KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Ketrivie 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.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

dougdoepke Routine whodunit of the time. Despite presence of Powell, he's given no chance to demonstrate his special personality skills-- that would come later with Nick and Nora Charles. Too bad, because the narrative could use more character color, aside from a droll Palette as police inspector. As a murder mystery, the film's nothing special. There's the old brain-teaser of murder in a locked room, but that's cleared up too soon. Too bad the collection of suspects are all men with only two women in the cast. Then too, headliner Mary Astor gets little screen time and is largely wasted. From that gender standpoint, the movie remains something of an oddity. Nonetheless, the storyline is smoothly directed by the canny Mike Curtiz. At the same time, I like the use of flashbacks to clear up the convoluted murders, which otherwise are pretty much beyond viewer solution. Anyway, it's good to know that Powell would soon take Asta and go on to the Thin Man series, which is more entertaining than this mediocre effort.

utgard14 A man has been killed in a room locked from the inside. The police are baffled so they call in Philo Vance (William Powell). Easily the best of all of the Philo Vance films. This is due to the direction of Michael Curtiz and the star power of William Powell. Curtiz's direction is much more polished than the previous Philo Vance movies, which were early talkies and therefore creaky. William Powell reprises his role as Vance from the first three movies. He was absent in The Bishop Murder Case. His personality is a large part of why I enjoyed this one. I'm not crazy about Philo Vance compared to many of the other movie detectives from the '30s and '40s. But he's entertaining with Powell playing him. More due to Powell's personality shining through than the appeal of Vance as a character. It's a very entertaining murder mystery with a terrific supporting cast. I particularly enjoyed Eugene Palette's police detective and Etienne Girardot's coroner. If you are a fan of classic detective films you will definitely love this one.

robert-temple-1 This is the sixth Philo Vance mystery film and the fifth and last starring William Powell, five films which he made between 1929 and 1933. (In 1930 a single Philo Vance film intervened which starred Basil Rathbone, THE BISHOP MURDER CASE, see my review). After this, Philo Vance was played by eight different actors until 1947, when the series ended (it had gone into abeyance during the War, between 1940 and 1947). Here William Powell continues to become more and more recognisable as the William Powell we all admire from his later films. Although the script gives him little opportunity, he still manages to make the occasional comment with the typical Powellesque mixture of nonchalance and challenge. Insouciance is never that far away, and one can sense it trembling on his lips. His sense of humour peeks through the workmanlike script from time to time, like a mouse glancing through its hole at a cheese on the table but not daring to try to approach it. (A whole cheese of the old-fashioned kind bears a certain resemblance to a director's cut, doesn't it? It is more nearly what its Maker intended.) This film has many characters, including seven murder suspects. The plot is convoluted, there is more than one murder, and there may even be more than one murderer. A central feature of the complex plot is that old chestnut, the murder in a locked room which is bolted from the inside. In this film, unlike others one could mention, we see a detailed and closeup view of just how that trick is done. I am not aware of when the famous motif of a murder in a sealed and bolted room first entered detective fiction, and doubtless experts in the genre might have some idea. But here we have it on screen in 1933, and trackers of ingenious plot twists can add that as one of the early dots which they join in their graph. But there are many red herrings and other complications in this tale. There may be not one, not two, but three murder weapons, for instance. Which one did the deed? Why are there so many? The sub-plot of a Chinese cook who is really a Columbia University graduate specializing in the acquiring of rare porcelain adds a further twist. Certainly this story was very meticulously plotted, with as many intersecting possibilities as a well-cut jewel has facets. It gleams from all angles, and the answers may come from more than a single one. Detective story lovers will not be disappointed. Mary Astor is one of the two female stars, but has little to do other than walk through her lines. This is a plot film, not a character film, and nothing matters but whodunit, or whodunn'em. There are no wisecracks or smart dialogue in this film, but it does have a running humorous sub-plot of the coroner whose meals keep being interrupted as he is repeatedly summoned to check on more bodies, and he gets grumpier and grumpier. He is very funny, and this lightens the film up a little. The film never rises above the mediocre except in its plot elements. Oh yes, there are cute dogs in this film. In most films, we get cute girls, but in this one we get cute dogs.

whpratt1 Enjoyed viewing this film on TCM and watching a very young William Powell, (Philo Vance) playing detective just like he did with Myrna Loy in the "Thin Man Series". Back in the 1930's William Powell played in the Philo Vance Series and in this picture, the famous veteran actress Mary Astor, (Hilda Lake) becomes one of the suspects in a murder/suicide case where a man named, Archer Coe, (Robert Barrot) is found dead and Archer was in a room that was bolted from the inside. Ralph Morgan, (Raymond Wrede/Archer's Secretary) gave a great supporting role and was the brother to Frank Morgan who appeared "In the Wizard of Oz" 1939. Eugene Palette, (Detective Sgt. Heath) appeared in quite a few of these Philo Vance films and also gave a great performance in "Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn. Always remember, the least likely actor could very well be the killer. Enjoy a great Classic from the past.