Best movies like The Garden Murder Case

S. S. Van Dine's most intriguing murder case featuring the great PHILO VANCE!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Garden Murder Case Starring Edmund Lowe, Virginia Bruce, Benita Hume, Douglas Walton, and more. If you liked The Garden Murder Case then you may also like: Upperworld, The Voice of the City, The Westland Case, Wrecking Crew, Night of Mystery and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Detective Philo Vance is in charge of the investigation of several mysterious murders. Things take a turn when he gathers evidence against Major Fenwicke-Ralston.

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Upperworld

A railroad tycoon, disillusioned with his marriage, starts seeing a showgirl. Things go agreeably until the woman's manager decides to blackmail the millionaire.

The Voice of the City

An escaped convict and the detective tasked with hunting him down end up working in parallel to clear the convict's name and nab the gangsters that framed him.

The Westland Case

A detective must solve a case where a girl was murdered in a room--and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside.

Wrecking Crew

Follows a crew as they work under a deadline set by their boss to complete the demolition of a building. Touches on the lives of several of the crew in their lives away from the job and shows rhe comraderie of the crew in their work and even away from work.

Juke Girl

During the depths of the Great Depression a hitch-hiker Steve Talbot and jukebox-joint hostess Lola Mears stumble into Cat-Tail Florida where farmers and pickers struggle under the buyer who rules by monopoly, dirty contracts and violence. Steve helps organize against the buyer, leading to further escalation ending in a lynch mob.

The Kennel Murder Case

Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.

After Office Hours

A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.

Alibi

Chick Williams, a prohibition gangster, rejoins his mob soon after being released from prison. When a policeman is murdered during a robbery, he falls under suspicion. The gangster took Joan, a policeman's daughter, to the theater, sneaked out during the intermission to commit the crime, then used her to support his alibi. The detective squad employs its most sophisticated and barbaric techniques, including planting an undercover agent in the gang, to bring him to justice.

Baby Take a Bow

Eddie Ellison is an ex-con who spent time in Sing-Sing prison. Kay marries him as soon as he serves his time. Five years later, Eddie and his ex-convict buddy Larry, have both gone straight, and Eddie and Kay have a beautiful little girl named Shirley. However, Welch has kept a close eye on them for years. He believes in "once a criminal, always a criminal." Then, when Eddie's employer's wife's pearls go missing, it comes out that Eddie and Larry both spent time in prison, and they're fired. Welch suspects that Eddie and Larry have something to do with the theft of the pearls. Will Welch prove that Eddie and Larry had something to do with the theft, or will the truth prevail?

The Charlatan

A woman goes to a sideshow fortune-teller to have her fortune told, and is astonished when the man looks into his crystal ball and goes into great detail about events in her past that few people ever knew about. Shaken, she leaves and later tells her girlfriend about the incident. The girlfriend insists that she invite the fortune-teller to a party they're having at her house. What the woman doesn't realize is that the "fortune-teller" is actually the ex-husband she abandoned years ago, when she took their daughter and ran off with her lover. When the "charlatan" is invited to the party, he sees an opportunity to take his revenge on his faithless ex-wife.

Undercover Girl

After her father is murdered, a girl joins the police force in an effort to track down the killers.

The Gay Falcon

Having forsaken the detective business for the safer confines of personal insurance, Gay Laurence is compelled to return to his sleuthing ways. Along with sidekick Jonathan "Goldie" Locke, he agrees to look into a series of home party robberies that have victimized socialite Maxine Wood. The duo gets more than they bargained for when a murder is committed at Wood's home, but Lawrence still finds time to romance the damsel.

The Bishop Murder Case

The murders start with the body of Robin. He is found with a arrow through the heart, but Vance deduces that the body was placed and not found where he was killed. The note found dealing with the murder was part of a nursery rhyme and signed by 'Bishop'. The only witness may have been Mrs. Drukker and Adolph, but they are not talking. As the murders progress, each one is accompanied by a nursery rhyme. It is up to Philo Vance to unravel the clues and unmask the identity of the murderer 'Bishop'.

The Greene Murder Case

Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.

Deported

The real-life deportation of gangster Lucky Luciano was the inspiration for this romanticized and slightly crackbrained crime drama. Jeff Chandler plays the Luciano counterpart, who once he arrives in Italy renews his criminal activities.

Fog

The murders are committed in swift succession on board a liner crossing the Atlantic in a dense fog, and many of the passengers come under suspicion before the actual killer is bought to justice with the aid of a very substantial "ghost."

Secrets of the Lone Wolf

Michael Lanyard's faithful butler Jamison is mistaken for his boss by a gang of jewel robbers.

