The Bishop Murder Case

S. S. Van Dine's socialite detective is brought to film for the third time - this time having Basil Rathbone play Philo Vance. While I will not argue with some of the critical assertions that the film is static, stationary, and decidedly creaky, not too mention very far-fetched and predictable, The Bishop Murder Case was made in 1930 when sound was just coming into its own. That is very evident in this film as much of the dialog is hard to hear and comprehend. The stationary microphone was used throughout with director Nick Grinde using lots of expansive scenes with the actors standing around the screened microphone as was the case for sound pictures then. That being said, the film is a pretty decent detective mystery for its time. Rathbone makes an affable Vance. His character is given little depth, however. The mystery, while not entirely and sufficiently explained to me has some things going for it with red herrings involving chess pieces, archery, Ibsen plays, and murders emulating nursery rhymes of a kind. While Grinde directs with the limitations at hand, I did like some of his wide shots. The balcony of the building scene when the professor discovers a man killed by an arrow looked quite impressive, and you can see some wide shots that most definitely mirror German film expressionism of the 1920s with some large, long windows shot in the backdrops of several scenes. All the actors are competent with some real nice character turns by the likes of Charles Quartermaine as a chess expert, George F. Marion as a hunchbacked pseudo-intellectual, James Donlan as a police sergeant(giving the film some of its much needed light moments), and Roland Young, Cosmo Topper himself, turning in a sly, witty performance as a possible suspect. The script is unfortunately riddled with too much ambiguity to make any real sense, but when all is said and done, The Bishop Murder case is mildly entertaining - again making consideration for the time it was made.