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Philo Vance
Philo Vance is a fictional amateur detective originally featured in 12 crime novels by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, films, and radio. He was portrayed as a stylish—even foppish—dandy, a New York ''bon vivant'' possessing a highly intellectual bent. "S. S. Van Dine" was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright, a prominent art critic who initially sought to conceal his authorship of the novels. Van Dine was also a fictional character in the books, a sort of Dr. Watson figure who accompanied Vance and chronicled his exploits. Character In the early novels, Van Dine claimed that "Philo Vance" was an alias, and that details of the sleuth's adventures had been altered to protect his true identity, even if "he has now gone to Italy to live". This claim was conveniently forgotten as the series progressed. (A few years later, the same process occurred with another fictional detective, Ellery Queen, whose authors acknow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992) was a Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic American actors during his lifetime, with a career spanning nearly 60 years between 1935 and 1992. He achieved prominence for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the play of the same name, which earned him the inaugural Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1947. He reprised the role in a 1950 film version and won an Academy Award, making him the first Hispanic actor and the first Puerto Rican-born to win an Oscar. His other notable film roles include Charles VII in ''Joan of Arc'' (1948), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in ''Moulin Rouge'' (1952), defense attorney Barney Greenwald in ''The Caine Mutiny'' (1954), Alfred Dreyfus in ''I Accuse!'' (1958), which he also directed; the Turkish Bey in ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962), Siegfried Rieber in ''Ship of Fools'' (1965), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kennel Murder Case
''The Kennel Murder Case'' is a 1933 murder mystery novel written by S. S. Van Dine with fictional detective Philo Vance investigating a complex locked-room mystery. Plot summary One of the Coe brothers is found dead in his bedroom, locked from the inside, and the other brother is found the next morning dead in the downstairs closet. There is also the clue of a wounded Doberman Pinscher, a mysteriously broken piece of priceless Chinese porcelain, and a cast of suspicious family members, servants and associates. Philo Vance solves the case based on his knowledge of dog breeding, Chinese porcelain and the annals of remarkable antique crimes. Film adaptations :''See The Kennel Murder Case (film)'' A Warner Bros. film version of ''The Kennel Murder Case'' appeared in 1933. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and starred William Powell as Philo Vance, reprising the role after appearing as Vance in three earlier films for Paramount, and Mary Astor as Hilda Lake, the victims' nie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giorgio Albertazzi
Giorgio Albertazzi (20 August 1923 – 28 May 2016) was an Italian actor and film director. Born in San Martino a Mensola, Tuscany, Albertazzi joined the Italian Social Republic and reached the rank of lieutenant. After their defeat, he spent two years in prison for collaborating. Following the amnesty by Palmiro Togliatti he changed from studying architecture to acting. In the theater Albertazzi debuted in Shakespeare's ''Troilus and Cressida'', and over the following decades starred in a number of classics, many of them for television. From the early 1950s he was also seen on the big screen and appeared in more than 50 films. From 1969, he directed several television films, including the miniseries ''George Sand'' in 1981. From 2003, he was the director of the Teatro di Roma. He had a close friendship with actress Anna Proclemer who appeared with him for many years. In 2007, Albertazzi married his long-standing partner, Pia de Tolomei. In 1988 he wrote his memoirs. Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scarab Murder Case
''The Scarab Murder Case'' (1929) is a classic whodunit written by S. S. Van Dine. In this book, detective Philo Vance's murder investigation takes place in a private home that doubles as a museum of Egyptology, and the solution depends in part on Vance's extensive knowledge of Egyptian history and customs, which enable him to sort through suggestions of godly vengeance and reveal the misdirections perpetrated by the real murderer. Literary significance and criticism Some reviewers "were disgusted by the author's bland insults to the reader's intelligence -- e.g., the heavy Egyptian statue in the gallery, upended on a piece of pencil and conveniently toppling on the designed victim. By that date they were fed up with the whole bag of tricks, which successive settings did not rejuvenate."Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. Film adaptation ''The Scarab Murder Case'' (1936) starre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bishop Murder Case
''The Bishop Murder Case'' (1928) is the fourth in a series of mystery novels by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance. The detective solves a mystery built around a nursery rhyme. ''The Bishop Murder Case'' is believed to be the first nursery-rhyme mystery book. Plot summary The story involves a series of murders taking place in a wealthy neighborhood of New York City. The first murder, of a Mr. Joseph Cochrane Robin, who is found pierced by an arrow, is accompanied by a note signed "The Bishop", with an extract from the nursery rhyme, " Who Killed Cock Robin". This crime takes place at the home of an elderly physicist with a beautiful young ward and a private archery range. District Attorney Markham finds the circumstances so unusual that he asks his friend Philo Vance to advise upon the psychological aspects of the crime. Further murders connected with the physicist's family and neighbours are accompanied with similar extracts from Mother Goose, such as the ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Garden Murder Case
