This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

A Major Disappointment

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

All the Philo Vance films I've seen so far contain the element of clever misdirection, and "The Garden Murder Case" is no exception; although the "how" of two out of the three murders is not that hard to spot (even if you haven't read Leonard Maltin's review, which unfortunately gives the secret away!), the "who" and the "why" are more difficult to answer. This mystery is like a well-put-together puzzle. And this being an MGM production, it's considerably slicker and more expensive-looking than most of the other Vance films I've seen - lavish sets, incredible amount of extras, etc. It's also very well-cast in all parts, big and small; the one cast member I would like to single out is Virginia Bruce, who combines old-style beauty with a quite modern and individual acting style. And Frieda Inescort, in one scene, appears in a nightgown that shows just enough to make me wish the film was made a couple of years earlier, before the Code! **1/2 out of 4.

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.

When Philo Vance (Edmund Lowe) is standing precariously on the edge of a balcony high above the city, apparently hypnotized and just about to step to his death,it immediately reminded me of a nearly identical scene in another film made nine years later, "The Woman in Green" in which Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone)is similarly about to hurl himself into space while being hypnotized. Happily, both Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes survive these attempts at murder by unscrupulous criminals. Exciting cinematic suspense in both these scenes. When will they learn you can't cloud the minds of great fictional detectives ?