The Benson Murder Case *** (1930, William Powell, William ‘Stage’ Boyd, Eugene Pallette) – Classic Movie Review 11,311

Director Frank Tuttle’s 1930 American pre-Code crime mystery thriller film The Benson Murder Case, written by creator S S Van Dine and Bartlett Cormack, is the third of four films to star William Powell as the debonair detective Philo Vance.

The Benson Murder Case also stars William ‘Stage’ Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Paul Lukas, Natalie Moorhead, Richard Tucker and May Beatty. Paramount Pictures released it on April 13, 1930. It is arguably the second best of the series, after The Kennel Murder Case.

Richard Tucker plays ruthless, crooked stockbroker Anthony Benson, who is murdered at his luxury country estate, but suave, clever detective Philo Vance happens to be there, and is the very man to find out who killed him and how and when, helped or hindered by Eugene Pallette as Sergeant Ernest Heath.

The screen rights to the 1926 source novel The Benson Murder Case, the first in the Philo Vance series of mystery books were bought for $17,500 by Paramount from author S S Van Dine. The novel, which became a bestseller, is loosely based on a sensational real-life case, the unsolved 1920 murder of bridge expert Joseph Bowne Elwell. The circumstances in which Elwell’s body was found, without his toupée and shot to death in a room in his home locked from the inside, are duplicated in the novel, whose plot the film largely followsl.

The American first edition of The Benson Murder Case.

The cast are William Powell as Philo Vance, William ‘Stage’ Boyd as Harry Gray, Eugene Pallette as Sergeant Ernest Heath, Paul Lukas as Adolph Mohler, Natalie Moorhead as Fanny Del Roy, Richard Tucker as Anthony Benson, May Beatty as Mrs. Paula Banning, E H Calvert as District Attorney John F X Markham, Mischa Auer as Albert Brecker and Guy Oliver as Captain Hagedorn.

The Canary Murder Case was released by Paramount Pictures on 16 February 1929 and starred William Powell as debonair detective Philo Vance, and the film was successful enough for Powell to film two sequels at Paramount, The Greene Murder Case (1929) and The Benson Murder Case (1930), as well as The Kennel Murder Case (1933) at rival studio Warner Bros.

The Benson Murder Case runs 65 minutes, is made and released by Paramount Pictures. is written by S S Van Dine and Bartlett Cormack, and is shot by Archie Stout.

Eugene Pallette and William Powell in My Man Godfrey (1936).

Eugene Pallette and William Powell also starred together in My Man Godfrey (1936).

In 1946, Pallette was convinced there was going to be a ‘world blow-up’ by atomic bombs, so he set up a mountain fortress on a 3,500-acre ranch near Imnaha, Oregon, stocked with a herd of prize cattle, enormous supplies of food, and its own canning plant and lumber mill. After two years and no ‘blow-up’, Pallette began to dispose of the ranch and returned to Los Angeles and his movie friends, but made no other film.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,311

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S. S. Van Dine THE BENSON MURDER CASE Franklin Library 1st Edition 1st Printing.