Any movie with Virginia Bruce in it is worth watching, and I enjoyed Jessie Ralph's tantrum, similar to the ones she threw in The Thin Man. But this movie doesn't make a lot of sense. For one thing, people can't be hypnotized to kill themselves, unless they're suicidal in the first place. You might be able to hypnotize someone to jump off a bus if you tell them it's on fire and they'll land on a soft mattress, but not if they know they're going to die, as the character in this movie does, and states very clearly ahead of time. Also, there's an annoying scene -- repeated in so many movies -- where someone tells the detective they know who the killer is. Naturally they don't give them the name at the time, but promise to reveal it later. Which of course they never do because they're killed before they can. Yes, Philo, by all means make sure the person doesn't give you the name over the phone, because... why exactly? And the "dueling pistol" looks like a modern gun to me, not an antique. And when the killer tries to hypnotize Vance, does he really think it's that easy, just flash your shiny cigarette case in his eyes and he'll go under?

All the Philo Vance films I've seen so far contain the element of clever misdirection, and "The Garden Murder Case" is no exception; although the "how" of two out of the three murders is not that hard to spot (even if you haven't read Leonard Maltin's review, which unfortunately gives the secret away!), the "who" and the "why" are more difficult to answer. This mystery is like a well-put-together puzzle. And this being an MGM production, it's considerably slicker and more expensive-looking than most of the other Vance films I've seen - lavish sets, incredible amount of extras, etc. It's also very well-cast in all parts, big and small; the one cast member I would like to single out is Virginia Bruce, who combines old-style beauty with a quite modern and individual acting style. And Frieda Inescort, in one scene, appears in a nightgown that shows just enough to make me wish the film was made a couple of years earlier, before the Code! **1/2 out of 4.

S.S. Van Dine must have been a shrewd businessman in dealing with Hollywood. Most of the film series' from the studio days were usually confined to one or two studios. But apparently Van Dine must have sold his rights to each book about Philo Vance one at a time. Note that Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, and more all released Philo Vance films. Only Tarzan seemed to get around Hollywood more.MGM produced the Garden Murder Case and starred Edmund Lowe as the fashionable detective. Of course MGM had the screen's original Philo under contract at the time, but Bill Powell was busy doing The Thin Man at the time and I guess Louis B. Mayer decided to concentrate him there.Edmund Lowe is a pretty acceptable Philo Vance. Lowe had started out pretty big at the tail end of the silent era with What Price Glory and then with a string of films with Victor McLaglen with their Flagg and Quirt characters. But after McLaglen got his Oscar for The Informer, Lowe seemed to fade into the B picture market. The Garden Murder Case involves three separate victims, Douglas Walton, Gene Lockhart, and Frieda Inescourt. The sinister atmosphere around the perpetrator kind of gives it away, the mystery is really how all the killings are connected and how they are accomplished.I will say this though. Vance takes a very big chance in exposing the villain and the last 15 minutes are worthy of Hitchcock.

Of the ten actors who portrayed Philo Vance in the series, Edmund Lowe seemed the most personable, but in this script the audience is way ahead of the famed detective. After all, when the jockey, Douglas Walton, stares blankly in space, obviously hypnotized, and says something like "I must ride and be killed," I felt it was dumb that no one picked up on it after he does get killed. The police thought it was a suicide because he said he would do it! After hated horse owner Gene Lockhart gets shot and killed, Frieda Inescort does the same thing, saying she's going out to be killed, and then fatally jumps off a bus. I laughed when Lowe finally yells "I got it," as though it were a revelation. The guilty party, however, was cleverly concealed and there was considerable suspense generated when that party starts to hypnotize Lowe to get him to jump off a roof.