Japanese Invasion of Manchuria Vibes, & some Pearl Buck, in Perry Mason S2

Posted: May 31st, 2023 | No Comments »

The second season of the reboot of Perry Mason is now doing the rounds. It’s much tighter and more focussed than the first and really very good. Lots of good sub themes of the time – Hoovervilles, segregated housing, underground lesbian bars, gay blackmail, gauging grocers, gambling ships. One interesting aspect of season two was the recurring warnings of the impending Sino-Japanese War.

I don’t think an exact date for the events occuring in the plot are ever given but the internet tells me that one of the lead actors in the show, Perry Whigham told the press, “We’re in ’33 in Perry Mason,”. This makes sense as we have several references to Japanese agression towards China, a shot or two of a newspaper front page highlighting this and I assume that is the invasion and occupation of Manchuria.

We do see one of the baddies doing a business deal with the Japanese Ambassador Debuchi – Katsuji Debuchi was indeed Japanese Ambassador to the United States between 1928 and November 1933. We also see same baddie getting a bee sting treatment accompanied by Kikutaro Takahashi’s Sendo Kawaiya, a popular ryukoka (“popular song”) – though I think that song was first released in 1935.

And then we have the Los Angeles judge, in his chambers, feet up on the desk, reading Pearl S Buck’s The Good Earth – released in 1931 and a best seller which most curious readers of the time would have dipped into. The judge finds it a bit flowery… Anyway, a nice sub theme of events showing that, alongside the contiuing and grinding Depression in California, the rest of the world is heading to hell in a handbasket too in 1933! But the theme of tensions in China is also very much a homage to Perry Mason’s original creator Erle Stanley Gardner…

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) created the investigating lawyer Perry Mason. As well as being a professional attorney, enthusiastic wildlife photographer and constant traveller most people don’t know that he was also “fluent” in Chinese. After growing up in Massachusetts and Oregon the young Erle made a brief living arranging unlicensed wrestling matches before being admitted to the bar in 1911. Business was slow and to make ends meet he defended Chinese clients who didn’t have much money but did have a lot of friends. Volume rather than value defined his law practise. He claimed he picked up Chinese (though what version of Chinese and how much is not altogether clear) through his clients and when he turned to pulp fiction writing used a lot of stereotypical Chinese villains such as Soo Hoo Duck,  The King of Chinatown.  Gardner written stories in China without ever having visited the country. So, with some income from his fiction in 1931 Gardner and his wife made a six-month tour of the country.

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