Philo Vance was a fictional American detective who appeared in twelve novels written by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s and 1930s. For a few decades he was immensely popular in books, movies, and on... (more)

Philo Vance was a fictional American detective who appeared in twelve novels written by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s and 1930s. For a few decades he was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. Vance was portrayed as a stylish, even foppish dandy, a Manhattan bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent who was an expert in, among many other things, dog breeding, Chinese ceramics, psychology, the history of crime, ancient Egypt, Renaissance art, and a host of other recondite subjects. These unusual areas of expertise all happened to crop up in connection with murders that ended up on the desk of his friend, District Attorney Markham, and were frequently crucial to the solution of those crimes by Vance, then apparently chronicled by his friend Van Dine (who appears as a kind of Dr. Watson figure in the books as well as the author).

"Vance is just under six feet tall, slender and graceful. He has aloof gray eyes, a straight slender nose and a thin-lipped mouth that almost suggests cruelty. These chiselled features suggest strength but his sardonic coldness of expression precludes claims to handsomeness. ... He devotes considerable study to ethnology and psychology but his greatest intellectual enthusiasm is art. ... It was his interest in psychology that turned his attention to crime and he is eager to test his theories."

Van Dine's first three mystery novels were unusual for mystery fiction because he planned them as a trilogy but plotted and wrote them in short form, more or less at the same time. After they were accepted as a group by famed editor Maxwell Perkins, Van Dine expanded them into full-length novels. All twelve book titles are in the form "The X Murder Case," where "X" is always a six-letter word (except for "Gracie Allen," which was originally just "Gracie").

Although Van Dine was one of the most educated and cosmopolitan detective writers of his time, in his essays he dismissed the idea of the mystery story as serious literature. He insisted that a detective novel should be mainly an intellectual puzzle that follows strict rules and does not wander too far afield from its central theme. He followed his own prescriptions, and some critics feel that formulaic approach made the Vance novels stilted and caused them to become dated in a relatively few years. "The decline in the last six Vance books is so steep that the critic who called the ninth of them one more stitch in his literary shroud was not overstating the case."

Films about Vance were made from the late 1920s to the late '40s, with some more faithful to the literary character than others. Among the several actors who played Vance on the screen were William Powell, Warren William and Basil Rathbone, all of whom had great success playing other detectives in movies. The Vance movie The Canary Murder Case is famous for a contract dispute that helped sink the career of silent screen legend Louise Brooks.

Vance's character as portrayed in the novels would seem to most modern readers to be supercilious, obnoxiously affected and highly irritating. He struck some contemporaries that way as well. At the height of Philo Vance's popularity, comic poet Ogden Nash wrote:

Philo Vance
Needs a kick in the pance.

Van Dine's Philo Vance novels were particularly well suited for the movies, where the more unpleasantly affected aspects of the main character could be toned down and the complex plots given more prominence. One of these films, The Kennel Murder Case, has been called a masterpiece by renowned film historian William K. Everson.

Famed hardboiled-detective author Raymond Chandler referred to Vance in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" as "the most asinine character in detective fiction."

Source: Wikipedia