The Gracie Allen Murder Case

I've always loved the scatter-brained comedy of Gracie Allen, but she is terribly out of place in this (so-called) "mystery". Don't get me wrong -- she's EXCELLENT but, unfortunately, "overwhelms" the film, and the mystery is lost in the shuffle. Warren William (as Philo) is pitifully wasted in this film.

A better title for this film should be, "What Happened to Philo Vance"?

Willard Huntington Wright, the goateed, urbane former editor of "The Smart Set" had carved himself a successful cottage industry with his nom-de-plume, S.S. VanDine and THEIR urbane creation, detective Philo Vance in the 1920's and 30's both on the page and the screen. Wright/VanDine shopped Vance through a variety of studios and actors, with two actors becoming particularly identified with the creation - William Powell, before deserting Vance for Dashiel Hammett's even better crafted light comic detective, Nick Charles (did Hammett take the hint from VanDine's wildly popular KENNEL MURDER CASE to give Nick and Nora Charles their clue sniffing wire haired terrier, Asta?), and the screen's original Perry Mason, William Warren who tried to hold his own opposite Gracie Allen in this effort.

Wright was nearer the end of a fairly illustrious career than he probably realized when, just after Christmas of 1937 according to John Loughery's 1992 biography ("Alias S.S. Van Dine - The man Who Created Philo Vance"), he agreed for $25,000 (in 1937 dollars) to supply Paramount Pictures a 3,000 word outline of a Philo Vance mystery to star Gracie Allen and, it was assumed, her husband and straight man, George Burns. Burns would bow out after seeing the first draft of the screenplay. Paramount (Nat Perrin would be credited with the disastrous screenplay) could do anything they liked with Van Dine's outline (and indeed they did) while he went his own way and published his novel based on the original outline.

To Van Dine's chagrin, Paramount felt HIS version had too much Philo and not enough Gracie, though there's little to prove that in this film with Gracie Allen (being hilariously "Gracie" for her many fans) blindly incriminating every innocent person she cares about, and nearly destroying Philo's determined investigation (she insists on calling him Fido, no matter how often corrected).

Perhaps the FUNNIEST thing in the film is William Warren's ever higher arched eyebrows as Gracie butts in over and over - very nearly getting both of them killed in the process.

In any case, the film was made and Van Dine made his "novelization" (retaining his George Burns character from the original outline). Both movie - opening in New York June 8, 1939 - and book flopped, but Van Dine went on that year to do one MORE Philo Vance mystery (this time prompted by an offer from Fox Films for him to build a Philo Vance novel around their latest star, Olympic champion skater Sonja Henie, to be filmed later). The mystery was called "The Winter Murder Case" and was in its final stages of pre-publication when Van Dine succumbed to a heart attack on April 11, 1940.

There would be one more posthumous Philo Vance movie from Warner Brothers (CALLING PHILO VANCE - a lesser remake of THE KENNEL MURDER CASE), and three from a poverty row studio in 1947, but THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE would be the last during Van Dine's lifetime and with his direct participation. Fox reworked Van Dine's last story - omitting Vance entirely(!) - to make the "Sonja Henie Murder Case" (the name they had originally wanted for "The Winter Murder Case") as SUN VALLEY SERENADE!

How much you enjoy THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE will entirely depend on how much you like the wacky charms of Gracie Allen. Set yourself up with a couple Burns and Allen shorts before hand and it is certainly wacky fun for fans - but for solid 30's mystery fans, it borders on the painful. Paramount's Perrin threw motivations and clues - anything that couldn't be mangled by Gracie's unique sensibility - out the window.

The peripheral pleasures are VERY peripheral but undeniable. Gracie gets to sing most pleasantly a Frank Loesser song ("Snug As A Bug In A Rug" - it was published with all "Gracie's" confused lyrics intact) which you WILL have trouble getting out of your mind, and there's a good deal of wonderful Loesser ("Two Sleepy People" especially) in the background. Some lines - like Gracie's flat insistence that "cigarettes never hurt anyone" - meant with specific plot related comic irony in the film - play with decidedly macabre overtones today!

The film which taught Gracie NEVER to appear on screen without George (and she never did after this semi-fiasco) is still fun for fans, but if you want to see comic stars in unexpected settings, better you should track down a copy of the similarly flawed, but on the whole more satisfying LOVE THY NEIGHBOR - also from Paramount, a year later - in which their promising starlet Mary Martin joins established stars Jack Benny and Fred Allen in a film extension of their famous radio "feud."

Martin's entirely delightful Paramount films are now entirely overshadowed by her later Broadway triumphs . . . the stunning success Burns & Allen had on radio and (from 1950 to 1958) on television situation comedy has largely overshadowed their brief film career (George and Gracie with Fred Astaire and Gershwin music were delightful in the DAMSEL IN DISTRESS two years earlier) and especially THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE, but an occasional exhumation of the corpse may be worth it for true fans and the curious.

The Gracie Allen Murder Case starts out as a delightfully silly parody with plenty of Allen's trademark nonsensical quips. By about 45 minutes in you want so badly to slap her into silence it almost ruins the movie. Justifiably (thank god), so do her costars who basically tell her to shut up. In a 30 minute radio show she gets away with it, but in a feature film she eventually becomes as unwelcome as any obnoxious character does. Sorry to say... The supporting players are all well suited to the script, which is well written except for the overabundance of Gracie's big mouth. I don't know what sort of reviews it got upon release, but mine is 3 out of 10, and that's being generous.

