When a man known as Cock Robin appears murdered with an arrow in his chest, John Markham, a prosecutor in New York's judicial district, calls for investigation Philo Vance. Vance soon marks the reference to a well-known childhood lengalenga. And it quickly becomes clear that this will be the pattern in a series of extraordinary crimes, engineered by a perverse-minded murderer, who keeps a constant provocation to the police through letters sent to the newspapers, all with the signature "The Bishop."
In a simple and straightforward style, built by the hand of SS Van Dine, this is a story full of death, suspicion and surprising details - like chess pieces or theater. A brilliant cop, a classic work of mystery literature.
Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as an unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying, was the one that followed the famous Greene murders. The orgy of horror at the old Greene mansion had been brought to its astounding close in December; and after the Christmas holidays Vance had gone to Switzerland for the winter sports. Returning to New York at the end of February he had thrown himself into some literary work he had long had in mindâthe uniform translation of the principal fragments of Menander found in the Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century; and for over a month he had devoted himself sedulously to this thankless task.
Whether or not he would have completed the translations, even had his labors not been interrupted, I do not know; for Vance was a man of cultural ardencies, in whom the spirit of research and intellectual adventure was constantly at odds with the drudgery necessary to scholastic creation. I remember that only the preceding year he had begun writing a life of Xenophonâthe result of an enthusiasm inherited from his university days when he had first read the Anabasis and the Memorabiliaâand had lost interest in it at the point where Xenophonâs historic march led the Ten Thousand back to the sea. However, the fact remains that Vanceâs translation of Menander was rudely interrupted in early April; and for weeks he became absorbed in a criminal mystery which threw the entire country into a state of gruesome excitement.
This new criminal investigation, in which he acted as a kind of amicus curiĂŠ for John F.-X. Markham, the District Attorney of New York, at once became known as the Bishop murder case. The designationâthe result of our journalistic instinct to attach labels to every cause cĂ©lĂšbreâwas, in a sense, a misnomer. There was nothing ecclesiastical about that ghoulish saturnalia of crime which set an entire community to reading the âMother Goose Melodiesâ with fearful apprehension; and no one of the name of Bishop was, as far as I know, even remotely connected with the monstrous events which bore that appellation. But, withal, the word âBishopâ was appropriate, for it was an alias used by the murderer for the grimmest of purposes. Incidentally it was this name that eventually led Vance to the almost incredible truth, and ended one of the most ghastly multiple crimes in police history.
The series of uncanny and apparently unrelated events which constituted the Bishop murder case and drove all thought of Menander and Greek monostichs from Vanceâs mind, began on the morning of April 2, less than five months after the double shooting of Julia and Ada Greene. It was one of those warm luxurious spring days which sometimes bless New York in early April; and Vance was breakfasting in his little roof garden atop his apartment in East 38th Street. It was nearly noonâfor Vance worked or read until all hours, and was a late riserâand the sun, beating down from a clear blue sky, cast a mantle of introspective lethargy over the city. Vance sprawled in an easy chair, his breakfast on a low table beside him, gazing with cynical, regretful eyes down at the treetops in the rear yard.
I knew what was in his mind. It was his custom each spring to go to France; and it had long since come to him to think, as it came to George Moore, that Paris and May were one. But the great trek of the post-war American nouveaux riches to Paris had spoiled his pleasure in this annual pilgrimage; and, only the day before, he had informed me that we were to remain in New York for the summer.
For years I had been Vanceâs friend and legal adviserâa kind of monetary steward and agent-companion. I had quitted my fatherâs law firm of Van Dine, Davis & Van Dine to devote myself wholly to his interestsâa post I found far more congenial than that of general attorney in a stuffy officeâand though my own bachelor quarters were in a hotel on the West Side, I spent most of my time at Vanceâs apartment.
I had arrived early that morning, long before Vance was up, and, having gone over the first-of-the-month accounts, now sat smoking my pipe idly as he breakfasted.
