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HBO’s ‘Perry Mason’ delivers ‘The Godfather’ horse head-levels of spectacle
When I think of The Godfather, I think of that horse head. Sure, there are plenty of other memorable scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s mob masterpiece. But Khartoum’s prize-winning head, beautiful, heavy, drenched in blood, and sliding on silk sheets as Jack Woltz’s screams peal across mansion walls, will always be one of those cinematic moments I feel in my bones.
That’s the sort of scene Perry Mason delivers.
Set in post-Great Depression Los Angeles, HBO’s reboot of the historic legal drama approaches its subject with gritty tenacity. The series’ first moments don’t depict a law office, a jury room, or a court in session; Perry Mason isn’t even a defense attorney yet. For now, he’s just a dishonorably discharged veteran-turned-private investigator living off his parents’ old farm and drinking himself to sleep. No title card. No heroic score. Not yet.
Across town, a kidnapping goes wrong. A baby boy is found abandoned on a trolley. His parents, wrecked with anxiety, rush onto the car grasping at his swaddled body — only to learn the boy they thought they’d saved is now dead. The baby’s eyes are revealed to be sewn open, having made him appear alive to his parents just long enough for the criminal to grab the promised ransom and get away. It’s the first horse head moment of many, many to come.
