This film is important for a couple of reasons.First, it is an early talkie, and if you are a student of film, it is essential to watch the transition from silent films to talkies. Some of the characters in this film seemed to think they were still doing silents.Secondly, it stars Basil Rathbone as detective Philo Vance. Philo Vance, a character by S.S. Van Dine, has appeared in many films. The great William Powell played him several times before he did The Thin Man, and here Rathbone does him before he goes on to playing Sherlock Holmes.

I found all of the Philo Vance films watchable, with the zippy and witty Kennel head and shoulders above the rest. Bishop was pretty good too but suffered from a cast of actors stuck in the silent era and displaying the full range of intensely melodramatic emotions that are were so essential to the making of – and enjoyment of watching a silent film. Static cameras are as nothing to tortured eyes and semaphore arm histrionics.Mr. (Cock) Robin is found flat out murdered, apparently shot with an incredibly long arrow but Vance played by skinny and incisive Basil Rathbone knows better. He predicts a series of ghastly and inhuman murders will follow conceived by a intellect bent on playing games with his pursuers by couching his dastardly deeds in very handy nursery rhymes. He and one of the suspects, evergreen Roland Young are the only two to act naturally throughout, if still very slightly stagey. The photography is occasionally startlingly good, if still static. None of these criticisms bother me, I love it just the same as a well crafted atmospheric entertaining potboiler. Favourite bits: The scene in Dillard's library with the thunderstorm raging outside; the sedate and well-mannered way Vance and the cops enter Dillard's aerodrome of a house to search for the murderer.I hadn't seen this since 1995, the last time UK Channel 4 gave anyone interested their opportunity to watch it. TCM UK unlike TCM US will never have room for it in their admirably varied schedule either (hem). But it's worth hunting down with all its faults for 90 minutes in the company of the world of 1929.

Spoilers herein.Movies today are a large part of how we define ourselves. But many of the structural elements of today's films are a result of punctuated evolution, times where decisions were made. These were fast and permanent. I recommend this film not for its intrinsic value - after all few films have value outside of their fueling of life; but because you can retrospectively witness one of these cusps in structural change.The silent film was a matter of shadow puppets with humans, hardly `real,' very abstract in fact. Then film went through a spurt in which certain ideas warred for supremacy. You can see some of that here.The most obvious battle is over the notion of narrative engagement. I could have chosen three or four films as my example, but I selected this because it has Basil Rathbone. He would later become an archetype in the form that would win. And this has a remarkable reference to three external forms that were part of the battle. By the time of this film, books had already been taken completely over by the detective story. The reason is because it offered a new type of engagement with the reader: the reader and writer struggle with one another to determine the vision into what happens next. Nominally the writer is playing a game on his turf, but as experienced, the reader can win. The detective provides a "science" based avatar, often moving in alliances between writer and reader but mostly for the reader.The writer of the Philo Vance books was a great student of this theory and was astonishingly popular. He is forgotten today because so many masters subsequently built on his theories, but one might credit him with being the first real theorist of narrative engagement by detection, sort of a science of observation of the science of observation.His books were `picked up' for movies. They translated badly because the adapters actually thought the story was important and were ignorant of the game. Nevertheless, the viewer of this adaptation can see reference to three templates for Van Dine's ideas: the game of chess, the plays of Ibsen, and the self-referential irony of `fairy tales.'His `Kennel Case' was a far better story, redone as `Calling Philo Vance.' But this one is much more interesting because it is about itself, and unwittingly about the theory of reflection in film narrative. We have scientists, chess players and detectives all cast as rather much the same, presumably all capable of `writing' the case, as the writings appear in snippets. (True to dramatic conventions of the time, the women have no minds at all.) Each is cast as primary suspect, then killed (or attempted so). See also the abstract nature of the staging. While the exteriors used real buildings with normal sized floors and windows, the interiors are extraordinary: ceilings at least thirty feet high, with windows as large. Doors ten feet high, but stairs that only raise one six feet or so. Desks that must be twenty feet broad.And one can incidentally see the acting style carried over from the silents, a reminder that this is transitional film.Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

Basil Rathbone makes a good Philo Vance in this murder mystery involving nursery rhymes. It's a forerunner of his great portrayal of Sherlock Holmes later in his career. He even uses his powers of observation to deduce that the sergeant (James Donlan) wrote a check that afternoon, soon has a date with a woman, etc., much the same way Holmes did, continually astounding Dr. Watson. But the comedy Donlan provides - and he's the only comic relief in the film - is on an infantile level. When he sees Rathbone for the first time, he says "I've solved this case, Mr. Vance. It's a murder." The script is really less than lacking in the humor department. On the other hand, all the other characters do not behave as stupid, and are believable in their roles. I loved the interesting faces and characterizations of George F. Marion and Charles Quartermaine. And there is one lovely photographed scene when Leila Hyams is sitting at a desk with a triple mirror when a sinister hand opens the door. You see her terrified face from four different angles at once, and it's a stunning effect.This is the type of mystery that is virtually impossible to figure out. You have to go with the flow and watch the events unfold until the end when they are explained. There are lots of red herrings along the way, so I found myself switching from one suspect to another as the probable murderer. It was fun.