It’s a pity this little (apparently independent?) film noir has not merited a decent restoration and DVD reissue (no one apparently bothered to renew the copyright so scratchy prints were out for a while in 1995 on VHS on “Nostalgia Family Video” and it has been anthologized in a DVD box of “13 Murder Movies”), because the elements in the film are considerably above the “B” film it’s usually assumed to be and later work of those involved would be undeniably important. It isn’t a great film, but given those elements, it certainly is an interesting one.
The basic flashback form of the story telling is an echo almost too close for comfort of 1944’s classic DOUBLE INDEMNITY – with the characters dictating the explanation bound for similar fates; in fact, in the film’s chief failing, the original ad campaign for PLEASE MURDER ME! gave away virtually every aspect of the plot, leaving audiences only the enjoyment of *how* the characters got where they had been told the characters were going. There were no surprises.
Top billed (her first role in that position?) Angela Lansbury was in the middle of a long and (mostly) distinguished movie career mainly playing “bad girls” – years before her Broadway and television career nearly eclipsed her earlier 100+ films – except perhaps for her definitive evil mother in MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. She appeared to be taking a break from small but important roles in major studio films to see if she could carry a lead herself in this independent. PLEASE MURDER ME! didn’t get her major studio leads, but her supporting roles in everything from THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE to BLUE HAWAII continued to be either out of the top drawer or she made them seem they were until she decamped for Broadway and the lead in the musical MAME which forever changed HER career.
Third billed Dick Foran had had the lead in a wartime revival of Rogers & Hart’s A CONNECTICUT YANKEE on Broadway, but had mostly switched over from Hollywood roles in minor films to TV work by this shot at an important role in PLEASE MURDER ME!, but it was RAYMOND BURR, perennial film heavy (his greatest movie role was almost certainly the husband across the way in Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW two years before, who was also working more and more in TV who really made PLEASE MURDER ME! memorable.
It is almost certain that it was this role which got Burr his big shot as TV’s PERRY MASON the next year. It may even have been a knowing tryout. He was nothing like the 1930’s movie Perry Mason, the suave if slightly oily Warren William who was closer to the Perry Mason which Erle Stanley Gardner actually wrote, but watch Burr playing attorney Craig Carlson in PLEASE MURDER ME! It’s the full blown Mason 20+ years of TV viewers would get to know intimately. All the mannerisms and line readings are there. Rather than the stock “heavy” which had been Burr’s trademark, this was a persona of warmth and trust that anchors the film and makes the slightly strained story believable.
One can only hope that one of the ongoing DVD issues of PERRY MASON TV seasons will eventually pick up the public domain PLEASE MURDER ME! as a “bonus” feature – despite Attorney Carlson’s position at the final fade out, it clearly belongs as part of the Burr/Mason canon.
