Cassie Yates-Terrible Performance
I had a chance to revisit this for the first time in years as part of the Perry Mason special collection DVD which includes this as a bonus. It always struck me as odd how in this first Mason reunion movie they went with a female prosecutor with Cassie Yates (who despite being named "Julie Scott" in the credits is called "Barbara" in all her scenes) and then quickly replaced her with David Ogden Stiers in the second TV movie and all subsequent ones. Rewatching this, I finally realized why they made the switch. Yates's Julie/Barbara Scott came off as a snotty know-it-all, less interested in trying to win her case and more interested in taking on the legendary Perry Mason. It just made for an awful mismatch, whereas Stiers played a smart, intelligent prosecutor that Mason considered a real challenge in the courtroom. The fault may have been in how Yates's character was written, but her poor performance sealed her fate as far as future Mason movies went.
This is the only Mason reunion film that I think ever refers to the late Hamilton Burger (William Talman).