The Kennel Murder Case

Suicide or Murder? When the much hated Archer Coe turns up dead and is believed to be a suicide, Philo Vance and Detective Heath steps into the scene to find out why a rich man would consider suicide as an option. Things become a bit stranger when Archer Coe's brother, Brisbane, turns up dead in a closet. Vance and Heath enlist the help of poor Dr. Doremus who never seems to get a chance to eat while this investigation is going on. It must be murder - but who and why?!

A film I really enjoyed watching! It's a mystery film that is peppered quite a bit with comedy. Detective Heath is the funniest - and has an outstanding speaking voice! Dr. Doremus is very funny as well! Two of my favorite characters in the entire film.

8.5/10

William Powell, Michael Curtiz, and a good murder mystery make "The Kennel Murder case" an entertaining film. Philo Vance (Powell) does some of his most difficult deducting, and Curtiz's direction keeps things moving quickly.

When rich, obnoxious Archer Coe is murdered, the case causes lots of difficulty for the police. It's bad enough that Coe's meanness gave a good reason for murder to pretty much anyone who ever knew him, but it's even worse that the clues are so complicated that he could have been killed in at least two completely different ways. Only Vance can figure it all out, and after some good twists, there is an interesting and creative solution.

Though basically filmed as a routine whodunit, there are several good features besides the story itself. Powell is as lively as Vance as he was later as Nick Charles in the "Thin Man" films. Most of the rest of the cast is good, too, especially Mary Astor as one of the suspects and Eugene Pallette as the earnest but not very bright sergeant in charge of the case. Everything moves along quickly with many good touches of humor.

Most mystery fans will find this movie entertaining and enjoyable.

The Kennel Murder Case (1933)

A precursor to the Thin Man series, starring William Powell as a detective (but without the very supplementary Myrna Loy). And this is directed by none other than Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca" and "Mildred Pierce"), and you can often tell, scenes characteristically complex with lots of people and foreground/background. As a whole the movie races along, to the point that the huge cast (all introduced with visual vignettes at the start) is confusing. But hang in there. because a third of the way through Powell kicks in full time.

There are few actors like William Powell in the history of American film. He is peculiar in charming ways, and makes no bones about it. He lacks any sense of what we might think of as cool or hardness--there's no Bogart in him, no Cary Grant of course, nothing but what a character actor might have. And he made it a virtue, visible even here. The rest of the cast is good or very good, with a few other recognizable faces, and it gels increasingly as you go until a series of dramatic whodunnit style conclusions wraps it all up.

Powell's detective, Philo Vance, was a snobby socialite, and the plots have a quality of private detective vs. police (which gets used in a lot of these kinds of series, of course). There are four movies with Powell playing the part (and many others with other actors in the role. This is the fourth, and best of them, the first going back to the dawn of sound, 1929. It's not as slick or warm (or sophisticated) as "The Thin Man" series, which is a high water mark of the effete detective, but it's terrific in its own way, and really well constructed. I'd not miss it.

William Powell plays Philo Vance for the last time in this enjoyable Warner Brothers B murder mystery. Because it is a B, there are some problems with the script and some problems with the art design. I'll get into that later.

Vance is at a dog show on Long Island showing his Scottish terrier Captain. This is where we meet Archer Coe (Robert Barrat), also a dog show enthusiast as well as a collector of Chinese Art who has an unfaithful mistress (Helen Vinson). Coe argues with and crosses just about every character in the film. Coe is discovered dead the next morning, a bullet in his head, the gun that shot him in his hand, a head wound from a blunt instrument, and a stab wound in his back with his bedroom door locked from the inside. The police are about to call this one a suicide(???) when enters Philo Vance to systematically figure out who did it. Oh, and there is an additional body in the foyer closet.

Powell is great here as Vance, the perfect combination of masculinity and sophistication. He played the same role over at Paramount three other times. Oddly enough, Eugene Pallette as Sgt. Heath is ported over here in the same role he played in the other films. He is the same kind of sidekick cop that Guild (Nat Pendleton) was in The Thin Man. He probably would have never found the body in the closet and had Coe ruled a suicide if not for Vance, but his self esteem is never bothered by this and the two play off of each other perfectly as old pals.

Michael Curtiz' direction gives this B some extra punch, and I never thought I'd see Jack La Rue convincingly play an effete Italian after having seen him as a ruthless thug in "Story of Temple Drake", but he does pull it off.

There are a couple of holes I will just mention. First, before Coe is murdered, the dog of one of his foes is kidnapped and killed. The killer of that dog is never discovered nor is it even mentioned later in the film. Next, when Vance is describing how the murders were carried out, he has a set of detailed miniature models of the buildings involved in his explanation of the crime. These models can be broken out with detailed sectional views of each. Where on earth did he get such a thing on short notice?

One of the better Vance films succeeds more on interesting plot and artful direction by none other than Michael Curtiz. This time around a generally hated financier is found dead - shot in the head - in his locked and bolted bedroom on the upper floor. Philo Vance, hearing of the situation while about to set off for Italy, decides to end his vacation and try to solve what he thinks is a murder and what everyone else is considering a suicide. William Powell is as affable a Philo Vance as you will find. He never seems to press and is always very smooth in what he says and does. Powell is aided by a host of very talented actors - some first-rate character actors and actresses like Mary Astor as a niece that hated her uncle, Ralph Morgan as the dead man's secretary, Paul Cavanaugh as a rival dog fancier, Arthur Hohl as a mysterious butler, Helen Vinson as the next door kept blonde, and two really good performances by James Lee as the Chinese cook and portly Eugene Palette as a wise-cracking police detective. Add into the mix a wonderfully comedic turn by Etienne Girardot as a public coroner always missing his meal. It is this depth of suspects and a story that has many plots twists and turns that make The Kennel Murder Case a fast-moving, fun mystery.