The Garden Murder Case (1936)

The Garden Murder Case was the tenth Philo Vance movie. It was released by MGM in 1936.

S.S. Van Dine did not sell the rights to all the Philo Vance novels to the same studio which partly explains why Vance was played by no less than ten different actors! The one actor who really nailed the part was of course William Powell. Most of the other actors’ interpretations of the role were either less than entirely satisfactory or simply awful.

In The Garden Murder Case we get Edmund Lowe as Vance.

A day at the races ends in tragedy. A jockey is killed. The circumstances are ambiguous. In fact the circumstances are downright odd. It may have been a curiously unconventional suicide.

There will shortly be another puzzling death.

Ruthless businessman and racehorse owner Edgar Hammle (Gene Lockhart) might be a suspect.

More deaths follow and again they’re ambiguous - they could be accidents, they could be suicides, they could be murders.

Ace amateur sleuth Philo Vance has his own ideas but he’s missing a very important clue. It’s the key to the case.

The story is complicated but it includes lots of cool plot devices that were fashionable at the time and are now very unfashionable. But they’re the kinds of plot devices that make the detective stories of the interwar period so much fun.

In my opinion most online reviews reveal too much of the plot of this movie. There are things you can guess early on but I think it’s better to be not quite sure if your guesses are accurate.

This is a very old-fashioned detective story and that’s why it’s so enjoyable. There’s no trace of gritty realism here.

There is of course a dangerous dame, in the person of Hammle’s niece Zalia (Virginia Bruce).

Edmund Lowe does at least give us a rather likeable Philo Vance. He is not one of the great screen Philo Vances but he’s not too bad. The main problem is that Vance needs to be a bit more larger-than-life and a lot more flamboyant. Not everyone likes Vance as a character but if you tone him down then he’s not Philo Vance any more.

The other cast members are very solid and I liked Virginia Bruce a great deal.

Edward L. Marin was a solid journeyman director who made several rather good movies, including the superb Nocturne (1946) and Johnny Angel (1945), both with George Raft. He does a very competent job with The Garden Murder Case. It’s not exactly a visually dazzling film but it moves along at a decent pace.

Bertram Millhauser wrote the script.

In 1936 Hollywood was convinced that mysteries and thrillers needed to have comic relief. The comic relief was usually awful. In this case Nat Pendleton is exceptionally irritating as Sergeant (in the novels Heath is no genius detective but he is not a clown).

The Garden Murder Case is not a great Philo Vance movie but it’s reasonably entertaining. Worth a look.

This movie is included in the Warner Archive Philo Vance Murder Case Collection DVD set. The movies in this set, which vary a great deal in quality, also include The Casino Murder Case (1935), The Kennel Murder Case (1933), The Bishop Murder Case (1929) and The Dragon Murder Case (1934). The Garden Murder Case gets an acceptable transfer. This is a boxed set that is definitely worth picking up.