Philo Vance Returns

1947's "Philo Vance Returns" concluded the brief three picture series from PRC, which ended the screen incarnation of the popular detective first played by William Powell. After two entries starring Alan Curtis, flanked by comic sidekick Frank Jenks, this casts in the title role frequent villain William Wright, who not only gets awakened in the middle of the night to solve the murder of a playboy's fiancée, but hears the caller get shot before he even hangs up! Within five minutes, there are already 3 murder victims, and more suspects bite the dust before Vance figures things out. Aiding Vance is Leon Belasco (a great improvement on Frank Jenks, although playing a different character), stealing every scene with his witty dialogue and funny accent, particularly his seduction of Iris Adrian through kiss-proof lipstick. Clara Blandick, best remembered as Auntie Em in the immortal "Wizard of Oz," portrays the playboy's loving grandmother, while seen only briefly are former Universal starlets Ramsay Ames and Vivian Austin, (the latter had a much larger role in the previous entry, "Philo Vance's Gamble"). Special mention goes to Eddie Dunn as the investigating lieutenant; he did many memorable cameos in the comedies of Laurel and Hardy, W. C. Fields, and Abbott and Costello. The very low budget occasionally calls attention to itself though, again, the mystery is quite good; some viewers may correctly guess the killer's identity but there's more here than meets the eye. Perhaps due to his untimely death from cancer in 1949, William Wright was hardly a well known actor, and does not excel in his only stint as Vance, no match for even Alan Curtis (Leon Belasco gets all the good lines). PRC's Vance films compare favorably to the three Film Classic 'Falcon' features from 1948-49 with John Calvert. Television adapted several movie detectives in its first decade, but not Philo Vance; even Perry Mason, with only six features at Warners, enjoyed a long run in its small screen version.

This Philo Vance film was shot over at PRC studios on Poverty Row and has Alan Curtis as the urbane detective who gets a call from his old friend mucho married Damian O'Flynn about to take the marriage plunge again. His current fiance is murdered. By the time Curtis arrives on the scene O'Flynn has also been murdered.

This guy wrote a will where he was asking for it. He makes generous bequests to all the ex-wives and even to Iris Adrian, a fan dancer he almost married. And if they die the survivors get a bigger share.

So the bodies start dropping and it's poison cleverly administered. In fact finding the how inevitably leads to who.

This might have rated better at a major studio which had previously doing the Philo Vance films. And the murderer is very obvious.

Playboy Larry Blendon (Damian O'Flynn) introduces his grandmother Stella Blendon (Clara Blandick) to his fiancée, radio singer Virginia Berneaux (Ramsay Ames). Despite Larry's record of broken romances and divorces, Virginia decides she will marry him.

However, Virginia is shot that night by a hidden shooter and a distraught Blandon telephones his friend Philo Vance (William Wright) to help find the killer. Even as they talk over the phone, the killer strikes again and Philo hears a gunshot and Larry falling dead.

The budget might be much lower and there's no William Powell playing Philo Vance, but nevertheless this a fun mystery with a good idea of a husband's ex-wives/ a future wife getting bumped off, all because of an inheritance Will he drew up - William Wright's Philo Vance isn't debonair or detective-like as Powell; he's more like a tough talking PI and he does well. His Russian sidekick adds a comic touch. It's fast-paced, engaging and fun.

Larry takes his newly-betrothed girlfriend home to meet his granny. Granny is a sweet old dear who sleeps in a darkened room, waiting for her grandson to return. She shows Larry's latest a rogue's gallery, as she puts it, of Larry's past wives and girlfriends hanging on the wall. All of them stand to gain from Larry's will and their share goes up as others drop out. Larry's latest is shot dead and while Larry is phoning Philo Vance, he too is killed. I enjoyed the humor in this and it has to be my favorite story of the three PRC Philo Vance mysteries. The killing method is pretty clever and the body count is rapid. Iris Adrian is great as one of Larry's ex-wives. She is a fan-dancer calling herself Choo-Choo Divine onstage. Her testing out lipstick scene is very funny. Also I like Clara Blandick as granny. Clara was the Auntie Em of Wizard of Oz fame.

"Philo Vance Returns" is one of three Vance mysteries made by PRC, an ultra-cheapo production company specializing in mostly craptastic B-movies. Occasionally, they accidentally made a decent film...and this happens to be one of them. So, despite the horrid production company and mostly unknown actors, it manages to entertain and is worth seeing.

Larry is an idiot. He's been married many times and was engaged several times as well. Soon after introducing his latest fiancee to his grandmother, the young lady is killed. Soon, Larry is also killed...and one by one his exs all start getting killed as well! Fortunately, Philo Vance is on hand to investigate...though he isn't quick enough to stop many of the murders.

The film's biggest asset is that the murderer is an interesting choice but there also are enough red herrings and twists to keep you watching. Worth seeing...though I have no idea if PRC's other Vance films are worth your time or not.