1947's "Philo Vance Returns" concluded the brief three picture series from PRC, which ended the screen incarnation of the popular detective first played by William Powell. After two entries starring Alan Curtis, flanked by comic sidekick Frank Jenks, this casts in the title role frequent villain William Wright, who not only gets awakened in the middle of the night to solve the murder of a playboy's fiancée, but hears the caller get shot before he even hangs up! Within five minutes, there are already 3 murder victims, and more suspects bite the dust before Vance figures things out. Aiding Vance is Leon Belasco (a great improvement on Frank Jenks, although playing a different character), stealing every scene with his witty dialogue and funny accent, particularly his seduction of Iris Adrian through kiss-proof lipstick. Clara Blandick, best remembered as Auntie Em in the immortal "Wizard of Oz," portrays the playboy's loving grandmother, while seen only briefly are former Universal starlets Ramsay Ames and Vivian Austin, (the latter had a much larger role in the previous entry, "Philo Vance's Gamble"). Special mention goes to Eddie Dunn as the investigating lieutenant; he did many memorable cameos in the comedies of Laurel and Hardy, W. C. Fields, and Abbott and Costello. The very low budget occasionally calls attention to itself though, again, the mystery is quite good; some viewers may correctly guess the killer's identity but there's more here than meets the eye. Perhaps due to his untimely death from cancer in 1949, William Wright was hardly a well known actor, and does not excel in his only stint as Vance, no match for even Alan Curtis (Leon Belasco gets all the good lines). PRC's Vance films compare favorably to the three Film Classic 'Falcon' features from 1948-49 with John Calvert. Television adapted several movie detectives in its first decade, but not Philo Vance; even Perry Mason, with only six features at Warners, enjoyed a long run in its small screen version.
Review of Philo Vance Returns
