GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #19

PHILO VANCE

"Philo Vance / Needs a kick in the pance" wrote poet-humorist Ogden Nash about the arrogant, Regie-smoking, g-dropping Vance who spoke with an affected British accent and speech pattern.  The mysteries of Philo Vance were bestsellers and he became the most popular private detective of the late 1920s through the 1930s.  He was historically and culturally significant, even if Raymond Chandler pointed out that he was "the most asinine character in detective fiction."  Like his creator, S. S. Van Dine (1888-1939), Vance was a dilettante and aesthete who constantly injected his knowledge of the most esoteric subjects into the middle of a murder investigation - particularly those subjects relating to art, music, religion and philosophy.  Just under 6 feet tall, slender and graceful, Vance had aloof gray eyes, a straight slender nose, and a thin-lipped mouth that almost suggested cruelty as well as irony.  A disciple of Nietzsche, he was not above killing when it was obvious that the law would be unable to punish the murderer he had tracked down.

The aristocratic young amateur detective was asked to help solve murder cases by his best friend, District Attorney Markham.  Sergeant Heath of the NYPD initially disliked Vance because of his pomposity and affectations, his nonchalant and whimsical manner, and his long-winded, pendatic lectures on subjects that had no relation to the matter at hand, but later became his friend.  Vance appeared to be constantly amused, smiling cynically even in the grimmest situations.  Like Van Dine, the author and narrator of the novels (Van Dine is a character in the stories, serving as Philo's "Watson") Vance attended Harvard and several European universities, indulging his thirst for knowledge, particularly of art.  His interest in psychology directed him into the field of crime detection, in which he was eager to test his theories about human personalities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1926 "The Benson Murder Case" /  1927 "The 'Canary' Murder Case" (serialized Scribner's Magazine May-August 1927) /  1928 "The Greene Murder Case" (Complete Detective Novel Magazine #7, January 1929) / 1929 "The Bishop Murder Case" (American Magazine Oct-Dec 1928, Jan-Mar 1929) / 1930 "The Scarab Murder Case" (American Magazine Jan-June1930) /  1931 "The Kennel Murder Case" (Cosmopolitan Nov-Dec 1932, Jan-Feb 1933) /  1933 "The Dragon Murder Case" (Pictorial Review June-Nov 1933) /  1934 "The Casino Murder Case" (Cosmopolitan July-Oct 1934) /  1936 "The Kidnap Murder Case" (Cosmopolitan July-Nov 1936) /  1937 "The Garden Murder Case" (Cosmopolitan July-Oct 1935) /  1938 "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" /  1939 "The Winter Murder Case"

S. S. Van Dine was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright.  He was born in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1888 and educated at St. Vincent and Pomona Colleges, in California, and Harvard University, and studied art in Munich and Paris.  Wright worked as a literary and art critic for several publications, beginning with the Los Angeles Times 1907-1912, The New York Evening Mail 1917, and The San Francisco Bulletin 1918-1919.  He was editor-in-chief of Smart Set where he met the founders of the magazine H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan.  The three of them collaborated on "Europe after 8:15" (1913) a series of essays on European night life.  Wright's first novel in 1916 received some critical acclaim but little financial reward.  In 1907 he married Katharine Belle Boynton.  They had a daughter and were divorced in 1930 after which he married Eleanor Pulapaugh.

Never enjoying robust health, Wright had a rigid work schedule as columnist, editor, and aspiring fiction writer and became addicted to opium.  He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1923 after which he was confined to bed for more than two years with a heart ailment.  Forbidden to become excited as to engage in scholarly studies, he read detective novels, amassing a library of 2000 volumes.  Believing that he could do as well as the past masters of the form, he decided to improve on their art by writing for a different audience - a more intelligent, better educated one.  Because of his previous attempts at serious writing he feared ridicule if he turned to writing detective novels and thus adopted the pseudonym S. S. Van Dine.

He outlined three Vance novels and brought them to editor Maxwell Perkins at Scribner's.  Each outline was 10,000 words and contained every character and plot element necessary to give the prospective publisher a clear-cut concept of the finished work.  They were all eagerly accepted.  Van Dine then enlarged them to 30,000 words in a second draft, complete except for dialogue, mood, and more complete characterization.  The third and final draft was more than twice as long as the second and required virtually no editing.  The first novel was "The Benson Murder Case" (1926) in which Alvin Benson is found shot to death in his West 48th Street apartment in New York City.  Philo Vance spots the murderer almost immediately but seems to enjoy the plight of D.A. Markham and Sgt. Heath as they employ circumstantial evidence to successively fix the guilt on five different suspects.  The novel was loosely based on the actual 1920 murder of Joseph Elwell.  The first edition of the book sold out in the first week.

