THE GARDEN MURDER CASE (1936)
Article #711 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-24-2003
Posting Date: 7-24-2003
Directed by Edwin L. Marin
Featuring Edmund Lowe, Gene Lockhart, Virginia Bruce

Philo Vance investigates the suspicious accidental death of a jockey and the murder of a tycoon.

There are a lot of familiar names and faces in this entertaining mystery, though Nat Pendleton steals the proceedings somewhat as one of the dimmest policemen I’ve ever seen. This is the first Philo Vance movie I’ve seen, and if it’s any indication, they should be fairly entertaining. It’s pretty standard, and wouldn’t qualify as fantastic cinema except that a revelation near the end of the movie (which I won’t give away here) does push the movie into marginal horror territory; if you’re on your toes, you should be able to figure out what that revelation will be.