A typical Warner Bros. B-movie, the first screen appearance of fiction's favorite defense attorney is short, sweet, and almost totally devoid of mood music. But do not expect the no-nonsense approach that Raymond Burr brought to Erle Stanley Garner's ever-popular courtroom hero. Instead, Warren William plays Perry Mason in his usual suave manner and that is just as it should be. Meanwhile, Della Street, Mason's adoring secretary, here portrayed by Canadian stage actress Helen Trenholme, is a mere bit part, but Mary Astor, as Mason's client, offers a stellar performance that in some ways foreshadows her Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941).