The Greene Murder Case
About The Greene Murder Case
The Greene heirs have to gather each year under the dead patriarch's will. Mrs. Tobias Greene runs the house and has little use for her children Rex, Chester, and Sibella. Ada, the adopted daughter, is cut out of the money. Sibella is tied up with the family doctor, Arthur von Blon. When people in the house are murdered, District Attorney John F. X. Markham calls in Philo Vance, who works the case with Sergeant Ernest Heath.
Cast & crew
More about The Greene Murder Case
Frank Tuttle directed. Louise Long wrote the screenplay from S. S. Van Dine's novel, published the year before. B. P. Schulberg produced. Paramount released the picture on August 11, 1929. William Powell plays Vance for the second time. Henry W. Gerrard photographed it. A silent version carried intertitles by Richard H. Digges Jr.
Themes
Making
Powell had already played Vance for Paramount in The Canary Murder Case earlier in 1929. This was the next one, issued as a talkie with a silent alternate.
Look
Henry W. Gerrard photographed the Paramount production, which went out both with sound and as a silent version.
Preservation
A copy circulates, including the file on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Florence Eldridge plays Sibella, Jean Arthur plays Ada, and Ullrich Haupt plays Dr. von Blon.
- Eugene Pallette is Sergeant Heath and E. H. Calvert is Markham. Gertrude Norman is Mrs. Tobias Greene.
- Brandon Hurst plays the butler Sproot.
- In 1937 Paramount remade the novel as Night of Mystery.
- The Greene house is on New York's Upper East Side.
Scenes
- The heirs meet because the will requires it.
- Markham brings Vance into the house after the killings start.
Influenced by
- S. S. Van Dine's novel The Greene Murder Case
Influenced
- Night of Mystery (1937)