''The Garden Murder Case'' (first published in 1935) is the ninth in a series of mystery novels by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance. Plot outline Floyd, the son of Professor Garden, invites his socialite friends to the rooftop garden of his father's New York penthouse to listen to the outcome of horse races. Detective Philo Vance receives an anonymous telephone message inviting him to one of Floyd's gatherings. On that particular night, Floyd's best friend has placed an enormous bet on a horse named Equanimity. Once it is announced that Equanimity has lost the race, a gunshot is heard and Floyd's friend is found dead of a gunshot wound. Though initially thought to be a suicide, Detective Vance deems the death a murder. The night proves to be even more eventful, due to the attempted poisoning of Floyd's mother's nurse and the subsequent murder of his mother. Ultimately, Detective Vance is able to solve the murders. He lures the murderer into revealing himself an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golf Handicap
A golf handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer's potential that is used to enable players of varying abilities to compete against one another. Better players are those with the lowest handicaps. Historically, rules relating to handicaps have varied from country to country with many different systems in force around the world. Because of incompatibilities and difficulties in translating between systems, the sport's governing bodies, the USGA and The R&A, working with the various existing handicapping authorities, devised a new World Handicap System (WHS) which began to be introduced globally in 2020. History The earliest record of golf handicapping is thought to be from the late 17th century, in a diary kept by Thomas Kincaid, who was a student in Edinburgh, Scotland, although the word ''handicap'' would not come into use in golf until the late 19th century. The number of strokes to be given and the holes on which they would be in effect was negotiated between competing golf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canary Murder Case
''For the film adaptation see The Canary Murder Case (film)'' ''The Canary Murder Case'' (1927) is a murder mystery novel which deals with the murders of a sexy nightclub singer known as "the Canary," and, eventually, her boyfriend, solved by Philo Vance. S. S. Van Dine's classic whodunnit, second in the Philo Vance series, is said by Howard Haycraft to have broken "all modern publishing records for detective fiction." The earliest editions give the title with quotation marks around the word "Canary", but most subsequent editions omit them. Plot summary The beautiful Margaret Odell, famous Broadway beauty and ex-Follies girl known as "The Canary", is found murdered in her apartment. She has a number of men in her life, ranging from high society to gangsters, and more than one man visited her apartment on the night she dies. It is Philo Vance's characteristic erudition that leads him to a key clue that allows him to penetrate a very clever alibi and reveal the killer. "The str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murders. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the more than thirty novels and several short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular of American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men acted as editors: as Ellery Queen they edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime, and Dannay founded and for many decades edited ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'', which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961, Dannay and Lee also commissioned other authors to write crime thrillers using the Ellery Queen ''nom de plume'', but not featuring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)
John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel ''A Study in Scarlet'' (1887). The last work by Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes is the short story "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" (1927), but that is not the last story in the timeline of the series, which is "His Last Bow" (1917). Watson is Holmes's best friend, assistant and flatmate. He is the first-person narrator of all but four of the stories of the cases that he relates. Watson is described as a classic Victorian-era gentleman, unlike the more eccentric Holmes. He is astute and intelligent although he fails to match his friend's deductive skills. As Holmes's friend and confidant, Watson has appeared in various films, television series, video games, comics and radio programmes. Character creation In Doyle's early rough plot outlines, Holmes's associate was named "Ormond Sac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pen Name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise the author's gender, to distance the author from their other works, to protect the author from retribution for their writings, to merge multiple persons into a single identifiable author, or for any of a number of reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work. The author's real identity may be known only to the publisher or may become common knowledge. Etymology The French-language phrase is occasionally still seen as a synonym for the English term "pen name", which is a "back-translation" and originated in England rather than France. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, in ''The King's English'' state that the term ''nom de plume'' evolv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain. Previous manifestations of the ''petit-maître'' (French for "small master") and the Muscadin have been noted by John C. Prevost, but the modern practice of dandyism first appeared in the revolutionary 1790s, both in London and in Paris. The dandy cultivated cynical reserve, yet to such extremes that novelist George Meredith, himself no dandy, once defined cynicism as "intellectual dandyism". Some took a more benign view; Thomas Carlyle wrote in ''Sartor Resartus'' that a dandy was no more than "a clothes-wearing man". Honoré de Balzac introduced the perfectly worldly and unmoved Henri de Marsay in '' La fille aux yeux d'or'' (1835), a part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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