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Rich banker Charles Spottswoode (Charles Lane) is worried that his son Jimmy (James Hall) will marry the popular daner and maneater commonly known as the Canary (Louise Brooks, voiced by Margaret Livingston) instead of his longtime girlfriend Alice (Jean Arthur), and he tries to talk the Canary out of her notion to do just that - but to no avail. Of course, Jimmy has had an affair with her but is no longer interested in the Canary, but she blackmails him into obedience as he has embezzled quite some money from his father's bank. After making one last appeal to her, Spottswoode leaves her hotel room shortly before midnight, she's heard screaming in her room, but then upon Spottswoode and the bellboy (Oscar Smith) knocking on the door, sends them away telling them everything's alright - and the next morning she's found dead, apparently strangled. Her room looks ransacked, her jewelry's gone, so a simple robbery is suspected by district attorney Markham (E.H. Calvert) and police Sgt. Heath (Eugene Pallette) - only amateur sleuth Philo Vance (William Powell), who's friends with both Markham and Spottswoode believes in something more sinister, and soon proves the robbery theory's wrong. Instead a few men are rounded up who have been seen about the scene of the crime around the time of the murder, Jimmy of course as his sweetheart Alice stays in the hotelroom right next door, Cleaver (Lawrence Grant) and Mannix (Louis John Bartels), who have both been blackmailed by the Canary, and the Canary's ex Dr. Lindquist (Gustav von Seyffertitz), who just refuses to let her go. They're all questioned, and all confess they have been near the scene of the crime and indeed had a motive, but none of them confesses to the crime itself. Vance then decides to engage all men, plus Spottswoode, in a game of poker, to study their psyches. Then all men are free to go. In the meantime though, a call has gone into the police station by the Canary's ex Skeel, who claims to have witnessed the murder and promises to show up at the station the next morning. But very much like the Canary, he has taken to blackmailing, and so before he can finger the murder, he's killed himself. A fountain pen is found at the scene of the crime that points to Jimmy, and eventually Jimmy confesses to both murders ... and everybody's happy but Vance, who had figured another culprit. He phones Spottswoode, and upon hearing his son arrested Spottswoode confesses to the murders and agrees to give himself up - but on his way to the police he's killed in a car accident. And now it's up to Vance to prove Spottswoode guilty - and he does so when he finds a pre-recorded record with the Canary's scream and her sending her "saviours" away that pretty much gave Spottswoode his alibi in the first place ...

Originally filmed as a silent, but later over-dubbed (with some additional scenes shot by Frank Tuttle, and Louise Books being dubbed by Margaret Livingston due to being out of the country), The Canary Murder Case is by no means a perfect film, as it's a rather stagey and overly-constructed murder mystery that at times can't totally deny its silent origins. At least some of the performances are pretty good, first and foremost Louise Brooks, who domineers the few scenes she's in even if she's not talking with her own voice. The film was a great success in its time, but to be utterly honest is nothing to write home about, as its story is as far-fetched as it's routine, and the thing lacks a certain light-footedness many murder mysteries of the time possess in spades.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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