Ladies' Day

A top baseball pitcher "loses" his pitching skills whenever he falls in love. After marrying a movie star extreme measures are taken for the benefit of the team.

The Saint's Double Trouble

Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt.

Scarlet Angel

After robbing a sea captain in New Orleans, a beautiful saloon girl flees and assumes a dead woman's identity.

Secret Service Investigator

Lloyd Bridges plays a flying ace war hero who gets sucked into a counterfeiting scheme by opposing gangs of crooks.

Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher

Cosmo Jones, a correspondence-school detective from a small town, comes to the big city to offer his services to the police. He happens by where a gangster is killed by an opposing gang. Socialite Phyllis Blake is running around with gang member Tom and the opposing gang plan on kidnapping her. Cosmo is with Sergeant Flanagan when the attempt is made in front of a night club, where a bystander is seriously wounded in the gun-battle. Police Chief Murphy blames Flanagan for the shooting and demotes him. Cosmo, with the aid of a porter, Eustace and Flanagan's fiancée, Susan, tries to find the killer. Phyllis is finally kidnapped and Cosmo decides the act was committed by one of the two gangs. He has her father place an ad in the newspaper that contact has been made with the kidnappers. Each gang thinks the other is pulling a double cross, and one gang wipes out the other.

Cry Murder

A young actress has retired from films to marry the son of a prominent and rich politician in New York City. The father objects strongly to the marriage. The actress is being blackmailed by a second-rate artist who has stolen some letters from her that could be misconstrued. During the payoff, she is knocked unconscious, and awakens to find herself involved in a murder and the police have her marked as the number-one suspect.

Murder in Times Square

An actor becomes a suspect in the murders of four New Yorkers injected with rattlesnake venom.

Slander House

Owner of salon catering to fat society dames must deal with a dull fiance, a romantic stranger, the jealous blond who loves him, and the lecherous husband of a client.

The Casino Murder Case

When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.

Calling Philo Vance

Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe. This is a remake of "The Kennel Murder Case" using aircraft designs and espionage instead of Chinese porcelain and dog shows.

One Dangerous Night

Reformed jewel thief the Lone Wolf investigates the murder of a playboy who was blackmailing three socialites.

The Canary Murder Case

A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer. Written by Tony Fontana

The Benson Murder Case

A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.

Dr. Broadway

A New York doctor saves a chorus girl from a window ledge, twice, and rounds up racketeers.

Philo Vance Returns

Playboy Larry Blendon introduces his grandmother Stella Blendon to his fiancée, radio singer Virginia Berneaux. Despite Larry's record of broken romances and divorces, Virginia decides she will marry him. Virginia is slain that night and Blandon telephones his friend, Philo Vance, to help find the killer.

Deadline for Murder

A favor for an old friend leads a Los Angeles gambler (Kent Taylor) into a dangerous search for a missing document.

Ticket to a Crime

After a jeweler hires a private detective to help him find $50,000 missing from his company, he is murdered while attending a society party; and the private eye, aided by his comely secretary, vies with a bumbling police detective to find the murderer among several suspects, including the dead man's daughter, her current husband, her former husband, and an ex-convict.

Top Sergeant

An army sergeant recognises a young recruit as the man responsible for his brother's death, while attempting a robbery.

The Gracie Allen Murder Case

The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder.

Before Midnight

A detective tries to figure out who killed a man who predicted his own death.

Penguin Pool Murder

New York schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers assists a detective when a body of unscrupulous stockbroker Gerald Parker suddenly appears in the penguin tank at the aquarium.

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

A doctor is driven into an investigation of sinister goings-on at a horse race track by his mystery writer ex-wife.

The Dragon Murder Case

Wonderful idea to give a party with people who dislike each other. Late at night, everyone decides to go into the pool, except Stamm, who is drunk. Montague dives in as does Greeff and Leland, but only Greeff and Leland come out. Montague is no where to be found so Leland suspects foul play and calls the cops. Luckily, Philo is with the D.A. and comes along, but they do not find Montague. When they drain the pool the next day, they find nothing except what looks like dragon prints. Philo has his suspicions and tries to piece the clues together to find out what has happened.

Danger Street

Magazine owners sell a revealing photo, then play detective when the deal leads to murder.

The Phantom Broadcast

A handsome radio singer has it all--fame, money, adoring fans--but what no one knows is that his accompanist, a hunchbacked piano player, is actually the voice behind the arrogant, abusive "singer"'s fame. The two men fall for the same girl, and when the singer turns up dead, suspicion falls upon his assistant and the girl.

Philo Vance's Secret Mission

Philo Vance is hired to write a true-crime mystery... but when the facts about an unsolved crime are about to be brought out into the open a murder takes place.

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