MovieChat Forums > Perry Mason (1957) Discussion > The Rookie (1959) and its PM Connection

The Rookie (1959) and its PM Connection

posted 8 years ago by jamesbwill
2 replies | jump to latest

This morning I watched the 1959 movie The Rookie on The Fox Movie Channel. It is a screwball and slapstick service comedy, starring Tommy Noonan as a hapless but patriotic young man who insists on being drafted, even though WWII has just ended the day before. Due to a screwup in Washington, he is drafted and the army has to keep an entire training base open just to accommodate him. He is not too popular with the soldiers on the base, who would have been discharged if not for him.

What I found quite interesting about this movie is all the featured recurring PM actors who appear in it. I almost felt like I was watching a Perry Mason episode because of all the familiar faces.

Tommy Noonan was only in one PM episode, but he was the main character and Perry's client in TCOT Crying Comedian.

The actors in the movie that I noticed who made multiple PM appearances were:

Peggy Maley - 3 PM episodes

Norman Leavitt - 5 PM episodes, usually as a police CSI expert whose testimony Perry destroys.

Jamie Forster - 4 PM episodes, always playing a folksy, country judge.

Richard Reeves - 3 PM episodes, always playing some kind of rough, unlettered character.

Claude Stroud - 3 PM episodes

[–] barrpub-115-548099 8 years ago

I remember Richard Reeves from watching Superman and I Love Lucy as a kid. He reminded me of one of the Beagle Boys from Donald Duck comics.

BTW, Tommy Noonan's half-brother was John Ireland (All the King's Man, Red River).

[–] hotbird_p38 8 years ago

Same with the John Wayne movie "The High and the Mighty".
They are a boatload of character actors that played in Perry Mason that starred in "The High and the Mighty"