PHILO VANCE’S GAMBLE

US, 1947, 61 minutes, Black-and-white.
Alan Curtis, Terry Austin, Frank Jenks, Tala Birell, Gavin Gordon, Cliff Clark, James Burke, Toni Todd.
Directed by Basil Wrangell.

Philo Vance had had a successful career on screen – especially, from the 1920s into the mid-1930s in the form of the suave William Powell. The suave Warren William had also had two outings as Philo Vance.

After the war, there were three Philo Vance films, all released in 1947. Besides this film there was Philo Vance Returns and Philo Vance and his Secret Mission (this one running for only 48 minutes).

While William Wright was the star of Philo Vance Returns, the other two films featured Alan Curtis. He was a successful choice for Philo Vance, not the suave manner of William Powell, but a solid down-to-earth approach to his character, the touch of the wisecrack, the touch of the flirtatious. (Alan Curtis was to die several years later in his early 40s.)

Frank Jenks is Ernie, Philo Vance’s associate, providing some comic touches, double takes, bad pronunciations, touches of vanity when boasting to his friends…

The plot is quite complicated and interesting. Character actor, Dan Seymour, is planning to doublecross his partner and steal an emerald he has procured, also doublecrossing a number of people who were partners in obtaining the emerald. He put out the word that Philo Vance is safeguarding the jewel. Then he is murdered.

Philo Vance is not safeguarding the emerald and goes to see the jewel entrepreneur who offers him a check for $1000 to do the job. The entrepreneur is shot, Vance is hit over the head – and becomes the target of the police investigation. However, the police agree to let Vance have his own investigation as well is theirs.

Second billing is given to Terry Austin as an actress who is hopeful of performing on a play in Los Angeles and then going to Broadway. She is associated with one of the partners in the jewel plan. There is also the agent who organised it. And there is a married couple who are in need of finance.

Vance has encounters which with each of the suspects, the audience becoming more and more suspicious, especially with the wife who was consulting the organiser and threatening him. In the meantime, the actress flirts with Vance and he responds, supporting her in her bid for theatrical fame and trying to assure the entrepreneur that the show could go on.

More murders. Vance is shrewd in investigation, even enlisting the help of the actress. He has a plan to flush the murderer out, getting the entrepreneur to phone all the other members of the group to assemble at midnight. Only the entrepreneur and the actress turn up. In the confrontation, the actress shoots the entrepreneur. Vance’s associate makes a phone call pretending it is the wife who wants the emerald getting the actress.

Suddenly, the actress is revealed as the mastermind of the plot, doing all the shootings, making sure that none of the other partners turn up for the revelation.

The initial criminal had concealed the emerald in a jar of face cream and there are some jokes along the way with James Burke as a policeman, some comic touches, allergic to the face cream. And, the continual presence of a little girl with her toy gun, promised a holster, getting herself messed up, Vance cleaning her face and discovering the emerald and hiding it in her toy gun.

Quite entertaining in its way.