Philo Vance is back with a new face and minus that thick accent he had in the last film (ha!). This time Vance is investigating strange suicides. The best part of the movie is the return of Etienne Girardot as coroner Dr. Doremus. This wonderful actor steals every scene he's in. He was previously in two Philo Vance films in a row, The Kennel Murder Case and The Dragon Murder Case. But then he was noticeably absent in The Casino Murder Case. His part was played by a dull actor with no flair for comedy. This marks his return to the role but sadly is also the last time he'll play it. By coincidence or not, the three Vance films Girardot are in also happen to be the best three of the series.The rest of the cast is solid. Edmund Lowe is not as well-known as William Powell or even Warren William, but he's charming and good with comedy. If you get a chance to see it, check out the underrated gem Espionage (1937) that he stars in. He's wonderful in that. The supporting cast here is pretty impressive. Great character actors Nat Pendleton, Gene Lockhart, H.B. Warner, Jessie Ralph, Henry B. Walthall, and Grant Mitchell -- nice lineup. Also beauties Virginia Bruce, Frieda Inescort, and Benita Hume, who would go on to be Mrs. Ronald Colman and then Mrs. George Sanders! This also happens to be the film debut of Kent Smith, leading man of the Cat People movies. This is a good B detective flick with a short runtime and quick pace. It's not the best of the series but it's up there. It's a shame Lowe didn't play Vance anymore. The series badly needed a steady actor in the role.

Etienne Girardot is just a character actor--the sort of person people almost never would know by name. However, he once again plays the coroner--one of the only actors in the Philo Vance films that played his role more than once. I've already seen him two other times and loved him every time because he was so funny and a breath of fresh air. This film also is great to watch because in addition to Girardot, there are many other wonderful character actors along for the ride--including Grant Mitchell, Gene Lockhart, Henry Walthal, Kent Smith, H.B. Warner and Nat Pendleton. This is quite an impressive cast, and they sure made the job easier for leading man and woman Edmund Lowe and Virginia Bruce.These great character actors are one of the big reasons I love these old B-movies. While the mystery itself is rarely that terrific, because of the breezy writing and acting, the films really satisfy. As for this film, Vance is played wonderfully by Lowe but, like I said, the mystery itself is only an after-thought--with a silly plot involving hypnosis and suicides. Unfortunately, you cannot hypnotize anyone to do anything of the sort--I have training in clinical hypnosis and if I COULD do anything like the evil guy could do in the film, I would have done it! Used car salesmen and a few of my old bosses would have been obvious targets!! Overall, while not the best Philo Vance film, it was very good and it's a darn shame Lowe only played this role once. In fact, aside from William Powell (who played Vance five times), the series was hindered by a long, long succession of actors such as Basil Rathbone, Wilfred Hyde-White and Warren William (and many others) playing Vance. This is a similar problem that also plagued the Bulldog Drummond series--just too many different actors playing the leading man.Well worth seeing and exciting--though also quite impossible.

**SPOILERS** Overly boring Philo Vance mystery movie with Edmund Lowe playing the famous suave and dapper detective.In this film Philo gets involved with the accidental death of jockey Flyod Garden, Douglas Walton, who in a state to total oblivion, acting as if his brain was detached from his body, ends up falling off from his mount in a steeplechase race breaking his neck. This was exactly what,the what looked like mind controlled, Garden predicted will happened to him just before the race started!Philo soon suspects that Garden's death wasn't an accident but murder. This has multi-millionaire horse owner, whom Garden was riding for, Edger Lowe Hammle, Gene Lockhart, get a bit hot under the collar in that he becomes the prime suspect in Garden's death or as Philo thinks murder! Things get even worse for the beleaguered Hammle when Floyd's distraught dad Dr. Garden, Henry B. Waithall, accuses him of his son's murder after he recovered, when confronting Hammle, from a major fainting spell at the Hammle estate.As things soon turn out Hammle himself ends up getting murdered which not only keeps him from standing trial in Garden's murder but exonerates him, as if that would bring him back to life, of his death altogether. It's obvious to everyone, but Philo Vance, now that the person who murdered Hammle was the same one who murdered GardenAs Philo starts to put all the pieces together he sets off an number of evens that end up with the elegant and globe trotting, as well as good friend of Hammle, Major Fenwick-Ralston, H.B Warner, wife Madge, Frida Inescort, herself getting killed! Madge like, Floyd Garden, seemed to have lost her mind and decided to go out and, as she told her shocked maid, get herself killed! this Medge did by jumping off a double decker bus and getting herself run over in the heavy traffic below!Puzzled by all these weird happenings Philo soon gets to the bottom of all this by simply watching-at the local zoo- together with the late Edger Hammle's niece Zalia Graem, Virginia Bruce, a deadly reticulated python having his lunch a live, he wouldn't touch it if was dead, rabbit! It's not what the big snake ate but how he got his victim to be eaten by him that helped him solve the baffling murder case: With the pythons use of total mind control over his confused rodent victim!Decent Philo Vance flick with newcomer, as Philo, Edmound Lowe in the title role. There's also Jessie Ralph as the loud mouth and bed-ridden pill popping Momma of Edger Hammle who has it in for her nurse Gladys Beeton, Benita Hume, whom she feels is falling down on the job. As it turned out Nurse Beeton was blackmailing Momma Hammle's son in revealing an affair he was having with a married woman friend of his. There's also Net Pendlton as police Sergeant Ernest Heath who despite being given charge of solving the case screws everything up to the point where he almost has the actual killer get away Scot-free. Pendelton will later become immortalized in the Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie series as the not so bright and bumbling Blair General Hospital, he seemed to be the only one in the entire sprawling medical facility, ambulance driver Joe Wayman.

S.S. Van Dine must have been a shrewd businessman in dealing with Hollywood. Most of the film series' from the studio days were usually confined to one or two studios. But apparently Van Dine must have sold his rights to each book about Philo Vance one at a time. Note that Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, and more all released Philo Vance films. Only Tarzan seemed to get around Hollywood more.MGM produced the Garden Murder Case and starred Edmund Lowe as the fashionable detective. Of course MGM had the screen's original Philo under contract at the time, but Bill Powell was busy doing The Thin Man at the time and I guess Louis B. Mayer decided to concentrate him there.Edmund Lowe is a pretty acceptable Philo Vance. Lowe had started out pretty big at the tail end of the silent era with What Price Glory and then with a string of films with Victor McLaglen with their Flagg and Quirt characters. But after McLaglen got his Oscar for The Informer, Lowe seemed to fade into the B picture market. The Garden Murder Case involves three separate victims, Douglas Walton, Gene Lockhart, and Frieda Inescourt. The sinister atmosphere around the perpetrator kind of gives it away, the mystery is really how all the killings are connected and how they are accomplished.I will say this though. Vance takes a very big chance in exposing the villain and the last 15 minutes are worthy of Hitchcock.