William Powell is likable as Philo Vance, detective. There were a cascade of these detective movies in the 30s and Powell seemed to be in half of them under one name or another. The movement culminated in what was probably the best of them, John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon." The direction is as snappy as usual from Michael Curtiz and Mary Astor is pretty. Maybe I'm missing something, but otherwise it seems a bit routine to me. Yes, Powell is elegant, but he's a little dumb too.
A prize-winning dog is murdered. (Is that the word?) Shortly afterward a dead man is found in a locked room, a pistol in his hand, a hole in his head. It looks like suicide, but the perceptive Powell concludes, even before visiting the scene, that suicide is a psychological impossibility. One glance at the corpse and Powell remarks that there's something queer about this, call the coroner. The coroner finds that the victim was bludgeoned, his skull fractured, before he was shot. AND he was stabbed to death in the back before he was bludgeoned. Powell has seen none of this -- and it's not treated as a joke.
The operative consideration is that a mystery must have either an interesting detective or a fascinating villain. Lieutenant Columbo is an interesting detective, as is Sam Spade. Philo Vance isn't. Powell gives him a cocked eyebrow and clipped speech, but he has no quirks that individualize him. He doesn't get looped as he does in The Thin Man series.
The perp isn't interesting either, because we're not supposed to know who he or she is. The perp turns out to be merely unpleasant, but then many of the suspects are equally unpleasant.
Nice photography, though, and Powell IS engaging in almost all his roles.
A prize-winning dog is murdered. (Is that the word?) Shortly afterward a dead man is found in a locked room, a pistol in his hand, a hole in his head. It looks like suicide, but the perceptive Powell concludes, even before visiting the scene, that suicide is a psychological impossibility. One glance at the corpse and Powell remarks that there's something queer about this, call the coroner. The coroner finds that the victim was bludgeoned, his skull fractured, before he was shot. AND he was stabbed to death in the back before he was bludgeoned. Powell has seen none of this -- and it's not treated as a joke.
The operative consideration is that a mystery must have either an interesting detective or a fascinating villain. Lieutenant Columbo is an interesting detective, as is Sam Spade. Philo Vance isn't. Powell gives him a cocked eyebrow and clipped speech, but he has no quirks that individualize him. He doesn't get looped as he does in The Thin Man series.
The perp isn't interesting either, because we're not supposed to know who he or she is. The perp turns out to be merely unpleasant, but then many of the suspects are equally unpleasant.
Nice photography, though, and Powell IS engaging in almost all his roles.