Philo Vance Returns (1947)

Playboy Larry Blendon (Damian O'Flynn) introduces his grandmother Stella Blendon (Clara Blandick) to his fiancee, radio singer Virginia Berneaux (Ramsay Ames). 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 (William Wright) to help find the killer. Even as they talk, the killer strikes again and Philo hears Larry fall dead. Philo begins his investigation with Alexis Karnoff (Leon Belasco), Virginia's manager, and the two go to Larry's home, where Stella tells them that the motive for the killing might be Larry's will that names the six women in his life as heirs and if any die before the will is probated, the others will divide the shares. They also learn that Katherine Corbett (Phyllis Planchard), the first of Larry's wives, has been murdered. Suspicion now falls on Lorena Sims (Vivian Austin), a former wife who has been a patient at a sanitarium suffering from a nervous ailment. All of the deaths have been by poison and Lorena had access to it at the sanitarium. Philo uncovers another piece of information that leads him to break into the Blandon home just as Stella is about to give Lorena a glass of warm milk.