O Drama de uma Noite

When Paramount decided to re-make their unreleased silent, "The Canary Murder Case" as a talkie, they faced two problems. The first was that the title star, Louise Brooks, had accepted an offer to work in Germany and refused to return. The second was that director Mal St Clair had no knowledge of sound technique. And perhaps it's true too that he supported Miss Brooks' stand. She and Paramount had parted on bad terms because the studio refused to honor her contract. In any event, Frank Tuttle was engaged to direct the talkie.

In order to get around the Brooks problem, the studio wheeled in a double, Margaret Livingston. Not only did Miss Livingston dub the Canary's voice (in an atrocious Brooklyn accent yet!) but also substituted visually in back-to-the-camera long shots.

So what we have is a movie in which all the Brooks close-ups (in fact all the shots which show her face), plus at least one short clip in a hotel corridor and maybe the long shot of the dancing chorus in the theater (and perhaps the location snip of the speeding car), were directed by Mal St Clair, whereas the rest of the action was directed by Frank Tuttle. A major headache for the editor indeed, and he is to be commended for a sterling job of work under extremely difficult circumstances. The pace is odd, the cutting unrhythmical and even jarringly abrupt at times, but at least the narrative still makes sense.

Aside from Miss Livingston, the players do wonders with the not very convincing dialogue supplied by novelist S.S. Van Dine himself. Oddly, Eugene Palette copes best, giving a typically hearty impersonation of Sergeant Heath. On the other hand, Powell seems a little unsure of his character at this stage and is often content merely to rattle off his lines. The rest of the players are competent enough, if a little too theatrical at times, though comedian Ned Sparks seems miscast as a ruthless thug and Jean Arthur's fans are in for a considerable shock not only by the paucity of her part but by the most unattractive way she is presented and photographed.

All the same, the film comes across as more than a mere curiosity. It not only bolsters the Brooks legend, but, if nothing else, it also presents a murder mystery that is not only reasonably intriguing but ingeniously solved.

P.S. The actor who plays Sergeant Heath spells his name "Pallette", but IMDb's automatic spelling correcter refuses to acknowledge this.

First Philo Vance film starring William Powell in the lead and a dubbed Louise Brooks in a small role. It's an early talkie so from a technical standpoint it creaks and groans as you might expect. But it's still an enjoyable picture with a good turn from Powell. Watch other movies from this year and you'll be doubly impressed by Powell's acting. His style is years ahead of most of his contemporaries who tended to overact. This series would get much better and Powell would certainly go on to do more memorable work, but this isn't a bad start at all. It's not a terribly exciting watch but it never bored me. If you like classic detective stories from this period it's worth a look.

Unfortunately, I had to make do with a rather poor copy of THE CANARY MURDER CASE, full of scratches and tiny breaks - not to mention the crackling recording, which I had to take as sportingly as I could, knowing that by 1929 the movie industry was only in its earliest forays into sound.

Those drawbacks aside, I found the joint direction by Tuttle and St Clair very competent and even imaginative, with most of the shooting done in dark interiors. Of course, to achieve that quality level the directors had to rely on a strong script - and that they had, courtesy of SS Van Dine and adaptation by the suggestively named Albert Le Vino (thankfully, there is far less drinking here than poor William Powell would have to endure as Detective Nick Charles 5 years later).

Ultimately, though, what I take away from this picture are the following pluses: Louise Brooks' incredibly timeless beauty (I have been in love with her since watching the silent PANDORA'S BOX); William Powell's nonchalant but classy Philo Vance, helped by peerless diction that must have been the envy of just about all actors in Hollywood in 1929; the clever dialogue that draws into a whodunnit that rates far more complex than I expected from a 1929 vehicle.

Definitely a must for fans of Powell, Brooks, Arthur, and whodunnit. 8/10.

One of the earliest private-eye talkies was "The Canary Murder Case," featuring William Powell as an American detective called Philo Vance ... later described by Raymond Chandler as "probably the most asinine character in detective fiction."

This type of "classic" murder mystery, transposed to an American location, must have seemed a natural for early talkie producers: few sets, all interiors, a lot of talk and little of that difficult action stuff which meant the camera might have to move around… Like filming a stage play, in fact. Here was an opportunity to set up the static camera in its enclosed booth and let the actors get on with the job…

Most of these films turned out to be the dullest ever made… It wasn't the fault of William Powell, who played Philo Vance with wit and elegance… It was the fault of a basic misconception in making private-detective movies…

Powell played Vance four times... Others who, followed him were: Paul Lukas, Edmund Lowe, Warren Williams, Grant Richards, James Stephenson and Alan Curtis

The Canary Murder Case" was not William Powell's first talking film. That was "Interference", also by Paramount. Also, even though Louise Brooks was prominently advertised as "The Canary", a showgirl determined to marry a rich young man just for the fun of ruining him, she doesn't get much screen time. That is because The Canary Murder Case was originally shot as a silent film, but then it was decided to make it into a talking picture. Louise Brooks detested talking pictures and refused to stay and reshoot her part. This pretty much finished her in film in the U.S., although she went to Germany and did some of her finest work. Unfortunately, that fact was not discovered in this country for another thirty years. Instead of starting over with another actress, it was decided to have someone dub Louise' voice, and as a result her lip movement is noticeably out of synchronization with her "voice". Much of The Canary's speaking is done with her back to the camera, minimizing the problem.

William Powell, who was quite wooden in his first talking performance in "Interference", does much better here. You see him moving toward the characterization of the dapper P.I. that he played through the Thin Man series of films beginning in 1934. Powell had a pretty good silent career after a long period of poverty doing stage work prior to 1920, and he was one of the few silent stars to successfully make the transition to talking films.