• Directed by Michael Curtiz
• Written by Robert N. Lee and Peter Milne, based on the novel The Return of Philo Vance by S.S. Van Dine
• Starring
  • William Powell
  • Mary Astor
  • Eugene Pallette
  • Ralph Morgan
  • Robert McWade

You need to know going in that this is a murder mystery featuring the famed detective Philo Vance. You don’t know Philo Vance? I’m not surprised; the character has faded almost entirely from American cultural memory. But the 1933 audience for this movie would have known him; he was considered “America’s most popular detective” throughout the ’30s and ’40s. Hero of twelve novels (of which this was the eighth), sixteen movies (of which this was the second), and his own radio show, Vance was a detective in the mold that was popular then and seems like the most absurd fantasy now: well-to-do, urbane, single, well-educated, scrupulous, insightful, and well-coifed. As a private investigator, he has no official standing with law enforcement, nevertheless he feels free to waltz in on any police investigation to which he feels drawn, and the cops just pull back and let him do his thing, happy for the help. Of course, this was also the era in which Batman was an official deputy of the Gotham P.D., and Superman’s say-so was as good as a jury verdict to any officer in Metropolis, so Vance definitely seems to be a product of his era of pop culture. At least he has a known street address and wears his underwear on the inside of his trousers.

You can tell it’s a whodunit from the moment the curtain rises, as every actor and their character is given full-face credit while the opening theme plays out. And then if that weren’t enough, we’re introduced to everyone again immediately as the plot quickly unfolds. The only real connection of Philo Vance (William “Thin Man” Powell) to the story is that he happened to have a Scottish terrier at the Long Island Kennel Club in friendly competition with Archer Coe (Robert Barrat). At least, the competition’s friendly on Vance’s side, and he takes it quite well when his dog doesn’t make the next day’s finals. Coe, on the other hand, has managed to well and truly piss off everyone who knows him, to wit:

“Unsolved all because THEY didn’t have Philo Vance!”

- He’s keeping his niece Hilda (Mary Astor) from any share of her inheritance.

- Hilda’s keeping time with Tom MacDonald (Paul Cavanaugh), whose dog is the main competition for Coe’s. Later that night, MacDonald’s dog is found dead.

- Archer’s brother Brisbane Coe (Frank Conroy) hates his brother’s guts, and makes no secret of it.

- Coe’s secretary Raymond (Ralph Morgan) is much abused by his boss, and harbors a semi-secret love for Hilda.

- Miss Doris Delafield (Helen Vinson), Coe’s next-door neighbor and sometime paramour, is given the boot because he’s seen her spending time with…

- Mr. Grassi (Jack LaRue), an Italian who has been negotiating for the purchase of Coe’s extensive Chinese porcelain collection for his museum; when Coe sees him with Miss Delafield, he abruptly and brusquely backs out of the deal.

- Mr. Liang (James Lee), the Chinese cook, who is none too happy about Coe’s cavalier and mercenary attitude toward the Chinese porcelain, which Lieng sees as a sacred cultural treasure.

- Plus the butler, Gamble (Arthur Hohl) — who doesn’t really have any hatred toward Coe, but you just have to list him here because, hey, it’s a murder mystery and he’s the butler.

“You cheap little strumpet, I ought to… Wait. How cheap are you?”

All of those characters and motivations are introduced to us in under twelve minutes. Not helping is the fact that just about all of the males are impeccably dressed gentlemen with thin moustaches and finishing-school diction, all of whom wear hats. I’m guessing contemporary audiences may have had little trouble telling them distinguishing them one from another, but to me, moustached gentlemen in hats are almost impossible to tell apart. I was therefore joyful when, at the twelve-minute mark, a shot rings out. Yay! One fewer person to keep track of!

The butler is the one who discovers the body the next morning: Looking through the locked bedroom keyhole, he sees Coe, half-dressed, sitting in his bedside chair, a gun in his hand and a bullet in his head. He phones the police station, whereupon we get a scene which is almost completely alien to modern eyes: A reporter playing cards with the homicide detectives, who is patiently allowed to overhear all of the details of the butler’s phonecall and call it in to his newspaper before the investigating officer, Detective Sgt. Heath (Eugene Pallette), even makes it out the door.

Thus it is that Vance hears on the radio the news of Coe’s apparent suicide just before he’s ready to set sail on a Europe-bound cruise ship. He immediately disembarks, because that’s what part-time detective playboys do, and joins District Attorney Markham (Robert McWade), Detective Heath, and the whole law enforcement posse as they descend upon the Coe residence and break down the locked bedroom door.

Wait — he positions his dressing chair directly in front of the keyhole? Hmph. Exhibitionist.

At first, Vance is the only one who thinks that there’s anything to the death but suicide, and his suspicions mostly come from the knowledge that Coe had a dog ready to compete in the finals that day. But soon clues present themselves, like the fact that he had one of his shoes half-off, as if interrupted. It also bothers him that Coe, a great believer in open windows and fresh air, would have suddenly closed and locked all his windows as if to strengthen the impression that no one could have been in the room with him. The clincher comes when Dr. Doremus (Etienne Girardot), the medical examiner, arrives and confirms that (1) Coe had a skull fracture which he had gotten sometime just previous to his death, though it hadn’t killed him; (2) the bullet wound to his temple was inflicted sometime well after his death; and finally, (3) Coe had a stab wound in his back which killed him by internal hemorrhage — although the pajama top he was found wearing had no puncture in it.

Markham can do nothing but express bewilderment. Detective Heath just wants to arrest everything in sight. Dr. Doremus simply wants to get back to his lunch (amidst cries of, “I’m a doctor, not a magician!”). But Vance… ah, Vance is clever. And he’d have to be, because things only get more complicated. He begins to suspect brother Brisbane, when the train Brisbane left on last night for Boston arrives this morning without him on it. But when Brisbane’s body tumbles out of a closet, killed with the same sharp instrument, it starts to look like not only a murder staged after the fact to look like an entirely different form of suicide, but that it was the work of two parties, each working according to their own plan.

“Philo, is that you? I can hear you, but I can’t see you — there’s a black line in the way!”

You know, crafting the whodunit is an underappreciated art. The writer has to create a situation in which a murder appears almost unsolvable right up until the murderer is revealed, at which point the entire set of circumstances must seem plausible in hindsight. Maybe The Kennel Murder Case worked for audiences in 1933, but it doesn’t work for me. Vance preternaturally intuits the solution so spot-on in every stage of the investigation every time, that he might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says “Coached By the Author.” Granted, it makes him look better that he’s the only remotely competent character in the cast; I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw the police doing something useful on their own initiative — making a plaster cast of a footprint — instead of simply following Vance around as he did all their policework for them.

The machinations of the investigation put Rube Goldberg to shame, as does Vance’s scheme for catching the murderer. And worst of all, the revelation of the culprit quietly renders at least half of Vance’s “deductions” erroneous. Not that this is anything the movie points out; Vance is hailed as a hero and criminological genius, and twenty minutes later I was struck by one of those, “Hey, wait a sec –” moments.

“(Gulp.) They always suspect the help, don’t they?”

One could of course argue that the movie is only the merest outline of the book, and that the original was much better. In most cases, I’m inclined to agree. However, given even some contemporary opinions of Vance — Ogden Nash famously opined, “Philo Vance: Needs a kick in the pance” — I’m more than willing to simply let ol’ Philo continue his slide into the pop-cultural dustbin.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 2 (plus 1 dog)
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0