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The Greene Murder Case
USA 1929
produced by B.P. Schulberg for Paramount
directed by Frank Tuttle
starring William Powell, Florence Eldridge, Ullrich Haupt, Jean Arthur, Eugene Pallette, E.H. Calvert, Gertrude Norman, Lowell Drew, Morgan Farley, Brandon Hurst, Augusta Burmeister, Marcia Harris, Shep Camp, Helena Phillips Evans, Mildred Golden, Veda Buckland, Charles E. Evans, Harry Strang
screenplay by Louise Long, based on the novel by S.S. Van Dine, adaptation and dialogue by Bartlett Cormack
Philo Vance, Philo Vance (William Powell)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Greenes are a family kept together by fate, or should we say greed,
rather than anything else, as old man Greene has forced them to live
together in his house for 15 years following his death, to inherit his
fortune, and should any of the family leave or die, his or her share will
be distributed among the others. And then one night, Chester Greene
(Lowell Drew) actually is shot dead in his room, and Ada (Jean Arthur)
non-fatally shot in the back only a few minutes later. Police seargant
Heath (Eugene Pallette) is quick to suspect a robbery, but Philo Vance
(William Powell), an amateur on the case with district attorney Markham's
(E.H. Calvert) permission is quick to disagree, and thus everybody present
in the household is questioned, from paralyzed and bed-ridden matriarch
Mrs. Greene (Lowell Drew) to siblings Sibella (Florence Eldridge), Rex
(Morgan Farley) and Ada, to butler (Brandon Hurst), cook (Augusta
Burmeister) and maid (Marcia Harris), and of course family doctor Von Blon
(Ullrich Haupt), but little is found out, safe that Sibella has a morbid
sense of humour, Rex owns a revolver like that one used in the two
assaults but claims to have lost it, and Dr. Von Blon's relationship with
Sibella might exceed the usual doctor-patient relationship - all clues
that just don't lead anywhere - until Ada pays a visit to the district
attorney's office, calls Rex from there to fetch something for her, and
while she's on the phone he's shot dead. Yet later, Von Blon reports some
poisons from his medicine bag have gone missing while in the Greene
household, and sure enough, Ada soon survives being poisoned only by a
hair while the old Mrs. Greene isn't that lucky. Vance eventually finds
all he's looking for in the family library and eventually fingers the
least suspicious of all, Ada, to be the killer, who has used contraptions
to shoot both herself in the back and Rex, has factored her rescue into
her poisoning herself, plus her father (she's only an adopted Greene) was
criminally insane. When all this is found out she's already busy pushing
Sibella from the roof of the family home, but ultimately Sibella is saved
and Ada falls to her own death. Of course some shortcuts had to
be made given the film's running time of less than 70 minutes, but
overall, this is a pretty faithful adaptation of S.S. Van Dine's source
novel from only the previous year - and that's not just a good thing, as
the book is a pretty mediocre murder mystery at best that in its desperate
attempt to make the least suspicious person its muderer has turned into
something a bit too mechanical, or in other words rather stale. It works
well for the then blossoming early talking pictures though, as it only
requires a handful of locations, next to no exteriors, and is all talks
and little action - which unfortunately translates into the film that
comes across as stagey (as many early talkies do, to be quite honest) and
lacks any real dynamics beyond the purely functional. Not even William
Powell's natural charm can save this from being ... essentially a bit of a
bore.
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