The Bishop Murder Case
About The Bishop Murder Case
Professor Dillard finds family friend Joseph Robin dead with an arrow in his chest. District attorney Markham brings in Philo Vance, who decides the arrow scene was staged and that Robin was killed inside the house. Notes signed "the Bishop" tie the deaths to nursery rhymes: Cock Robin, Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty. Vance follows the trail to Dillard himself. Jealous of his niece Belle, Dillard had meant to kill Robin and frame his adopted son Sigurd Arnesson, then widened the scheme when a neighbor saw too much.
Cast & crew
More about The Bishop Murder Case
Lenore J. Coffee adapted S. S. Van Dine's 1929 novel. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the film on 31 December 1929. David Burton is credited for stage direction and Nick Grinde for screen direction.
Themes
Background
Van Dine's Philo Vance novels were best-sellers, and MGM put this one out in the first season of all-talking crime pictures.
Making
The split credit sent Burton to the actors and Grinde to the camera coverage, a division studios used while they were learning how to stage dialogue.
Look
Roy F. Overbaugh photographed the New York house, the balcony where the arrow is found, and the attic where the Bishop's typewriter is hidden.
Music
William Axt is credited with the music.
Preservation
A print survives and has been copied to video.
Notes
- Basil Rathbone plays Philo Vance, ten years before his first Sherlock Holmes film.
- Leila Hyams plays Belle Dillard, Roland Young plays Sigurd Arnesson, and Alec B. Francis plays Professor Bertrand Dillard.
- George F. Marion plays Adolph Drukker. Zelda Sears plays his sister; the screen credits call her Mrs. Otto Drukker.
- Delmer Daves appears as Raymond Sperling. The name is a clue: Sperling is German for sparrow.
- Vance's recognition of the killer turns on Ibsen's The Pretenders, which has a bishop named Arnesson.
- James Donlan plays Sergeant Heath and Clarence Geldart plays District Attorney John F. X. Markham.
Scenes
- Robin is found on the balcony with an arrow in his chest, and Vance says the body was moved.
- Miss Drukker is found dead with a chess bishop in her hand.
- Dillard tips powder from a poison ring into a glass of wine, and Vance says the glasses were switched.
Influenced by
- The Bishop Murder Case (novel, 1929)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons
