The Canary Murder Case

A famous "transition" film. One shot as a silent and partly re-shot for talkies. William Powell stars as Philo Vance. Jean Arthur plays a show girl. Louise Brooks is the "Canary." Of course this film is famous because Brooks refused to return from Europe to re-shoot scenes as a talkie. The studio then released news her voice would not record well. To get even more even they hired Margaret Livingston to dub Brooks' voice in a high nasal New York accent. Livingston also appears in a few long shots in a Louise Brooks hair cut.

Slow but OK murder mystery. Brooks disappears after about 15 minutes; Arthur has no real part. That leaves us with James Hall as the dupe, Eugene Palette the dumb sergeant, Charles Lane the father, Oscar Smith the desk attendant, etc. Lots of talk.

Brooks is gorgeous and in the credits you note she gets downplayed from 2nd to 4th billing. Another Paramount jab. Brooks indeed had a fine voice even though I've only seen a couple of lousy westerns she made. She was a beauty and had a good voice. But she sure was difficult. And her "Lulu in Hollywood" memoir doesn't change my mind about her. By the way: I loved her in Beggars of Life as well as Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl.

The Canary Murder Case" was not William Powell's first talking film. That was "Interference", also by Paramount. Also, even though Louise Brooks was prominently advertised as "The Canary", a showgirl determined to marry a rich young man just for the fun of ruining him, she doesn't get much screen time. That is because The Canary Murder Case was originally shot as a silent film, but then it was decided to make it into a talking picture. Louise Brooks detested talking pictures and refused to stay and reshoot her part. This pretty much finished her in film in the U.S., although she went to Germany and did some of her finest work. Unfortunately, that fact was not discovered in this country for another thirty years. Instead of starting over with another actress, it was decided to have someone dub Louise' voice, and as a result her lip movement is noticeably out of synchronization with her "voice". Much of The Canary's speaking is done with her back to the camera, minimizing the problem.

William Powell, who was quite wooden in his first talking performance in "Interference", does much better here. You see him moving toward the characterization of the dapper P.I. that he played through the Thin Man series of films beginning in 1934. Powell had a pretty good silent career after a long period of poverty doing stage work prior to 1920, and he was one of the few silent stars to successfully make the transition to talking films.

In what turns out to be his second talking picture William Powell introduces to the screen the character of debonair detective Philo Vance. Like his later Nick Charles, Powell as Vance likes to live the high life though he's not as big a drinker.

He gets called in by an old friend Charles Lane (not the acerbic character actor we all know from TV and films) but an older gentlemen who is concerned about the continuing involvement of his son James Hall with nightclub singer Louise Brooks known only as The Canary. This girl is a much cruder version of Lorelei Lee who is determined to marry wealthy and insure a steady income for her pleasures. Hall is engaged to good girl Jean Arthur, but can't keep away from Brooks.

She's got a whole gang of other men on the string as well and she also has an ex-husband so when Brooks turns up dead there are no lack of suspects for Powell to work through. The police however with dumb as a brick Eugene Palette as Sergeant Heath seem to zero in on Hall.

For those who like the vivacious Jean Arthur in the classic films she was yet to do you won't find her here. She's pretty wasted as a typical good girl part. One player who will be a revelation is Ned Sparks as Brooks's ex-husband who claims he's not an ex. He's not the lovable sourpuss we later saw in many films, but a rather vicious animal. Totally a surprise.

William Powell's perfect diction and stage training make The Canary Murder Case hold up well even today. Unlike so many of his contemporaries at this time, Powell seem to know instinctively how to play for the new talking picture camera. Sound made his career.

For those who enjoy nice detective stories with a closed ring of suspects, you can't go wrong with The Canary Murder Case.

