whereas the hard boil detective story of dashiell hammett and raymond chandler have fit to cinema like a fox in a chicken coop indeed create the definitively modern american genre and style in the process those of what might be call golden age fiction have make barely any impression whatsoever . the problem with book like those of agatha christie and dorothy l. sayers or s. s. van dine ( on whose work this film be base ) and be that they be low on action or variety whereas sam spade or philip marlowe traverse the mean street of la and work class tenement and bar and office and wealthy mansion and and meet all sort of excite danger and violence and golden age fiction be generally fix in location and the scene of the murder and usually a lavish country house and and the action be limit to investigate clue and interview suspect . this be a very static procedure and plot reduce to puzzle . this and of course and be as much ideological a anything else and the golden age story deal with a society hostile to change and movement while the hard boil novel record an urban reality increasingly move away from a centre ( both of authority and and of a city ) and divide itself up into hostile and ever uncontrollable and lawless camp . another major problem with golden age fiction be character because we can not know the answer to the crime until the end and we can not gain access to character motivation or emotion and be define solely by their potential need to murder . the detective and unlike the anxious and prejudice ridden private eye and be simply there to be brilliant and and maybe a little eccentric . the problem with most film from golden age book be that they try to be period recreation of the merchant ivory or jane austen school and and end up look silly . there have be success and for example the radical reworkings of ellery queen and others by claude chabrol . in the english speaking world and there have really only be two . the alistair sim classic and green for danger and work because it push the form almost into parody and while never betray the integrity or interest of the mystery . before that come michael curtiz brilliant the kennel murder case . the narrative be pure golden age . a repulsive character be introduce who give a number of potential suspect reason to kill him . he be duly murder in a seemingly foolproof manner and indicate suicide and slump in a locked room . the caricatured policeman fall hopelessly for the bait . it be up to philo vance and gentleman and amateur detective and neither old nor fat and to read the clue more insightfully and open the case out of the confines of the room and and eventually solve the case and the corpse be little more than the pretext for intellectual stimulation . what be interest be not this detective plot which can only ever be unsatisfying a all solution be although it be rarely less than entertaining and and full of comical bit of business . there isn not even really an attempt to ubvert the image of the perfect detective there be one alarm scene where a brutal sergeant threaten to rough up a suspect and with no protest from vance and but that about it . what mark kennel a a classic be it modernity . curtiz be not generally consider a great auteur and because he have no consistent theme or evidence of artistic development . but he be hollywood great craftsman and and he be on sensational form here . if the golden age detective story be mere puzzle and curtiz take this idea to be logical extreme and create an abstract variation on his source and reduce narrative and character and location to geometry and a series of line and from the beautiful art deco set to the glorious camera movement which suddenly break from a static composition and and and a they glide furiously at an angle and jolt the dead decor to life . this treatment be appropriate to a story that resolutely refuse realism and it be a pattern that turn the detective plot into a hall of mirror and like the two central brother and or the original crime itself and borrow from an unsolved mystery book . this fantasy world of nasty rich men who collect oriental relic ( shade of the moonstone . ) and inscrutable chinese servant and ex con turn butler and dog loving fop and runyonesque cop and be the perfect habitat for vance and a man who will drop a cruise to europe on a fanciful hunch and who know the social world of these people and and yet be taint by his interest in crime and association with the police and or would be if he wasn not anything more than a thinking machine and william powell and the great american comedian of the decade and bravely subsume his idiosyncratic humanity . but if the treatment be rarefy and the climax be spectacularly brutal and involve vicious dog and attempted murder . the police and the detective and suppose to be prevent crime and be guilty of incite one .