La esmeralda fatal

Although this PRC film had its usual bottom of the barrel production values, Philo Vance Gambles might have been a much better film had it been done at a major studio like the previous Vance movies were. Alan Curtis is the urbane and dapper detective who resents false rumors going out about him.

Dan Seymour plays one of his usual oily crooks, he's a jewel thief who has a valuable emerald and he's put out the rumor that Alan Curtis is on his payroll. Not a rumor that Curtis wants to have circulating especially after Seymour and his girlfriend Tala Birrell are bumped off.

Given Vance's outstanding record of solving difficult cases the DA gives him a chance to be his own client. Do you doubt that Philo Vance will solve the murders which total three by the end of the film?

Alan Curtis is hardly William Powell who is more my idea of what Philo Vance should be like. Still he does the job and sad it wasn't in a better produced film.