FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Comedy of a Mystery,
By Tracy D. Griffin (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Gracie Allen Murder Case: A Philo Vance Story (Otto Penzler's Classic American Mystery Library) (Paperback)
If you've ever seen George Burns and Gracie Allen you'll love this book. Philo Vance is at his best, but Gracie and George steal the show. The mystery is a good one with a great twist ending and well worth the read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Cuckoo in Philo's Nest,
By
This review is from: The Gracie Allen Murder Case (Hardcover)
This is the eleventh of the twelve books written by S.S. Van Dine featuring the rich, effete, snobbish and oh, so sophisticated New York detective, Philo Vance.
"S.S. Van Dine" was the pen name adopted by Willard Huntington Wright, who withheld his true identity from the general public for several years. Wright was, himself, a fairly effete and sophisticated New Yorker of literary pretensions who had hobnobbed with the major names in book and magazine publishing in his day, including even the cantankerous H. L. Mencken. In 1925, while recuperating from an illness (some say from excessive use of alcohol and drugs), Wright hit on the notion that mysteries weren't selling very well in America because American mystery writers were simply not very good. He set out immediately to rectify that fault. He wrote three novelettes, essentially long outlines of the novels to come. He took them to his friend Maxwell Perkins, chief editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, and the greatest of all American editors. It was he who fashioned literary landmarks out of the near-random pages submitted by Thomas Wolfe. He soothed the fevered egos and tortured souls of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Perkins, in short, knew a good thing when he saw it. He saw it in those three novelettes and he laid down his company's money to have them expanded into books. The first book of the series was "The Benson Murder Case," published in 1926. The second was "The 'Canary' Murder Case," published a year later and the third was "The Greene Murder Case," a year after that, but all three were effectively written together. Eventually, there were nine more books: The Bishop Murder Case (1929) The Scarab Murder Case (1930) The Kennel Murder Case (1933) The Dragon Murder Case (1934) The Casino Murder Case (1934) The Garden Murder Case (1935) The Kidnap Murder Case (1936) The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1938) The Winter Murder Case (a not-quite-polished draft published after the author's death in April 1939.) These books were enormously popular, so popular, in fact, that it has been asserted that they alone were responsible for the survival of Charles Scribner's Sons during the lean years of the Great Depression. Not only were their sales impressive, they quickly spun off cheaply-priced reprint editions--the hard-cover equivalents of our present-day mass market paperbacks. They inspired popular radio shows and even more profitable movies. They were also clearly templates for the Ellery Queen and the Nero Wolfe detective series. Other major writers wrote books which were plainly intended as "anti-Philo Vance" works, the most obvious being Dashiell Hammett with "The Thin Man." The writerly affectation of naming consecutive books in a series in some systematic way, as with letters of the alphabet or numbers or days of the week, is not a new thing. Note that the first ten books and the twelfth all take the form, "The ------ Murder Case" with a six-letter word to differentiate them. The eleventh volume appears to violate the rule, unless you know that its working title was "The Gracie Murder Case." (Just to confuse matters, some much later editions were issued by dimwit publishers as "The Smell of Murder.") This eleventh book, unlike the others, was subject to massive influence beyond the control of Wright or even Scribner's. That influence was Hollywood. So powerful was the influence, that "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" is not even the book that Wright-Van Dine had intended to write. In my sadly battered Scribner's first edition of the tenth book, "The Kidnap Murder Case," the brag sheet opposite the half-title page bears a list of the ten then-published books followed by the words, "In preparation The Linden Murder Case." Now, try as I may, I cannot see any way in which "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" could justifiably have been called "The Linden Murder Case." The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that somebody in Hollywood dangled enough money before Wright to make him abandon his announced novel. And why not? For years movies had been made from the published novels. One of them, "The Kennel Murder Case," starring William Powell (soon to become the Anti-Vance in "The Thin Man"), has some solid claims to quality, even today. Throughout 1937, Wright must have labored in high-paid servitude, writing for Movieland's maw. Look at the dates. He published books almost annually, probably timed to coincide with the Christmastime book-buying frenzy. But not in 1937. Once Hollywood was no longer breathing down his neck, he went right back to his regular schedule. The cuckoo is a bird that is said to place its eggs in the nests of other birds. Cuckoo hatchlings, larger and hardier than the legitimate hatchlings, monopolize the food brought by their unknowing, feathery step-parents. The particular cuckoo here was Gracie Allen. Gracie Allen (1895?