"The 'Canary' Murder Case" (1927) describes Vance's efforts to solve the murder of a famous blonde Broadway singer who is strangled to death in her apartment.  The only entrance to the beautiful entertainer's rooms is through the main hall in full view of the telephone operator's station.  The suspects are narrowed down to four men known to be enamored of the 'canary'.  The novel was based on the real life murder of showgirl Dot King that was never solved.  The book broke all publishing records for detective fiction.  "The Greene Murder Case" (1928) is the first Vance case to involve wholesale killings - most of the Greene family is disposed of before it is solved.  Vance solves the crimes with his knowledge of psychology and the process of elimination.  Possibly the best Vance novel is "The Bishop Murder Case" (1929) featuring a series of bizarre murders based on nursery rhymes.  The original title was "The Mother Goose Murder Case" but the editors of The American Magazine which was serializing the novel feared that readers would think that the story was intended for a juvenile audience.  Again the process of elimination is employed.  Each suspect is murdered in turn until three remain alive.  Vance switches a poisoned drink intended for him and the deranged murderer dies.

Van Dine's friendship with comedienne Gracie Allen (George Burns' wife) led him to tailor "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" (1938) for her.  His posthumous final book, "The Winter Murder Case" (1939) was published from the second draft of novel, which was all the further Van Dine had progressed before dying on April 11, 1939 of coronary thrombosis.  Two days prior to his death he had sold the film rights of the unfinished novel to 20th Century Fox for $25,000.  Ice skating star Sonja Henie was to appear with Vance in the film.  The project was scrapped after the death of Van Dine.

The books became overwhelming successes, making the previously debt-ridden author wealthy, and his snobbish detective became the most popular literary sleuth in the world.  Because of the magazine serializations, book club sales, original editions, reprints, foreign editions, and motion pictures, Van Dine's income became one of the largest of any author during the decade preceding his death.  Yet he left an estate of only $13,000.  Like Philo Vance, Van Dine enjoyed his wealth, living in a luxurious penthouse, dining at the finest restaurants, drinking the costliest wines, wearing expensive clothes, and spending his prodigious income as quickly as possible.  Like Vance, Van Dine was a sophisticated poseur, able to talk intelligently - and condescendingly - about a wide variety of topics.

FILMS

"The Canary Murder Case" Paramount, 1929.  William Powell (Philo Vance), Louise Brooks, James Hall, Jean Arthur, E. H. Calvert (D.A. Markham), Eugene Pallette (Sgt. Heath).  Director: Malcolm St. Clair.  Vance is called upon to investigate the strangling of a Broadway musical star, "the Canary", in her locked dressing room.

"The Greene Murder Case" Paramount, 1929.  Powell, Florence Eldridge, Jean Arthur, Ullrich Haupt.  Director: Frank Tuttle.  In their city mansion, the members of the eccentric Greene family - each of whom seems to hate the others - are being eliminated, one by one.

"The Bishop Murder Case" MGM, 1930.  Basil Rathbone (Vance), Leila Hyams, Roland Young, George Marion.  Directors: Nick Grinde & David Burton.  "The Bishop", a crazed killer, is inspired by nursery rhymes - an arrow shot in the air, Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall, and so on.

"The Benson Murder Case" Paramount, 1930.  Powell, Natalie Moorhead, Paul Lukas, William Boyd.  Director: Tuttle.  The film uses the title and characters from the first Vance novel but the plot is new.  Vance is present at a house party in the country one dark, stormy night: A shot rings out and the body of Benson, a vicious stockbroker hated by many, tumbles down the stairs.

"The Kennel Murder Case" WB, 1933.  Powell, Mary Astor, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson, Jack LaRue.  Director: Michael Curtiz.  William Powell had signed with Warner Brothers, getting $6000 a week salary, and the studio acquired this Van Dine novel for him, producing the best Vance movie ever made.  A perfect screen whodunit.  Unpopular dog breeder Archer Coe is found dead inside the locked bedroom of his townhouse.  His skull has been split and he has been shot and stabbed.  The chief suspect, his quarrelsome brother, is later discovered murdered in a hall closet.  Vance uses floor plans and a scale model of the house in his dazzling solution.

