Philo Vance Returns (1947)

Damian O'Flynn gets engaged and brings the girl home to grandmother, Clara Blandick. He's taking her home when she gets shot. Granny suggest he call his friend, Philo Vance (William Wright). As Wright is on the phone with O'Flynn, he hears two gunshots. He rushes to O'Flynn's house, where the cops are already and one of O'Flynn's ex-wives falls out of a closet.

Like the other PRC Philo Vance movies, this is an inexpensive programmer with a good mystery story. What it has that the others don't is some relation to the S.S. Van Dyne character. Vance looks to be a wealthy fellow who solves mysteries. In addition, there is some good humor in the show, mostly provided by Leon Belasco, who "assists" Wright as ex-wives start falling out of closets everywhere, and director William Beaudine's lackadaisical handling of matters.

Beaudine had started out at Biograph as an actor, moved behind the camera, and peaked in the late 1920s and early 1930s. By the end of the latter decade, it was a job for him, and while he turned out competent work, without a budget he looked upon it as a day job. He was famously said to have responded to a front-office request on how a shoot was going: "You mean someone actually wants to see this crud?" He retired in the late 1960s, having directed over 350 and died in 1970 at the age of 78.

This one is an okay little movie to check off the list.