If you are interested in the arc of development of the mystery gene, follow the Philo Vance series.

When they started, they were complex puzzles, incredibly complex and imaginative. They had a hard time conveying elements of the mystery cinematically (instead of by exposition), but they tried and sometimes succeeded. They were important and sometimes entertaining as well.

But when a narrative form is mature, it starts to die, the tension to evolve being exhausted. Then what usually happens is that some comic layer is applied, humor being our storehouse of packaged tension.

Here we have Philo Vance essentially at the end, with the bare skeleton of a mystery, serving as a rack for Gracie's dumb comedy act. If you don't know Gracie, it really is the comedy of stupidity. She gets everything wrong. We are supposed to laugh both at the character, who unconvincingly pretends to be pretty and therefore dumb. Thankfully, sex isn't part of the formula.

Its a character that actually worked when with husband George because he was so amazingly patient and loving, the humor was in the apparent normalcy of her. Here, she's abnormal. The actual jokes are all verbal humor and have some power outside of the character. Its a comic tradition we seem to have lost because it depends on people actually listening to words and having some sense what is correct. The Marx brothers used this as well. No one does today, but there is something similar in spoof movies which misquote movie "language."

The mystery involves poisoned vapors.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE (Paramount, 1939), directed by Alfred E. Green, the tenth installment to the then popular "Philo Vance" murder mysteries that initially began with William Powell's portrayal in THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1929), returns Warren William to the role for the second and final time, with this being something completely different, placing S.S. Van Dine's fictional character solving his latest caper opposite none-other than Gracie Allen. After many years as part of the Burns and Allen comedy team opposite husband, George Burns, from vaudeville, radio, motion pictures and later television, Gracie Allen finally gets her chance to work opposite another straight man. By 1939, the motion picture field saw the temporary or permanent splitting of popular screen partnerships, ranging from Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame, partnered opposite Harry Langdon in ZENOBIA, to the popular song and dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ending their 10 film union-ship with THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE. While George Burns didn't go solo until a decade after Gracie's death by the 1970s, this is Gracie minus George, acting as sidekick to Philo Vance, whom she addresses as "Fido." For a change of pace in the series where Philo Vance is actually a secondary character, appearing 28 minutes into the story and not around for the fadeout, leaving much of the 77 minutes over to Gracie Allen. The story begins in the city limits of Riverwood where employees of the Vogue Perfume Company are gathered together for their annual picnic. Bill Brown (Kent Taylor), the company's perfume mixer, loses the companionship of his girlfriend, Ann Wilson (Ellen Drew) to fellow employee, Fred (Richard Denning), leaving him to spend much of his time alone. Enter Gracie Allen, having just returned from her trip in Europe, arriving at the picnic, where her Uncle Ambrose (Jed Prouty) introduces her to his staff and to Bill. Bill accepts Gracie's company and later that night escorts her to the Diamond Slipper Cafe. As the plot develops, Benny the Buzzard (Lee Moore), who has escaped prison, arranges a meeting with Diamond Slipper manager Danny Mirche (Jerome Cowan). It is revealed through Dixie Del Mar (Judith Barrett), Benny's girlfriend and night club singer working for Mirche, that she knows that Benny took the rap for Danny, and believes there's trouble ahead. Later, Benny is found dead in Mirche's office, with the body discovered by Gracie, who also finds Bill's cigarette case on the floor in the office, believing that he done it. Sergeant Heath (William Demarest) and Attorney Markham (Donald MacBride) arrive at the scene after receiving a mysterious phone call, and through Gracie's testament, they place Bill under arrest with Gracie as material witness. With Dixie found dead through poisoning, Detective Philo Vance (Warren William) is called to investigate, accompanied by Gracie Allen. Philo Vance will never be the same again.

Unlike film series featuring such notable detectives as Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan or Bulldog Drummond, Philo Vance has faded to obscurity regardless of its long range of films lasting through the 1940s. Although Gracie Allen, in her final film for Paramount, never assisted the likes of Holmes, Chan or any other fictional film sleuths for that matter, this edition, ranks one of the more notable and acceptable entries. While the actors play it straight, the comedy rests upon Gracie in her typical manner and funny, and not so funny verbal exchanges (Demarest: "The chief wants to see you. Gracie: "I just love Indians"). Aside from acting daffy, Gracie also takes time to sing the Frank Loesser song, "Snug as a Bug in a Rug" during the picnic ceremony.

With H.B. Warner as Richard Lawrence, and Horace MacMahon as Gus the Waiter, in support, the cast also includes the comedy team of Al Shaw and Sammy Lee as "Two Thugs" taking part in the confusion of shaking hands with Gracie, getting all tangled up in the process. Other highlights include a well staged race against time through the Broadway district of Manhattan as Gracie rides behind the motorcycle cop going through traffic bound for the night club to prevent Philo Vance from smoking a poisoned cigarette accidentally placed in the case by his servant (Willie Fung).

Unavailable on the television markets since the 1970s, THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE finally made it to home video in 2006 through Video Attic and DVD in 2008 through Nostalgia Family. THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE is definitely of nostalgic interest to those who enjoy the antics of Gracie Allen and a curio for anyone who has never seen the likes of her or Philo Vance. (**1/2)