Philo Vance

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Philo Vance was a fictional American detective created by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s who appeared in 12 novels. Although largely forgotten today, for a few years he was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. Films about Vance were made from the late 1920s to the late '40s, and among the several actors who played him on the screen were William Powell and Basil Rathbone. Vance was portrayed as being a super-dandy, super-intellectual, and super-man-about-town in Manhattan.

Van Dine's first three mystery novels were unusual for mystery fiction because he planned them as a trilogy but plotted and wrote them in short form, more or less at the same time. After they were accepted as a group by famed editor Maxwell Perkins, Van Dine expanded them into full-length novels.

Though Hollywood took a few liberties in its portrayal of Vance, the character in the novels would seem to most modern readers to be supercilious and highly irritating. He struck some contemporaries that way, as well. At the height of Philo Vance's popularity, comic poet Ogden Nash wrote:

Philo Vance

Needs a kick in the pance

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