In Defense of Hamilton Burger
Perhaps Hamilton Burger of Perry Mason fame isn’t hated so much as disliked or misunderstood, but that also qualifies him for a defense here. I’ve certainly encountered enough people who don’t seem to understand him to warrant wanting to write this!
Please note that I’ll mainly be referring to the Hamilton Burger of the classic television show, rather than his book counterpart. I don’t know enough about the books to accurately write about that Mr. Burger; plus, from my research, it was only the TV show Mr. Burger who developed beyond the frustrated, stubborn adversary of the books.
(This is going to get a bit long, but there's a lot to explain and address.)
Perry Mason is one of the most famous and enduring legal dramas. Hamilton Burger is to Perry Mason what Miles Edgeworth is to Phoenix Wright, more or less: the main opposition for the defense. Both start out as little more than that; however, while Miles has been brought up to believe that the most important thing is getting a conviction, Hamilton already knows what Miles learns later-the most important thing is getting to the truth. But for the books, Erle Stanley Gardner nevertheless wrote Hamilton Burger as being endlessly frustrated and exasperated by the defense attorney Perry Mason. The TV show took this initial template and ran with it.
To be perfectly honest, Hamilton sometimes has good reason to be upset, especially in the early episodes (and a few later ones). Perry believes the most important thing is protecting his client, and to that end he will sometimes do things that his detective Paul Drake refers to as “legal tightrope walking.” One of the most jaw-dropping examples is in season 5’s The Mystified Miner, when he takes his client’s car after the murder and lets out the air of one tire. He then summons a bunch of kids to push the car ahead and change the tire, which results in leaving a gaggle of fingerprints and obscuring his client’s. That was totally tampering with evidence. Interestingly, I don’t think Hamilton ever learned about that incident, but it’s similar things that get him indignant.
Perry did tone down a lot of those actions after season 2. The episode in The Mystified Miner and a couple of other season 5 ventures were a brief return. It does exasperate me sometimes when Hamilton (or the police) suspect Perry of wrongdoing during the point when he toned down such activities, but after the stunts he did pull I imagine it’s difficult for them to forget. They have no way of knowing when he might try it again.
The usual remarks I see against Hamilton range from him being annoying to never getting that Perry is always right to only very rarely showing moments of humanity. Every one of these is a misconception. Well, I suppose being annoying is more of a personal preference, but if they were to understand him better maybe they wouldn’t feel that way.
In a series such as Perry Mason, of course things are going to be colored in favor of Perry and his client. We know the person is innocent and we’re rooting for Perry to prove it. Hence, it’s all too easy to villainize the prosecution. It’s easy to forget that the evidence is stacked against the client and often looks very bad for them. And Hamilton is just doing his job. He has to question witnesses in a way that will try to bring out the person’s suspected guilt. Despite that, he tries to be fair. Even if a witness says something that will give him an advantage, he will object to it if it is not admissible, such as giving opinions on the defendant that only an expert in a certain field would be qualified to give.
He clashes with Perry frequently in court. Sometimes he is not impressed by Perry’s unorthodox methods, proclaiming them “courtroom theatrics” or saying that the court is being turned into a three-ring circus. For example, when Perry brings a group of Trick-or-Treaters into court (it makes sense in context, really), Hamilton sarcastically says that maybe they should have dancing girls and a snake charmer too. Since Perry’s tricks usually net results, the complaint comes that Hamilton should realize this and stop objecting. As will be explained in a few moments, sometimes he does. It all depends on what Perry is introducing and how Hamilton feels about it.
If Hamilton was always lenient about Perry’s displays, however, he might lose his job. Some of the antics are so ridiculous on the surface that it’s quite logical to object. And sometimes, even though Hamilton doesn’t want to object, he has to on technical grounds. This is shown in The Twice-Told Twist, when Perry is questioning a witness who is proving to be guilty of running a car theft ring. Both he and Hamilton are disgusted with the man, yet Hamilton must reluctantly object to some of Perry’s questions. Even a distasteful witness is deserving of proper legal examination.
