The Gracie Allen Murder Case. A Philo Vance Story

S. S. Van Dine

Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938

The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1938) (also published as The Scent of Murder) is the eleventh of twelve detective novels by S. S. Van Dine featuring his famous fictional detective of the 1920s and 1930s, Philo Vance. It also features the zany half of the Burns and Allen comedy team. It is in some ways a roman à clef, including not just Burns and Allen but also such characters as Gracie's mother and brother. (George Burns, after all, has described the couple's act as, "All I had to do was ask, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years.") That gave the book an unusual feel, as did the comic tone of much of Gracie's dialogue. This tone suddenly shifts in a later chapter to one character's philosophically anguished speculations, and then back again to Gracie.

Literary significance and criticism

For some readers the whole thing works oddly wonderfully, and shows S. S. Van Dine's skill at combining his traditional approach with some unusual forms. Other readers found this book both disconcerting and disappointing. It did not enjoy anything near the commercial success of Van Dine's earlier novels (or his prime character, when Philo Vance himself was developed into a classic radio show), and most critics considered it a failure.

Those critics might have agreed with the protagonist herself. In classic Gracie style, when Van Dine was working on the novel, Allen quipped, "S.S. Van Dine is silly to spend six months writing a novel when you can buy one for two dollars and ninety-eight cents."

Crime novelist and critic Julian Symons wrote, "The decline in the last six Vance books is so steep that the critic who called the ninth of them one more stitch in his literary shroud was not overstating the case."[1]

Film adaptation

Main article: The Gracie Allen Murder Case (film)

The novel was adapted into a 1939 film starring Gracie Allen (who received billing above Warren William's portrayal of Philo Vance) which was fairly faithful to the novel. The action stops in the first third when Gracie sings a song that at first seems to be her attempt to sing the first lines of a number of popular songs, each to the tune of another—a novelty song. The film focuses more on her humor than the murder plot, and Philo Vance, whom Gracie keeps calling "Fido" in the film, is relegated to a decidedly secondary role.Philo Vance is a fictional amateur detective originally featured in 12 crime novels by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, films, and radio. He was portrayed as a stylish—even foppish—dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent. "S. S. Van Dine" was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright, a prominent art critic who initially sought to conceal his authorship of the novels. Van Dine was also a fictional character in the books, a sort of Dr. Watson figure who accompanied Vance and chronicled his exploits.

In the early novels, Van Dine claimed that "Philo Vance" was an alias, and that details of the sleuth's adventures had been altered to protect his true identity, even if "he has now gone to Italy to live".[1] This claim was conveniently forgotten as the series progressed. (A few years later, the same process occurred with another fictional detective, Ellery Queen, whose authors acknowledged being inspired by Van Dine.)

As Van Dine described the character of Vance[2] in the first of the novels, The Benson Murder Case:

Vance was what many would call a dilettante, but the designation does him an injustice. He was a man of unusual culture and brilliance. An aristocrat by birth and instinct, he held himself severely aloof from the common world of men. In his manner there was an indefinable contempt for inferiority of all kinds. The great majority of those with whom he came in contact regarded him as a snob. Yet there was in his condescension and disdain no trace of spuriousness. His snobbishness was intellectual as well as social. He detested stupidity even more, I believe, than he did vulgarity or bad taste. I have heard him on several occasions quote Fouché’s famous line: C’est plus qu’un crime; c'est une faute. And he meant it literally.

Vance was frankly a cynic, but he was rarely bitter; his was a flippant, Juvenalian cynicism. Perhaps he may best be described as a bored and supercilious, but highly conscious and penetrating, spectator of life. He was keenly interested in all human reactions; but it was the interest of the scientist, not the humanitarian.

Vance’s knowledge of psychology was indeed uncanny. He was gifted with an instinctively accurate judgement of people, and his study and reading had coordinated and rationalized this gift to an amazing extent. He was well grounded in the academic principles of psychology, and all his courses at college had either centered about this subject or been subordinated to it…

He had reconnoitered the whole field of cultural endeavor. He had courses in the history of religions, the Greek classics, biology, civics, and political economy, philosophy, anthropology, literature, theoretical, and experimental psychology, and ancient and modern languages. But it was, I think, his courses under Münsterberg and William James that interested him the most.

Vance’s mind was basically philosophical—that is, philosophical in the more general sense. Being singularly free from the conventional sentimentalities and current superstitions, he could look beneath the surface of human acts into actuating impulses and motives. Moreover, he was resolute both in his avoidance of any attitude that savoured of credulousness and in his adherence to cold, logical exactness in his mental processes.

