Philo Vance had many affinities with Bulldog Drummond… He was a gentleman with the kind of polish and elegance only usually associated with the British upper classes and he was also independently wealthy…<br /><br />But there were vital differences… Drummond was an adventurer, charming, gallant, lively… Vance could be pompous, slight1y dull and self-righteous… There was a hint of fundamental cruelty in his manner…<br /><br />"The Kennel Murder Case" is the most impressive of the 14 Vance films made between 1929 and 1947… The story of a murdered collector of Chinoiserie, it has all the ingredients of the classic private eye mystery – exotic setting in the blue nose Long Island Kennel Club, three killings for Vance to solve including a baffling "locked room murder," the key to the whole affair, and plenty of suspects… <br /><br />Usually, a detective story setting have proved too static and talkative to make convincing movies even though they work well enough on the printed page, but here Michael Curtiz's direction and the fine editing give the film a pace and urgency that make it altogether different from similar films of its type… <br /><br />William Powell's elegance and suavity made him the perfect Vance and although a year later he switched studios, he stayed in the same genre with the enormously successful and popular "The Thin Man" at MGM…