Unlike the overdone stereotypes of the prosecutor who only wants to win or gain a great deal of power, Hamilton is as honest as the day is long. Perry himself has vouched for Hamilton’s integrity on more than one instance. He assures a concerned client in The Fancy Figures that while he and Hamilton have their differences, Hamilton never plays politics. There is no danger that he will sacrifice justice to have his pocket lined by a rich politician. And in The Rolling Bones, while Paul is doubtful that Hamilton would not resort to bugging Perry’s office, Perry is adamant that Hamilton would never stoop to such a thing.
Although Hamilton’s first interest is in justice, it wouldn’t be realistic to think that he would never want to win. After nine seasons and 271 episodes, it would be highly frustrating to anyone (except maybe a saint) to lose so often to one specific person! Sometimes he does make barbed remarks towards Perry. Occasionally he outright loses his patience or temper. And sometimes his desperate attempts to salvage his cases after Perry begins to poke holes in them are so pathetic that he’s downright sympathetic. I wanted to give him a hug after he stammered and fumbled and tried to come up with an answer when Perry utterly surprised him during a particularly important trial in The Shapely Shadow.
Sometimes Hamilton’s outbursts are prompted by other motivations. He truly cares about people and is outraged and repulsed by crime and injustice. There are occasions while examining witnesses when his feelings come out and he all but rakes someone over the coals for either suspected or known criminal actions. When this happens and he is called out for it, he always apologizes to the court. The Fatal Fortune from season 9 is a good example. And the person he was harshly reprimanding turned out to be one of the guilty parties, even more reprehensible than Hamilton already thought.
Another demonstration of how he cares about people is how he’s often so polite with the witnesses and is concerned about the ones that break down. He tries to be so gentle with young and old ones and the ones who have especially had a rough time of it and seen particularly terrible things. And that holds true with the defendants, too. In The Wrathful Wraith, he is distressed when he sees the overwrought defendant crumbling from some of his comments. He’s concerned as it is that she might have not been in her right mind when she supposedly killed her husband (who had faked his death before that and had started “haunting” her). He meets with Perry and the judge in chambers and says he believes she killed the husband, but he isn’t an ogre. He suggests a plea deal of innocent by reason of insanity. Perry is gracious but declines.
He is only human. Yes, sometimes he makes mistakes. One could jeer that he always makes mistakes, since Perry’s clients almost always turn out innocent and Perry wins. But that is not Hamilton’s fault; it’s only because Erle Stanley Gardner insisted on that formula that it happened. Were the series to have been realistic, Perry would not have usually won. The defendants would have usually been guilty, too.
William Talman, who portrayed Hamilton, talked about the difficult balance of making the character intelligent, yet stupid enough to always end up losing to Perry. It is indeed a delicate, and strange, balance. Hamilton is often several steps ahead of Perry. He brings in witnesses and evidence that Perry was after but the D.A.’s office got to first. And any time they depict a jury trial rather than the typical preliminary hearing, it means that Hamilton won the hearing and got the defendant bound over for trial-except for cases where Perry waives a hearing and wants to go directly to the trial. In the fifth episode they outright acknowledge that Hamilton prevailed in the hearing. It’s never mentioned again, but I highly doubt that every other trial scene on the series came about because Perry waived a hearing! And since they usually showed hearings instead of trials, it is significant to note that Perry did not always win-even if his losses were very quiet.
Due to Hamilton’s devotion to justice over any desire to win, he is willing to listen to Perry any time Perry introduces evidence that induces a legitimate speck of doubt as to the defendant’s guilt. Many is the time that he has told the judge he has “no objection” to a certain action of Perry’s. Despite Hamilton’s frustrations, he comes to respect Perry and his skill a great deal. And there are dozens of episodes, from the more book-influenced season 1 all the way through the final season 9, that depict the two lawyers as getting along quite well outside of court. They have teamed up on some of these occasions to discuss, and even solve, the mysteries together. Sometimes they relax after a case and wrap up the loose ends. Their complicated interaction is quite obviously a friendship, which grows and develops over the course of the seasons.