"The Dragon Murder Case" WB, 1934.  Warren William (Vance), Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Tree.  Director: H. Bruce Humberstone.  A young member of another strange, rich family dives into the dark pool on his estate - the supposedly cursed Dragon Pool - and never surfaces.

"The Casino Murder Case" MGM, 1935.  Paul Lukas (Vance), Rosalind Russell, Donald Cook, Alison Skipworth.  Director: Edwin L. Marin.  Various members of an aristocratic family are being eliminated by an apparently undetectable poison.  The particularly cold-blooded murder method involves a deadly eyewash that seeps into the brain.

"The Garden Murder Case" MGM, 1936.  Edmund Lowe (Vance), Virginia Bruce, Gene Lockhart, Benita Hume, H. B. Warner.  Director: Marin.  Several people seem to be deliberately killing themselves: a horseman during steeplechase race, and a woman who leaps from the top of a double-decker bus into the busy traffic below.

"The Scarab Murder Case" Paramount (UK), 1936.  Wilfrid Hyde-White (Vance), Kathleen Kelly, John Robinson.  Director: Michael Hankinson.  Vance, on holiday in England, becomes involved with murder and archaeology while his secretary falls in love.

"Night of Mystery" Paramount, 1937.  Grant Richards (Vance), Helen Burgess, Ruth Coleman, Roscoe Karns.  Director: E. A. Dupont.  Remake of "The Greene Murder Case".  Richards as a "transitional" Vance - younger, heartier, pipe-smoking.

"The Gracie Allen Murder Case" Paramount, 1939.  Warren William (Vance), Gracie Allen, Ellen Drew, Kent Taylor.  Director: Alfred E. Green.  Gracie Allen, comedic wife of George Burns, plays herself and helps Vance solve a murder at a picnic for the workers in a perfume factory.  Throughout the movie the scatter-brained Ms. Allen refers to Vance as "Fido".

"Calling Philo Vance" WB, 1940.  James Stephenson (Vance), Margot Stevenson, Henry O'Neill, Ralph Forbes.  Director: William Clemens.  WB, in an attempt to capitalize on the death of Van Dine, remade "The Kennel Murder Case".  Vance is now a secret service operative investigating the death in a locked room of an airplane manufacturer.

"Philo Vance Returns" PRC, 1947.  William Wright (Vance), Terry Austin, Leon Belasco, Ramsey Ames.  Director: William Beaudine.  Vance, now a tough private eye, heeds the anxiety of a playboy who is later murdered with most of his six former wives, one of whom expires in a poisoned bubble bath.

"Philo Vance's Gamble" PRC, 1947.  Alan Curtis (Vance), Austin, Frank Jenks, Tala Birell.  Director: Basil Wrangell.  Private investigator Vance is involved by his girlfriend in show business and the underworld.  Phosphorus-coated lipstick figures in the case.

"Philo Vance's Secret Mission" PRC, 1947.  Curtis, Sheila Ryan, Birell, Jenks.  Director: Reginald Le Borg.  Vance solves a 7-year-old murder when he is hired as technical consultant to a publisher of pulp magazines.

RADIO

From 1943-1945 "Philo Vance" was aired on NBC with John Emery as Vance.  In the summer of 1945, Jose Ferrer played Vance in 13 episodes of a show that filled in for "The Bob Burns Show" that was on summer hiatus.  A syndicated "Philo Vance" series with Jackson Beck as Vance ran 1946-1950.  Joan Alexander was Ellen Deering, a secretary added to to the Vance retinue.

COMICS

In 1931 the Bell Syndicate distributed a newspaper comic strip of Philo Vance based on the Van Dine novels and drawn (poorly) by R. B. S. Davis.  How long it lasted and who artist Davis was, I do not know.  In August 1941 Dell comics began a Philo Vance series in their "The Funnies" title, that featured Captain Midnight on the cover.  It began with issue #58 and a blurb on the cover refers to Philo Vance as "The Famous Radio Feature", though I can find no evidence of a radio show before 1943.  The Vance feature ran in six issues of "The Funnies" until March 1942 when the title ceased publication.  "Philo Vance" then moved over to the "Camp Comics" title by Dell for two appearances.  "Camp Comics" was created for the fighting men during WWII and featured lots of gags and a pin-up gal on the covers.

TELEVISION

The only TV appearance by Philo Vance was 1974 Italian mini-series starring Giorgio Albertazzi that adapted the first three Van Dine novels.