starring William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette
directed by Michael Curtiz
73 minutes
Philo Vance (William Powell) investigates what at first glance looks to be a suicide. Vance quickly determines that it must have been murder, even though the victim was locked in a room with no clear way that the killer could have escaped. The chief suspect is the victim's brother but then he turns up dead in the same building, his brother's home, when he was supposed to have been hundreds of miles away.
Vance follows numerous clues and interviews a number of people who came into contact with the original victim in the last 24 hours before he was killed. More than one person seems to have had probably cause to kill.
The copy of this movie that I watched does not look as if it has been restored. The sound quality was good but the picture looked a bit overexposed. The credits at the beginning of the movie show all the actors and the characters whom they played.
This is the fourth and final movie in which William Powell played Philo Vance. The three previous films were made by Paramount and this one was made by Warner Bros. Eugene Pallette played Detective Heath, a supporting role, in all four of those films. The character of Philo Vance lived on and was played by a number of other actors in the years that followed.
Michael Curtiz is better known for directing Casablanca (1942) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). He also directed Captain Blood (1935) and The Sea Hawk(1940). I believe this is the only Philo Vance movie that he directed.
The story moves fairly quickly. There is little to no time wasted with interstitcial moments showing characters leaving one location and arriving at the next. I had a little bit of trouble following everything in part due to the pace of the movie.
There isn't much to the characters. The focus here is on the murders and the manner in which the mysteries are solved. I didn't feel like I wasted my time but I don't see myself watching this movie again or seeking out other Philo Vance films. If I did watch this movie again, it would be to try and piece everything together and see if there was anything that didn't fit or that I missed.
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