MovieChat Forums > Perry Mason Returns (1985) Discussion > Cassie Yates-Terrible Performance

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).

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I have been wondering why DA Reston shows up everywhere? Isn't a DA linked to a specific town/area/district, and not moving across the country?

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Watched this tonight for the first time since the initial broadcast and enjoyed it very much. I thought Yates was pretty good myself, though they made the same mistake the original series often did, having the prosecuting attorney smugly confident of the defendant's guilt.

As I don't watch much television I'm not all that familiar with Yates (who was raised not too far from where I live), and yet she seemed strangely familiar to me as I watched her - finally it hit me: she bears a striking resemblance to my favorite author, Ruth Rendell (I wouldn't have noticed this resemblance during the original 1985 broadcast, as I was still two years or so away from reading Rendell).

"'Nature,' Mr. Allnut, is what we are put here to rrrrrriiiiise above!"

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Were there any other movies including in this dvd set that you mentioned? I haven't heard of any of the TV movies being released on dvd.

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Yeah, I doubt that was the actual reason. It seems more likely that, after deciding to continue with the series, they chose for a more well-known actor in a recurring role.

"It always struck me as odd how in this first Mason reunion movie they went with a female prosecutor"

Why is that odd? And you're wrong by the way, Ogden Stiers was only in 8 Perry Mason movies.

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