There are a few times, particularly in season 9, when I feel the writers wanted to ignore the character development and return to a stricter, season 1 formula. Sometimes they went too far in the other direction. One later episode, The 12th Wildcat, depicts Hamilton as having a serious chip on his shoulder during the hearing. He almost seems to have something against the defendant aside from believing he’s guilty, which is never explained. The judge reprimands him at least half a dozen times for his misconduct. And Perry is visibly frustrated with him for one of a handful of times throughout the series. This would never have happened even in season 1. There was no justification or reason for Hamilton’s actions that I can see. It seems to be a case of the writers simply being lazy and writing out-of-character behavior. That, unfortunately, will occasionally happen in any series. There’s no reason why Perry Mason would be immune.
In any case, Hamilton is perhaps the most complex character in the series. He displays a wide range of human emotions, from frustration to outrage to desperation to compassion-sometimes all within the same episode! To say that he only rarely shows moments of humanity is a gross misunderstanding. We frequently see him display both favorable and unfavorable feelings. He longs to win, but he wants truth and justice most of all. He is Perry’s friend, yet he wishes he could catch Perry on some of his “legal tightrope walking.” At the same time, he does not want Perry to put himself in situations where he might get in trouble. This is made very clear in The Careless Kitten. He is kind and polite towards the witnesses and often says “please”, although occasionally he will raise his voice and be harsher with some of them. Sometimes he is justified. Sometimes he is not.
What first attracted me to the series was the number of intriguing friendship scenes between Hamilton and Perry. Due to their clashes in court, and Hamilton’s frustrations, this other aspect particularly fascinated me. My fascination only grows as I continue to re-watch episodes and unravel the utter complexity of Hamilton Burger. No one is perfect. Hamilton demonstrates this very well. Sometimes his actions are uncalled-for. But most of the time they make sense, if one stops to think about it. And so much of the time he is better than some people seem to think. There is plenty of proof throughout the series that he is a wonderful, good person. Some is obvious, while some is subtle.
In large part we have William Talman and the series’ writers to thank. They took a basically one-dimensional character of Erle Stanley Gardner’s and made him incredibly three-dimensional. To me, he is one of the best things about Perry Mason, and always will be.
Please note that I’ll mainly be referring to the Hamilton Burger of the classic television show, rather than his book counterpart. I don’t know enough about the books to accurately write about that Mr. Burger; plus, from my research, it was only the TV show Mr. Burger who developed beyond the frustrated, stubborn adversary of the books.
(This is going to get a bit long, but there's a lot to explain and address.)
Perry Mason is one of the most famous and enduring legal dramas. Hamilton Burger is to Perry Mason what Miles Edgeworth is to Phoenix Wright, more or less: the main opposition for the defense. Both start out as little more than that; however, while Miles has been brought up to believe that the most important thing is getting a conviction, Hamilton already knows what Miles learns later-the most important thing is getting to the truth. But for the books, Erle Stanley Gardner nevertheless wrote Hamilton Burger as being endlessly frustrated and exasperated by the defense attorney Perry Mason. The TV show took this initial template and ran with it.
To be perfectly honest, Hamilton sometimes has good reason to be upset, especially in the early episodes (and a few later ones). Perry believes the most important thing is protecting his client, and to that end he will sometimes do things that his detective Paul Drake refers to as “legal tightrope walking.” One of the most jaw-dropping examples is in season 5’s The Mystified Miner, when he takes his client’s car after the murder and lets out the air of one tire. He then summons a bunch of kids to push the car ahead and change the tire, which results in leaving a gaggle of fingerprints and obscuring his client’s. That was totally tampering with evidence. Interestingly, I don’t think Hamilton ever learned about that incident, but it’s similar things that get him indignant.
Perry did tone down a lot of those actions after season 2. The episode in The Mystified Miner and a couple of other season 5 ventures were a brief return. It does exasperate me sometimes when Hamilton (or the police) suspect Perry of wrongdoing during the point when he toned down such activities, but after the stunts he did pull I imagine it’s difficult for them to forget. They have no way of knowing when he might try it again.
