Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

39-0-13 Minor Spoiler contained.In the mid-1960's, as part of my misspent youth, I read all the Philo Vance novels by a guy named Wright under the nom-de-plume of S. S. Van Dine. For some unaccountable reason, some of his books became "best sellers" and made the author a fortune. Even the Book of the Month Club honored some books as "selections." The first book THE BENSON MURDER CASE was never filmed under that title, but then several books in succession found their way into cinema history. The last book THE WINTER MURDER CASE was unfinished at the time of Wright's death. There was a progression in quality as you read the books and as you see the movies adapted from them. The earlier books are the best, so too the movies based on them. The muse seems to have left Wright as time ran on, and the quality of the mysteries devolved into the blood and thunder genre. The absolute joke of the series was THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE with the real life Gracie Allen as a character leading "Fido" (played by Warren William) around by the nose. Anyway, this film under review with Paul Lukas and Roz Russell is more in the THIN MAN vein, as opposed to the more respectable THE KENNEL MURDER CASE. Many reviewers here have talked about Lukas and his European accent (the Vance of the novels was a pure WASP, but even more intelligent, educated and insufferably arrogant than can be imagined -- a true wish fulfillment figure for the author), and others have commented on the absurdity of the plot where the murderer turns out to be a raving lunatic. But instead of repeating what has already been noted, I want to single out Eric Blore who plays "Currie" -- Vance's man servant. Blore is one of those little noticed supporting players who took up only a few minutes in every film he was in, but still managed to make an impression. I noticed him in a few Astaire/Rogers films, especially the one in which he talks to Alice Brady about crumpets. He saves the day with his revelation at the end of THE GAY DIVORCE. Here, he plays a servant who adumbrates Bruce Kwok in the Peter Sellers' "Clouseau" movies with his skill in fighting his master with swords and then with boxing gloves. Can't recommend the film as a mystery; but as a time server with seeing Russell (not looking all that glamorous, admittedly) before her step up the movie ladder, it may be worth the while.

MartinHafer During the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood produced a long string of B-detective films such as Charlie Chan, the Falcon, Boston Blackie and Sherlock Holmes. One of these series that never seem to catch on despite many films in the series were the Philo Vance films. Now a few of them were very good and the series seemed to be going very well at first but unfortunately there was never a single actor to carry the films--and there were many different Philo Vances which confused the public and prevented their acceptance. As I said, it started well and those with William Powell were excellent, but after several films the studios replaced him with a wide variety of stars that never quite had the elegance and charm of Powell. Warren William (also of the Lone Wolf series), Grant Richards, Basil Rathbone, William Wright, Edmund Lowe and many others tried to fill his shoes, but with only indifferent results.About the strangest of the stars to play the role, though, was Paul Lukas. Now Lukas WAS a good actor but unfortunately he was also Hungarian and sounded much like Bela Lugosi!! This was definitely NOT the Philo Vance the public had come to expect, as he'd always been played by Americans or Brits! As a result, no matter how much Lukas tried, the film was bound to fail and I think it's among the worst of the Vance films I have seen. Now not all of this was due to Lukas, though he was pretty poor. The studio also managed to waste poor old Eric Blore who usually is a great supporting character who infuses some needed humor into a film. Here, he simply wasn't given a chance to get laughs or contribute much to the film.The plot itself wasn't bad, and the conclusion worked very well because I loved the bad guy's maniacal laugh as well as the way that Vance arranged for this guy to be killed, not captured! These interesting and off-beat aspects of the film manage to help the overall effort to be watchable, but that is all.FYI--Watch and listen to a young Rosalind Russell showing off her British accent. Before she was an established American star, she often used a British accent and sounded so convincing I really thought she might have been from the UK. Good job Roz!

Neil Doyle PAUL LUKAS stars as Philo Vance in this trifle designed to entertain audiences with an intriguing murder mystery laced with comedy. The comedy is just so-so and the mystery is weighed down by some heavy-handed explanations involving "heavy water", a most curious plot device and one that Agatha Christie mercifully never thought of as a poison.ALISON SKIPWORTH is a wealthy eccentric woman whose murder prompts the arrival of Philo Vance on the scene. ISABEL JEWELL overacts in her usual style as the woman's daughter, while ROSALIND RUSSELL does considerably better as another household relative. LEO G. CARROLL handles his butler role efficiently and LOUISE FAZENDA is just slightly annoying as an eaves-dropping maid assigned most of the comedy relief.The mystery elements are handled in okay fashion but the use of "heavy water" as a plot device seems totally far-fetched. PAUL LUKAS does rather nicely as Philo Vance but it takes awhile to get used to him in the role often played by more debonair types.Nothing special, but passes the time pleasantly.

Arthur Hausner As good an actor as Paul Lukas is, his accent destroys the illusion that he's the great American detective, Philo Vance, and I was conscious of that throughout. The murder mystery gets off to a good start, but then falters when Vance speculates that perhaps it was "heavy water" that was used as the poison, since it was not known if that substance was poisonous. That idea was pulled out of thin air in an effort to explain why people drinking water would be poisoned. I disliked this development, sensing it was just a plot device to keep the movie rolling, and I was right. He mentions deuterium, Harold Urey's experiments, and the fact a quart of the substance would be worth $100,000, but I'm sure 99% of the 1935 audience didn't know what he was talking about anyway. It would have been much better if he came across Kinkaid's laboratory isolating heavy water by accident and then thought about the possibility of its use as a poison.But I did enjoy some of the comic relief. William Demarest plays an auctioneer trying to convince people that an ugly statue of cupid was made for Louis XIV, even after his assistant announces it says "made in Japan" on the bottom. In a running gag, Louise Fazenda plays the maid who is caught a dozen times listening at a keyhole and sheepishly says "Did you call, sir," each time. And Charles Sellon is the coroner always complaining about the inconsiderate murder victims getting bumped off just when he's trying to sleep. And there's more comedy too.