How sad is this?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Tend to stay huddled together in shots1930 was not that long after they began making talking pictures. Because of this, the picture suffers a lot compared to a film made just a year or two later. Too often, due to primitive sound technology, the actors tend to stand around in small huddles...most likely so that the hidden microphones will pick them up properly. This is why the actors DON'T move around very much....they hadn't really perfected this using sound. In addition, may of the actors tend to sound more like they are new to sound pictures and their deliveries are often rather stale. I cannot blame the movie for this...just the era in which it was made.As far as the story goes, it isn't bad despite everything....though it is very talky. There is a sleazy stockbroker, Benson, who is killed...and considering how many people he cheated, it's difficult to determine who did the deed...as many could have done it.For a better film, try watching some of William Powell's other murder mysteries--particularly"The Kennel Murder Case" in which he once again plays Philo Vance but the film is simply more enjoyable to watch and not so static.

The Benson Murder Case is the best of the three Philo Vance movies that Powell made at Paramount. That was partly because of advances in sound technology and partly because this script is more complex and the characters are more fleshed out.Anthony Benson is a stock broker - and he does not seem to be a crooked one as the synopsis states, though he is a bit of a rogue. The day is that of the great stock market crash, October 1929. As so many brokers did, those investors that had their stocks bought on margin were sold out when they could not cover those margins, and many lost everything.Add to this the complication of several people who have personal grudges against Benson that have nothing to do with the crash - two of which break into Benson's mansion that night - and you have a large number of suspects and a rather complex plot. Philo Vance (William Powell) comes calling on Benson that night and is having a discussion with dapper gangster Harry Gray (William Stage Boyd) about how Vance has only been able to solve the murders he has because the perpetrators were not professionals. At just about that time a shot rings out and Benson - minus the toupee he always wore if he was in the presence of anyone - rolls down the stairs, dead at Vance's feet.So here Vance has a house full of people who are glad to see Benson dead, yet they all seem to have alibis, and you have some proof (the missing toupee) that Benson must have been alone when he died, yet he did not commit suicide! What a mystery Vance must unravel, but he does.This one will keep you guessing as it is not quite so easy to figure out as the others. Also, there are a couple of other mysteries that Vance figures out but keeps mum about because they have nothing to do with the murder and because he is such a gentleman.I'd say watch this one, but watch it carefully, because there is quite a bit going on. Thus the plot is good and it is another fine chance for William Powell and Eugene Palette, as Vance's police detective friend, to show off their acting abilities.

"The Benson Murder Case" would have been another unexceptional, run-of-the-mill murder film. Worth watching but largely stagebound and with a primitive sound system (the players' voices fade in and out as they get closer or further from the mike). The deus-ex-machina is outrageously contrived to the point of unfairness, like some of Agatha Christies' stories. It starts off on a dark and stormy night, all suspects at the country estate of a hated stock broker, and, guess what? He gets bumped off. So far, pretty routine.Enter William Powell as Philo Vance and the picture immediately goes from a rating of 4 up to a 6. Dapper and sophisticated and with his inimitable off-handed cocksuredness, Powell rescues the film just by coming in the front door. This was his milieu and in these circumstances he was the best ever.Also on hand is Eugene Palette as the dense Police Lieutenant. and Richard Tucker as the corpse-to-be. Mischa Auer appears as a suspicious manservant and Paul Lukas as a mendacious gigolo. If it comes on it is worth a watch as a whodunit (you won't guess) and as a very early example of a new sound film.

William Powell plays Philo Vance for the third time in the story of the murder of a scheming stock broker in a room full of people. Vance is one of the people and he insists its so simple that anyone could solve it. Unfortunately it turns out that only Vance can. This is an early sound film that is curiously set bound. Its the sort of early sound film where there a large number of people gathered around close so as to show off the relatively new sound medium. Painfully formal at times the film seems more like a stage play then a movie. It comes off as the sort of mystery film that was sent up in countless spoofs from the same period. I find the films technical limitations odd since the earlier Canary Murder Case actually seemed to get out and about not to mention less confined by the limitations of microphones. Its not a bad film, but it's not a particularly exciting one. I kept wanting to yell "get on with it" at the screen.