In the same book, Van Dine detailed Vance's physical features:

He was unusually good-looking, although his mouth was ascetic and cruel...there was a slightly derisive hauteur in the lift of his eyebrows...His forehead was full and sloping—it was the artist's, rather than the scholar's, brow. His cold grey eyes were widely spaced. His nose was straight and slender, and his chin narrow but prominent, with an unusually deep cleft...Vance was slightly under six feet, graceful, and giving the impression of sinewy strength and nervous endurance.

In the second adventure, The Canary Murder Case (set in 1927), Van Dine says that Vance was "not yet thirty-five... His face was slender and mobile; but there was a stern, sardonic expression to his features, which acted as a barrier between him and his fellows."

Vance was highly skilled at many things: an "expert fencer", a golfer with a three handicap, a breeder and shower of thoroughbred dogs, a talented polo player, a master poker player, a winning handicapper of race horses, experience in archery ("a bit of potting at Oxford," as he referred to it), a patron of classical music, a connoisseur of fine food and drink, knowledgeable of chess, and of several foreign languages. He was also an expert on Chinese ceramics, psychology, the history of crime, ancient Egypt, Renaissance art, and a host of other recondite subjects. In The Kidnap Murder Case, in which Vance uses a gun, Van Dine describes Vance as a good marksman and a decorated World War I veteran.

Van Dine says Vance's "one passion" is art. "He was something of an authority on Japanese and Chinese prints; he knew tapestries and ceramics: and once I heard him give an impromptu causerie to a few guests on Tanagra figurines..." (The Benson Murder Case)

His interest in dogs is featured in The Kennel Murder Case (his polo playing is also mentioned in that case), his skill at poker in The Canary Murder Case, his ability to handicap race horses in The Garden Murder Case, his knowledge of chess and archery in The Bishop Murder Case, and of Egyptology in The Scarab Murder Case. His skills at golf and at fencing do not figure in any of the cases.

Vance often wore a monocle, dressed impeccably (usually going out with chamois gloves), and his speech frequently tended to be quaint:

"Why the haste, old dear?" Vance asked, yawning. "The chap's, dead, don't y' know; he can't possibly run away." (The Benson Murder Case)

"Really, y' know, Markham, old thing, " he added, "you should study the cranial indications of your fellow man more carefully—vultus est index animi..." (The Canary Murder Case)

"And now I think I'll erase the Greenes from my mind pro tempore, and dip into the 'Satyricon.' The fusty historians pother frightfully about the reasons for the fall of Rome..." (The Greene Murder Case)

He was also a heavy smoker, lighting up and puffing on his Regies throughout the stories.

According to some contemporary critics, these mannerisms of Vance were affectations, which made him look like a foppish dandy, a poseur. (See below for criticisms.) There is some indication that Van Dine wished the reader to question Vance's sexuality. In The Benson Murder Case, Vance is called a "sissy" by another character, and early in the book, as he is dressing, his friend Markham asks if he is planning to wear a green carnation, the symbol of homosexuality during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[3]

Publication

Van Dine's first three mystery novels were unusual for mystery fiction because he planned them as a trilogy, but plotted and wrote them in short form, more or less at the same time. After they were accepted as a group by famed editor Maxwell Perkins, Van Dine expanded them into full-length novels. All 12 book titles are in the form "The X Murder Case," where "X" is always a six-letter word (except for The Gracie Allen Murder Case, which was originally just "Gracie").

Although Van Dine was one of the most educated and cosmopolitan detective writers of his time, in his essays he dismissed the idea of the mystery story as serious literature. He insisted that a detective novel should be mainly an intellectual puzzle that follows strict rules and does not wander too far afield from its central theme. He followed his own prescriptions, and some critics feel that formulaic approach made the Vance novels stilted and caused them to become dated in a relatively few years.

All of the cases, except The Winter Murder Case, are mostly set in the Manhattan borough of New York City. On a few occasions, Vance and Van Dine (usually accompanied by Markham and Heath) briefly travel to the Bronx, Westchester County, and New Jersey in the course of their investigations. In The Greene Murder Case Vance tells, after his arrival back in New York, that he traveled by train to New Orleans to gather information relevant to the case.

Vance's last case, The Winter Murder Case, is markedly different from the previous 11 cases in that the locale is away from New York (the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts), and Vance and Van Dine are surrounded by an almost completely different cast of characters (only Markham makes a brief appearance at the very beginning). Wright had just finished writing this case when he died suddenly in New York on April 11, 1939.

Novels

The Benson Murder Case (1926)

The Canary Murder Case (1927)

The Greene Murder Case (1928)

The Bishop Murder Case (1929)

The Scarab Murder Case (1930)

The Kennel Murder Case (1933)

The Dragon Murder Case (1933)

The Casino Murder Case (1934)

The Garden Murder Case (1935)

The Kidnap Murder Case (1936)

The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1938)

The Winter Murder Case (1939)