The Adventures of Perry Mason

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 464, 14 May 1948, Page 18

The Adventures of Perry Mason

""T EMPERAMENTALLY I think I ‘" have some natural qualifications as a lawyer, but I have absolutely none as a writer. I waded through a flood of rejection slips before my first success in the sale of fiction, and thereafter had to travel a long uphill road to a point where I became known as one of the quantity-producers of action-fiction in the U.S." This is what ‘Erle Stanley Gardner, writing from California, has to say in explanation of how he came to write The Adventures of Perry Mason, now being heard from the ZB stations and 2ZA. "At that time," he goes on, "I was ready to create the legal detective character I had been carrying round in my head and Perry Mason was the result... . Justice throughout the Eng-lish-speaking world is founded on the English common law, a tradition which could only have been built by libertyloving people. In the course of time, the procedure of administering justice

in the United States has departed somewhat from that of Great Britain. In the one instance the judge remains the supreme arbiter of the court room; in the other much more liberty is given to the attorneys who make the most dramatic presentation possible. But both systems give us just about the nearest possible approach to justice, and people are always interested in the dramatic. ... "‘Perry Mason’ is always dramatic, but he is never made to lose sight of the fact that’ his ultimate goal is justice. This, I think,- accounts largely for his popularity both in books and on the air. And it is with a deep feeling of satisfaction that I recognise my indebtedness to’ the English common law and the able legal minds who for so many centuries haye realised that justice must inevitably be the corner-stone of any civilisation." The Adventures of Perry Mason is being broadcast from 1ZB, 2ZB, 3ZB and 4ZB_on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at 7.30 p.m., and from 2ZA at 7.45 p.m.