William Powell, well-known from the "Thin Man" movies, was one of the
actors who played amateur sleuth Philo Vance in various film adaptations of S. S. Van Dine's
mystery novels.
If you have spent any time at all with vintage detective fiction, you know S. S. Van Dine's name. The first book in the Vance series, The Benson Murder Case, is a whodunnit full of references to American "high culture" of the early 20th century.
This second dust cover below may look as tame as the one above, unless you know the plot of the novel. Not much of a spoiler here as the body is discovered in the first chapter. The victim died while relaxing in an armchair (while wearing his smoking jacket jacket of course), an open book near to hand. Yes, you're getting the picture, literally; this illustration is a bit like those 19th century portraits of dead people who were propped up in lifelike postures. Mr. Benson is not meditating or sleeping with his eyes open. He's in the next world.
S. S. Van Dine was a pseudonym used by painter Willard Huntington Wright, who was steeped in the art world and who knew many influential people. Some of these famous or infamous people, were gay men. No surprise since Wright traveled in literary and artistic circles. We see hints of "otherness" in a number of the Philo Vance mysteries.
Unlike the film versions played by William Powell and other actors, the character of Philo Vance is very effete in Van Dine novels. In the movies, Vance can be a bit of a trivia nut or a nerd but overall he's much more a standard private detective, a bit like Perry Mason. Maybe not a two-fisted tough guy, but traditionally masculine, especially later in the series of films.
On the page, however, PhiloVance flirts with what we'd now call gayness, but which was called a number of ruder, harsher things at the time of the Van Dine novels. There are various little excuses and escape hatches: Vance is an Anglophile and he often tosses slightly off-the-mark words and phrases from the kind of British upper-class language of men who have gone to the right schools. So it could be that Philo's not gay, just European. His word choices are a bit like Bertie Wooster's slang, but more -- well, "matronly" isn't right and neither is "girlish," but it's, you know, a bit over the line.
Vance is introduced to us in The Benson Murder Case, and his mannerisms are at their most intense. He calls a tough New York detective who consults with him "old dear," and things like that. But then, in an early chapter of Benson, there's a mention of a scandalous novel, and the veil of propriety totally drops...for a paragraph or two.
More about that in Part 2 of this series.
Note: The title of this series of posts is from a nursery rhyme, recorded as a song a number of times. Here's Doris Day's version.
Next post in two weeks. Part 2 will show what this is really all about!
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