The usual remarks I see against Hamilton range from him being annoying to never getting that Perry is always right to only very rarely showing moments of humanity. Every one of these is a misconception. Well, I suppose being annoying is more of a personal preference, but if they were to understand him better maybe they wouldn’t feel that way.
In a series such as Perry Mason, of course things are going to be colored in favor of Perry and his client. We know the person is innocent and we’re rooting for Perry to prove it. Hence, it’s all too easy to villainize the prosecution. It’s easy to forget that the evidence is stacked against the client and often looks very bad for them. And Hamilton is just doing his job. He has to question witnesses in a way that will try to bring out the person’s suspected guilt. Despite that, he tries to be fair. Even if a witness says something that will give him an advantage, he will object to it if it is not admissible, such as giving opinions on the defendant that only an expert in a certain field would be qualified to give.
He clashes with Perry frequently in court. Sometimes he is not impressed by Perry’s unorthodox methods, proclaiming them “courtroom theatrics” or saying that the court is being turned into a three-ring circus. For example, when Perry brings a group of Trick-or-Treaters into court (it makes sense in context, really), Hamilton sarcastically says that maybe they should have dancing girls and a snake charmer too. Since Perry’s tricks usually net results, the complaint comes that Hamilton should realize this and stop objecting. As will be explained in a few moments, sometimes he does. It all depends on what Perry is introducing and how Hamilton feels about it.
If Hamilton was always lenient about Perry’s displays, however, he might lose his job. Some of the antics are so ridiculous on the surface that it’s quite logical to object. And sometimes, even though Hamilton doesn’t want to object, he has to on technical grounds. This is shown in The Twice-Told Twist, when Perry is questioning a witness who is proving to be guilty of running a car theft ring. Both he and Hamilton are disgusted with the man, yet Hamilton must reluctantly object to some of Perry’s questions. Even a distasteful witness is deserving of proper legal examination.
Unlike the overdone stereotypes of the prosecutor who only wants to win or gain a great deal of power, Hamilton is as honest as the day is long. Perry himself has vouched for Hamilton’s integrity on more than one instance. He assures a concerned client in The Fancy Figures that while he and Hamilton have their differences, Hamilton never plays politics. There is no danger that he will sacrifice justice to have his pocket lined by a rich politician. And in The Rolling Bones, while Paul is doubtful that Hamilton would not resort to bugging Perry’s office, Perry is adamant that Hamilton would never stoop to such a thing.
Although Hamilton’s first interest is in justice, it wouldn’t be realistic to think that he would never want to win. After nine seasons and 271 episodes, it would be highly frustrating to anyone (except maybe a saint) to lose so often to one specific person! Sometimes he does make barbed remarks towards Perry. Occasionally he outright loses his patience or temper. And sometimes his desperate attempts to salvage his cases after Perry begins to poke holes in them are so pathetic that he’s downright sympathetic. I wanted to give him a hug after he stammered and fumbled and tried to come up with an answer when Perry utterly surprised him during a particularly important trial in The Shapely Shadow.
Sometimes Hamilton’s outbursts are prompted by other motivations. He truly cares about people and is outraged and repulsed by crime and injustice. There are occasions while examining witnesses when his feelings come out and he all but rakes someone over the coals for either suspected or known criminal actions. When this happens and he is called out for it, he always apologizes to the court. The Fatal Fortune from season 9 is a good example. And the person he was harshly reprimanding turned out to be one of the guilty parties, even more reprehensible than Hamilton already thought.
Another demonstration of how he cares about people is how he’s often so polite with the witnesses and is concerned about the ones that break down. He tries to be so gentle with young and old ones and the ones who have especially had a rough time of it and seen particularly terrible things. And that holds true with the defendants, too. In The Wrathful Wraith, he is distressed when he sees the overwrought defendant crumbling from some of his comments. He’s concerned as it is that she might have not been in her right mind when she supposedly killed her husband (who had faked his death before that and had started “haunting” her). He meets with Perry and the judge in chambers and says he believes she killed the husband, but he isn’t an ogre. He suggests a plea deal of innocent by reason of insanity. Perry is gracious but declines.
