Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
bensonmum2
Philo Vance (William Powell) is on the case of a showgirl named "The Canary" who was murdered in her locked apartment. The suspect list includes a number of men The Canary was blackmailing and all were in the vicinity of her apartment the night she died.Unfortunately, the backstory behind the making of The Canary Murder Case is much more interesting than the movie. Originally, The Canary Murder Case was to be a silent picture. But at the last minute, the studio decided to turn it into a talkie. Scenes had to be re-shot and lines had to be dubbed. But one of the film's stars, Louise Brooks, refused to participate. The studio hired another woman who resembled Brooks, shot her from the back, and used her voice for some of the worst dubbing I've ever heard. It's really an interesting story. The result of all this effort, however, is a very uneven film that often feels cobbled together.Getting past the backstory, The Canary Murder Case is dull. It's an early talkie and it shows. They just didn't know how to shot sound. The plot has a reasonably interesting twist near the end, but it is telegraphed so far in advance that it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Watching William Powell in this early Philo Vance effort, it's hard to believe this is the same man who would go on to play the absurdly (and I mean that in a good way) animated Nick Charles. Finally, the final reveal is so poorly shot that it's actually one of the duller moments of the film. What should have been the highlight is anything but.Overall, a 4/10 from me.
Robert J. Maxwell
One of the best lines in the movie: Louise Brooks, with her signature do and a voice that sounds like a yelping Chihuahua, calls up a newspaper editor and announces that she's going to marry the scion of a prominent family. "Well, well, may I send you my congratulations." Brooks: "You bet you can -- and send them from Tiffany's." (PS: Kids, Tiffany's is a very expensive jewelry store and also the name of the family that owns every diamond mine in Africa, not that the last observation matters here.) Brooks is the "canary", a sluttish nightclub performer who has her hooks into young Spottwoode and intends to marry him and improve her social station. Old Spottswoode objects, of course, but Brooks threatens to tell the press that Young Spottswoode has embezzled money from his old man's bank.She's been around and has something against everyone, the kind of woman you wouldn't want to get to know. Well, maybe you would, but you should never permit her to get to know YOU. So she's extorting old Spottswoode. She's also extorting the newspaper editor. She's extorting others. And every extortee wishes her grievous harm."Listen, baby, a little thing like a divorce don't mean nothing to me. I just heard you taking those suckers down over the phone." That's Brooks' husband or ex husband, recently released from the Crowbar Hotel. "Say, I oughtta bump you off." This woman makes enemies of everyone.Of course, somebody offs her mysteriously in her flat. It's at this point, twenty minutes into the movie, that we discover that William Powell is Philo Vance, detective. He and the police work together to solve the canary's murder.The police act as if mentally hobbled. Somehow their suspicions fall largely on young Spottswoode and his girl friend Alice. It's odd because the two of them have been together before and after the canary's murder. Jean Arthur is a brunette Alice and has the same curiously appealing nasal voice that she would have ten years later, but not yet the acting chops. She shows up only for a few seconds.The movie is strictly routine. Powell has his usual clipped pronunciation, but nobody else brings much to their roles. The direction is terrible. Dynasties rise and fall, Eons come and go, while actors stand looking at one another in silence. And the plot isn't really worth carrying on about.Powell was enchanting in the Thin Man series. Here, he's just another sober sleuth, putting together the jigsaw pieces of a puzzling crime.
dbborroughs
Philo Vance (William Powell) aids the police in running down the killer of the Canary (Louise Brooks, looking good but obviously dubbed) a show girl who was planning on blackmailing the son of a rich banker into marrying her. There are an odd assortment of suspects, including a young Jean Arthur (who's not very good) but only one real choice. This was always held out by people I've known to be the best of the Philo Vances, edging out the Kennel Murder Case. I don't think anyone who's said that had seen the film in years because I don't know when the last time this was run on TV. Actually its a slow (you could trim about 15 minutes out of this), dated (there is no music and many scenes were shot silent and sound added later) but still enjoyable little thriller. Its an okay mystery that actually becomes more a how was it done rather than who done it. Is it the best of the Vances? No. Kennel is really good and probably better, and probably some of the others as well, but that doesn't mean you won't have a good time watching it.
Nazi_Fighter_David
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
