Perry Mason: The Case of the Lost Love

In The Case Of The Lost Love we find that Perry Mason indeed had an old flame, another attorney in the person of Jean Simmons. Simmons has become quite successful and is even now having her name bandied about with speculation she might get a temporary U.S. Senate appointment from the governor.

But the publicity surrounding her appointment has led a blackmailing private detective, Jonathan Banks, to demand some hush money. It seems like he stole her medical records from years earlier when she was in a mental facility. Stuff like that is what got Thomas Eagleton tossed off the Democratic ticket in 1972.

When husband Gene Barry goes to meet Banks with a pre-arranged rendezvous he finds Banks dead and no incriminating medical records. When Barry is arrested for the homicide, it's Perry who offers to defend the husband of his old flame.

There are quite a few of the usual red herring suspects, but the ending is a twist that might surprise viewers who expect things to go a certain way in a Perry Mason story.

The Case of the Lost Love is one of the most original and best of the Perry Mason films. Helped in no small part with the presence of Jean Simmons who back in the day seemed like she was in every good movie of the 1950s.

She's reason enough to see The Case of the Lost Love.