First Philo Vance film starring William Powell in the lead and a dubbed Louise Brooks in a small role. It's an early talkie so from a technical standpoint it creaks and groans as you might expect. But it's still an enjoyable picture with a good turn from Powell. Watch other movies from this year and you'll be doubly impressed by Powell's acting. His style is years ahead of most of his contemporaries who tended to overact. This series would get much better and Powell would certainly go on to do more memorable work, but this isn't a bad start at all. It's not a terribly exciting watch but it never bored me. If you like classic detective stories from this period it's worth a look.

The interlude between silent movies and talkies was an interesting one. Paramount Pictures had vowed in October 1928 not to release any movies that weren't all-talkies--with the exception to those theaters not wired for sound yet. It had a number of silents in the middle of production that needed to have talking segments added to satisfy the thirst of a public loving what it had seen so far in the early talkies. Silent versions of these dialogue-filled pictures were still going to be made for more rural areas, but the talkie revolution was happening at a quickened pace in the larger cities. One of the first silents to be converted to a talkie was February 1929's "The Canary Murder Case." Production had wrapped up by October 12, 1928. Paramount called back all the actors and actresses who appeared in the film to reshoot the scenes involving dialogue. Everyone came back, with the exception of one.

Louise Brooks had demanded a hefty bonus to reshoot her portion of "The Canary Murder Case." Her character was killed 15 minutes into the movie, so there wasn't that much dialogue to film. Paramount refused to meet her demands. Her contract expired after the "Canary" filming ended before she traveled to Germany to accept German director G. W. Pabst's offer to act as the lead in "Pandora's Box." Brooks refused to return when the studio didn't budge on her bonus request. According to some, that refusal limited her movie opportunities in Hollywood when she returned two years later from Europe.

Paramount knew "The Canary Murder Case" was going to be a complete bomb unless it released a talkie version. In lieu of Brooks' abscence, the producers hired actress Margaret Livingston, the temptress in 1927 F. W. Murnau's "Sunrise," to be Brooks' body double in the wide shots where she was made up to look like her from behind while she was talking. They used other tricks, such as hiding Livingston behind a cabinet to appear as if Louise were conversing with a potential killer. But all that dubbing didn't fool viewers. Critic Louella Parsons, the Los Angeles Examiner critic, noticed. "You are conscious that the words spoken do not actually emanate from the mouth of Miss Brooks and you feel that as much of her part as possible has been cut. She is unbelievably bad in a role that should have been well suited to her. Only long shots are permitted of her and even these are far from convincing when she speaks." The angry executives at Paramount began to smear Brooks, falsely claiming the studio was forced to do the dub job because Brooks' voice was so bad, which wasn't the case.

"The Canary Murder Case" was based on a series of popular crime mystery novels by the pseudonym writer S. S. Van Dine (real author: Willard Huntington Wright). The 1929 film kicked off a string of 16 movies over 20 years, with Detective Philo Vance solving every case. Actor William Powell appeared as the detective in four of the first five movies. In "Canary," Brooks plays a stage girl, Margaret O'Dell, who loves married men. She claims her ex-boyfriend, Jimmy Spotswoode (James Hall), has embezzled money from his dad's bank. Jimmy denies such a charge. His father visits her apartment to try to bribe Margaret to keep her quiet. Jimmy is about to marry Alice La Fosse (Jean Arthur) and doesn't need any headaches from 'The Canary" Margaret squawking. The next morning she's found dead.

"The Canary Murder Case" was the first speaking role for Jean Arthur. She was extremely hesitant to transfer over from silent to sound movies. But when the actress realized talkies weren't just a fad, she knew she had to accept speaking parts. Her few speaking lines in "Canary" didn't impress critics. She looked back at her talking debut and said she was a "very poor actress. I was awfully anxious to improve, but was inexperienced so far as genuine training was concerned." At the time, Paramount was scouting Broadway actors with great voice articulation and live stage experience. Arthur decided to take some time off to act in a few New York CIty plays to become comfortable speaking in front of a live audience. At the same time she received expert vocal lessons from coaches who knew more about voice projection than miming physical movements on the screen.