The Canary Murder Murder Case, written by S.S. Van Dine, Albert Shelby Lovino, Florence Ryerson, Herman Mankiewicz, directed by Malcom St. Clair, Paramount Pictures, 1929.
Provenance: The novel is from the collection of Sacnoth, who provided a large number of mysteries for my late mother-in-law when she lived with us, and which I have been slowly burrowing through over the years. The book itself became a shop-worn volume tucked in my jacket pocket, to be read at the moments when I was waiting for someone or something else (the rest of you use phones these days, so you understand the principle). Nearing completion of this particular mystery, I inveighed upon my Saturday-Night crew to watch the film version (we had previously watched The Kennel Murder Case, another Philo Vance mystery.
The Reviews: The "Canary" Murder Case (the original put the name in parenthesis, and I'll use it here to separate it from the film) lived for several months on the best-sellers lists, and was regarded as being a definitive advancement of the genre. Its detective, Philo Vance, was a erudite intellectual dilletante who is good friends with the New York City DA, Markham, and is allowed to tag along on investigations. A Broadway actress is slain in her locked apartment, and all clues point to an interrupted burglary. Vance, who is more concerned with the psychology of the criminals than mere apparent evidence, disagrees with the prima facie appearances. And the fact that all the initial evidence points to a burglar only strengthens his opinion. The crime scene is, in his opinion, "too perfect".
It turns out that the Canary had numerous suitors and former suitors and a taste for blackmail, and that her apartment building had more visitors that evening than the news stand at Penns Station. Suspects are gathered, solid alibis are established, then shattered, and it all leads up to an unreasonable poker game with Vance, Markham, and the suspects. Vance knows who the killer is after that game, but the evidences shows it impossible. Until in the final pages, Vance discover "how he did it", with a bit of high tech wizardry (for the time) which left me shaking my head.
The writing is engaging, though I had a hard time putting William Powell (who is Vance in the movie - more about that later) into the mold of Vance of the book. Instead I kept getting Frasier Crane as Vance - he would quote Latin, refer to obscure artists, and noted that he had to dash out to the opera or a Monet showing. Vance of the books is extremely elite and dilettantish. As a result, he also codes gay - his encyclopedic knowledge of art and disdain for the commonplace, his elaborate mode of speaking, his fondness for NYC Clubs, plus his relationships with the other male members of group (Markham, the rougher, doubting Chief Detective Heath, and the narrator) gives off strong gay vibes in the modern age. (Of course, Van Dine himself believed that romance had no place in mysteries, so this may account for some of that attitude).
And then there is the matter of the book's narrator - supposedly Van Dine himself, who is presented as Vance's lawyer and constant companion, but who vanishes as a character whenever Vance has someone else to chat with. Indeed, all of "Van Dine's" conversations with Vance are along the lines of "I tried to convince Philo to tell me what was going on, but he remained tight-lipped". Narrator "Van Dine" is effusive in his praise of this great detective. And the "Van Dine" of this volume was living with Vance in Manhattan, since his own apartment was being renovated. So yeah, the aura of "more than just friends" hangs heavy over their relationship in a way that those of Holmes/Watson, Wolfe/Goodwin, or Poirot/Hastings does not.
So, with twenty-some pages to go in the book, and with me confident of whodoneit and having an idea of howhedidit, I sat down with my Saturday night group to watch the movie based on it. And it is pretty bad in movie form. We get that The Canary (The OG Flapper Louise Brooks) is a nasty blackmailer right off the bat, and she vanishes from the film upon her demise. Vance (William Powell) is already on the case, investigating her on the behalf of a local banker, as she was blackmailing his son. The son was innocent and one of the young ingenues with Mary Astor, herself in an early role (and therefore innocent as well). Most of the bits of gathering the suspects were shortened, but it concluded in the same unreasonable poker game where Vance tests the mettle of the suspects. He realizes who the murderer is, but that murderer perishes before they can confess, and Vance must find out the howhedidit on his own (though better than the way he did in the book).
I say it was pretty bad - it was slow, pokey, and there were odd shifts in the filming. The reason for it was that it was originally filmed as a silent movie, and then retrofitted with dialogue and additional scenes afterwards. This was Powell's first appearance as the lead, and his theater training gave him a natural diction and movement that was missing from the silent-scenes filmed earlier (There was a lot of held shots of people looking grim). And Louise Brooks herself refused to participate in the reshoot, so a lot of her lines were dubbed and in many cases her face obscured.
This is Powell's first gig as a leading actor in the movies, his first talkie, and and an early establishment of his film character as a hero as opposed to a villain. His calmness and comfort really stands out here, and while he does not have the wit and savoir faire of the Thin Man and other roles yet, neither does he come off with Van Dine's eliteness and esoteric nature. He is dapper, mannered, and restrained.
So, the end result - both movie and book are verging on their centennial. They're of their era (The movie in particular has a couple black actors in supportive, comical roles - yeah, cringeworthy). They are both worth revisiting, though know that you may face disappointments in their resolutions.
More later,
