Calling Philo Vance

Calling Philo Vance (1940)

Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe. This is a remake of "The Kennel Murder Case" using aircraft designs and espionage instead of Chinese porcelain and dog shows.

Date of release
1940-02-03
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (13)
Runtime
1h 2m
Genres
Crime, Mystery
Director
William Clemens
Collection
Philo Vance Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

Calling Philo Vance is a 1940 American mystery/comedy film produced by Warner Bros. starring James Stephenson as the dilettante detective Philo Vance, his only appearance as the character; Margot Stevenson, Henry O'Neill, Edward Brophy, Sheila Bromley and Ralph Forbes appear in support. It was directed by William Clemens from a screenplay by Tom Reed, based on the 1933 novel The Kennel Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine, which had been made into a film in 1933, starring William Powell and Mary Astor.

Production

Warner Bros. intended to revitalize the Philo Vance series with British stage actor James Stephenson, but Stephenson never played the part again – he died of a heart attack in 1941. Actors George Reeves, known for playing Superman on television in the 1950s, and William Hopper, noted for playing Paul Drake on the Perry Mason in the 1950s and 1960s, both played small roles in the film.

Calling Philo Vance had the working titles Philo Vance Comes Back and Philo Vance Returns.

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