporting cast, including Ronny Cox, Diane Baker, Linda Blair (who shot to fame as a teenager in The Exorcist) and the rock legend Stephen Stills (Crosby Stills And Nash) puts in a special appearance.