The Gracie Allen Murder Case

infobox Book |
name = The Gracie Allen Murder Case
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition book front cover
author = S. S. Van Dine
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Philo Vance
genre = Mystery, Detective Novel
publisher = Charles Scribner's
release_date = 1938
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 227 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by = The Kidnap Murder Case
followed_by = The Winter Murder Case

"The Gracie Allen Murder Case" (1938) is the eleventh of twelve detective novels by S. S. Van Dine featuring his famous fictional detective of the 1920s and 1930s, Philo Vance. It also features the zany half of the George Burns & Gracie Allen comedy team. It is in many ways an experimental novel, including not just Burns & Allen but also such characters as Gracie's mother and brother. (George Burns, after all, has described the couple's act as, "All I had to do was ask, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years.") That gave the book an unusual feel, as did the comic tone of much of Gracie's dialogue. This tone suddenly shifts in a later chapter to one character's philosophically anguished speculations, and then back again to Gracie.

Literary significance & criticism

For some readers the whole thing works oddly wonderfully, and shows S. S. Van Dine's skill at combining his traditional approach with some unusual forms. Other readers found this book both disconcerting and disappointing. It did not enjoy anything near the commercial success of Van Dine's earlier novels (or his prime character, when Philo Vance himself was developed into a classic radio show), and most critics considered it a failure.

Those critics might have agreed with the protagonist herself. In classic Gracie style, when Van Dine was working on the novel, Allen quipped, "S.S. Van Dine is silly to spend six months writing a novel when you can buy one for two dollars and ninety-eight cents."

"The decline in the last six Vance books is so steep that the critic who called the ninth of them one more stitch in his literary shroud was not overstating the case." [Symons, Julian, "Bloody Murder", London: Faber and Faber 1972, with revisions in Penguin Books 1974, ISBN 0 14 003794 2]

Film adaptation

The novel was adapted into a 1939 film starring Gracie Allen (who received billing above Warren William's portrayal of Philo Vance) which was fairly faithful to the novel. The action stops in the first third when Gracie sings a song that at first seems to be her attempt to sing the first lines of a number of popular songs, each to the tune of another -- a novelty song. The film focuses more on her humor than the murder plot, and Philo Vance, whom Gracie keeps calling "Fido"(!) in the film, is relegated to a decidedly secondary role.

External links

[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300251.txt The text of the novel is available from Project Gutenberg, Australia]

References