âYâ know, Van,â he said to me, in his emotionless drawl; âthe prospect of spring and summer in New York is neither excitinâ nor romantic. Itâs going to be a beastly bore. But itâll be less annoyinâ than travelinâ in Europe with the vulgar hordes of tourists jostlinâ one at every turnâŠ. Itâs very distressinâ.â
Whether or not he would have completed the translations, even had his labors not been interrupted, I do not know; for Vance was a man of cultural ardencies, in whom the spirit of research and intellectual adventure was constantly at odds with the drudgery necessary to scholastic creation. I remember that only the preceding year he had begun writing a life of Xenophonâthe result of an enthusiasm inherited from his university days when he had first read the Anabasis and the Memorabiliaâand had lost interest in it at the point where Xenophonâs historic march led the Ten Thousand back to the sea. However, the fact remains that Vanceâs translation of Menander was rudely interrupted in early April; and for weeks he became absorbed in a criminal mystery which threw the entire country into a state of gruesome excitement.
This new criminal investigation, in which he acted as a kind of amicus curiĂŠ for John F.-X. Markham, the District Attorney of New York, at once became known as the Bishop murder case. The designationâthe result of our journalistic instinct to attach labels to every cause cĂ©lĂšbreâwas, in a sense, a misnomer. There was nothing ecclesiastical about that ghoulish saturnalia of crime which set an entire community to reading the âMother Goose Melodiesâ with fearful apprehension; and no one of the name of Bishop was, as far as I know, even remotely connected with the monstrous events which bore that appellation. But, withal, the word âBishopâ was appropriate, for it was an alias used by the murderer for the grimmest of purposes. Incidentally it was this name that eventually led Vance to the almost incredible truth, and ended one of the most ghastly multiple crimes in police history.
The series of uncanny and apparently unrelated events which constituted the Bishop murder case and drove all thought of Menander and Greek monostichs from Vanceâs mind, began on the morning of April 2, less than five months after the double shooting of Julia and Ada Greene. It was one of those warm luxurious spring days which sometimes bless New York in early April; and Vance was breakfasting in his little roof garden atop his apartment in East 38th Street. It was nearly noonâfor Vance worked or read until all hours, and was a late riserâand the sun, beating down from a clear blue sky, cast a mantle of introspective lethargy over the city. Vance sprawled in an easy chair, his breakfast on a low table beside him, gazing with cynical, regretful eyes down at the treetops in the rear yard.
I knew what was in his mind. It was his custom each spring to go to France; and it had long since come to him to think, as it came to George Moore, that Paris and May were one. But the great trek of the post-war American nouveaux riches to Paris had spoiled his pleasure in this annual pilgrimage; and, only the day before, he had informed me that we were to remain in New York for the summer.
For years I had been Vanceâs friend and legal adviserâa kind of monetary steward and agent-companion. I had quitted my fatherâs law firm of Van Dine, Davis & Van Dine to devote myself wholly to his interestsâa post I found far more congenial than that of general attorney in a stuffy officeâand though my own bachelor quarters were in a hotel on the West Side, I spent most of my time at Vanceâs apartment.
I had arrived early that morning, long before Vance was up, and, having gone over the first-of-the-month accounts, now sat smoking my pipe idly as he breakfasted.
âYâ know, Van,â he said to me, in his emotionless drawl; âthe prospect of spring and summer in New York is neither excitinâ nor romantic. Itâs going to be a beastly bore. But itâll be less annoyinâ than travelinâ in Europe with the vulgar hordes of tourists jostlinâ one at every turnâŠ. Itâs very distressinâ.â
Release Date: January 3, 1930
Release Time: 88 minutes
Cast:
Basil Rathbone as Philo Vance
Leila Hyams as Belle Dillard
Roland Young as Sigurd Arnesson
Alec B. Francis as Professor Bertrand Dillard
George F. Marion as Adolph Drukker
Zelda Sears as Miss Drukker ("Mrs. Otto Drukker" in the screen credits)
Bodil Rosing as Grete MenzelCarroll Nye as John E. Sprigg
Charles Quatermaine as John Pardee
James Donlan as Ernest Heath
Sidney Bracey as Robin Pyne
Clarence Geldart as John F.-X. Markham
Delmer Daves as Raymond Sperling
Nellie Bly Baker as Beedle
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 â April 11, 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.
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