-1964) stood five feet tall and weighed one hundred pounds, but she was a showbiz heavyweight. She was also the wife of George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum, 1896-1996). She came from a theatrical family, but had dropped out of the business by the time she met Burns. They formed a stage partnership in 1922 and, at first, George was the comic. When Burns noticed that she was getting most of the laughs, he turned the act around, becoming the straight man. Burns, never a man to let facts get in the way of a good story, had this to say, "I did have a talent and I was married to her for 38 years." Massively understating his role in the act, he would add, "All I had to do was ask, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years." George and Gracie married in 1926. They became headliners in the Big-Time Vaudeville Circuit. From there they went to success in radio and Hollywood. Prior to any contact with Philo Vance, they had starred in films with W. C. Fields and Fred Astaire. In "A Damsel in Distress," they had surprised many by keeping up with Astaire in the dance routines. In fact, they had taught the dancing highlight of the film, an old vaudeville routine involving brooms, to Astaire. The Gracie Allen in the book is not Grace, Mrs George Burns of the real world. The character in the book is a young woman not involved in show business who is named Gracie Allen and who just happens to look like, think like and talk like a familiar stage, radio and screen personality. The Gracie in the book is unmarried and being courted by two men, one of whom happens to be a young man named George Burns (a professional "nose" in a perfume and scent factory.) Needless to say, the Gracie in the book has a brother who finds himself in trouble. Upon this Gracie, this literary construct, stumbles Philo Vance in the midst of a murder investigation. Vance (who was notionally born about 1890 and therefore only about five years older than Mrs. George Burns) looks quite paternally upon the sweet, pretty, young Gracie. He is immediately entranced by her charmingly twisted perceptions of the world, not to mention her utterly unpredictable verbal sallies. Of the two men in her life, Vance comes to approve the up-and-coming, hard-working but impecunious young Burns and to disapprove of his richer rival. The clockwork of the plot ticks on. Gracie becomes more adorable. Her brother and Burns, too, become potential and then actual suspects. In the end, Vance solves the case--of course!--despite all the help he has received from Gracie. And to the surprise of absolutely no-one, young George and Gracie stroll off the final pages of the book hand-in-hand. The book was a financial success, although no record breaker. The book buying public felt a bit uneasy with the cuckoo in the nest. The movie was released in June 1939. It starred Gracie Allen. Warren William was Vance. Oddly enough, Gracie's husband didn't appear in the film. The George Burns character in the book was renamed "Bill" in the movie. The movie was OK, not bad at all--not as good as "The Kennel Murder Case," though. It is accepted dogma among Vance fans that the latter six books of the series are of lesser quality than the first six. There is a certain truth in that, but looking back after almost seventy years, the similarities in all the books are far more obvious than the differences. I have assigned four stars to "The Gracie Allen Murder Case" but only in comparison to the best members of the series. Compared to most of what is being published today, it would deserve five stars. LEC/AM/11-08
5.0 out of 5 stars
book vs. movie,
This review is from: The Gracie Allen Murder Case (Hardcover)
Although I haven't seen the movie, I have read the book several times. George Burns did, indeed, appear in the book, and as a main character. What I have read regarding the movie is that the storyline was changed almost out of recognition from that in the book, though it retained the title.
I rated the book very highly because it is one that I take pleasure in reading again and again when I am in the mood for pure entertainment. I can hear George and Gracie's delivery of the lines in my mind, and it makes the story so much more enjoyable. However, I think that a familiarity with the characters of George and Gracie is essential to the enjoyment of the book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