He is only human. Yes, sometimes he makes mistakes. One could jeer that he always makes mistakes, since Perry’s clients almost always turn out innocent and Perry wins. But that is not Hamilton’s fault; it’s only because Erle Stanley Gardner insisted on that formula that it happened. Were the series to have been realistic, Perry would not have usually won. The defendants would have usually been guilty, too.
William Talman, who portrayed Hamilton, talked about the difficult balance of making the character intelligent, yet stupid enough to always end up losing to Perry. It is indeed a delicate, and strange, balance. Hamilton is often several steps ahead of Perry. He brings in witnesses and evidence that Perry was after but the D.A.’s office got to first. And any time they depict a jury trial rather than the typical preliminary hearing, it means that Hamilton won the hearing and got the defendant bound over for trial-except for cases where Perry waives a hearing and wants to go directly to the trial. In the fifth episode they outright acknowledge that Hamilton prevailed in the hearing. It’s never mentioned again, but I highly doubt that every other trial scene on the series came about because Perry waived a hearing! And since they usually showed hearings instead of trials, it is significant to note that Perry did not always win-even if his losses were very quiet.
Due to Hamilton’s devotion to justice over any desire to win, he is willing to listen to Perry any time Perry introduces evidence that induces a legitimate speck of doubt as to the defendant’s guilt. Many is the time that he has told the judge he has “no objection” to a certain action of Perry’s. Despite Hamilton’s frustrations, he comes to respect Perry and his skill a great deal. And there are dozens of episodes, from the more book-influenced season 1 all the way through the final season 9, that depict the two lawyers as getting along quite well outside of court. They have teamed up on some of these occasions to discuss, and even solve, the mysteries together. Sometimes they relax after a case and wrap up the loose ends. Their complicated interaction is quite obviously a friendship, which grows and develops over the course of the seasons.
There are a few times, particularly in season 9, when I feel the writers wanted to ignore the character development and return to a stricter, season 1 formula. Sometimes they went too far in the other direction. One later episode, The 12th Wildcat, depicts Hamilton as having a serious chip on his shoulder during the hearing. He almost seems to have something against the defendant aside from believing he’s guilty, which is never explained. The judge reprimands him at least half a dozen times for his misconduct. And Perry is visibly frustrated with him for one of a handful of times throughout the series. This would never have happened even in season 1. There was no justification or reason for Hamilton’s actions that I can see. It seems to be a case of the writers simply being lazy and writing out-of-character behavior. That, unfortunately, will occasionally happen in any series. There’s no reason why Perry Mason would be immune.
In any case, Hamilton is perhaps the most complex character in the series. He displays a wide range of human emotions, from frustration to outrage to desperation to compassion-sometimes all within the same episode! To say that he only rarely shows moments of humanity is a gross misunderstanding. We frequently see him display both favorable and unfavorable feelings. He longs to win, but he wants truth and justice most of all. He is Perry’s friend, yet he wishes he could catch Perry on some of his “legal tightrope walking.” At the same time, he does not want Perry to put himself in situations where he might get in trouble. This is made very clear in The Careless Kitten. He is kind and polite towards the witnesses and often says “please”, although occasionally he will raise his voice and be harsher with some of them. Sometimes he is justified. Sometimes he is not.
What first attracted me to the series was the number of intriguing friendship scenes between Hamilton and Perry. Due to their clashes in court, and Hamilton’s frustrations, this other aspect particularly fascinated me. My fascination only grows as I continue to re-watch episodes and unravel the utter complexity of Hamilton Burger. No one is perfect. Hamilton demonstrates this very well. Sometimes his actions are uncalled-for. But most of the time they make sense, if one stops to think about it. And so much of the time he is better than some people seem to think. There is plenty of proof throughout the series that he is a wonderful, good person. Some is obvious, while some is subtle.
In large part we have William Talman and the series’ writers to thank. They took a basically one-dimensional character of Erle Stanley Gardner’s and made him incredibly three-dimensional. To me, he is one of the best things about Perry Mason, and always will be.