ELLERY QUEEN'S PENTHOUSE MYSTERY
US, 1942, 69 minutes, Black and white.
Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charley Grapewin, Anna May Wong, James Burke, Eduardo Cianelli, Frank Albertson, Ann Doran, Noel Madison, Russell Hicks, Manton Moreland.
Directed by James Hogan.
Writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee combined talents to create their nom de plume, Ellery Queen, keeping the name for their central character. Over the decades there were films as well as television series.
This is the second of four films with Ralph Bellamy as Ellery Queen. In 1942, there were three more with some of the same cast but William Gargan as Ellery Queen.
The film serves as the equivalent of a television episode, the setting up of a complicated plot, the plight of the Chinese during the 1930s and 40s, the smuggling of jewels collected by patriots to help buy food for starving Chinese, taken to the United States by boat by a famous ventriloquist. He is then found murdered.
Ellery Queen becomes involved when the daughter of the ventriloquist goes to consult her friend, Queen's typist and assistant, Nikki (Margaret Lindsay). Ellery Queen's father is a police Inspector (Charley Grapewin), James Burke provides comic touches as his associate, Anna May Wong appears as the Chinese connection, Russell Hicks is his manager, Eduardo Cianelli as a killer.
Ellery Queen himself is not the most adept as a detective, experiencing number of pratfalls, getting his novel typed by his assistant, her continually popping up, investigating and tangling matters.
An average kind of entertainment but interesting in its early 1940s interpretation of Ellery Queen.
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ELLERY QUEEN’S PENTHOUSE MYSTERY
US, 1941, 69 minutes, Black-and-white.
Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charlie Grapewin, Anna May Wong, James Burke, Edward Cianelli, Frank Albertson, Ann Doran, Noel Madison, Charles Lane Russell Hicks, Tom Dugan.
Directed by James P. Hogan.
This was the first of six short supporting film is based on mystery stories by popular writer, Ellery Queen. They were all directed by James P. Hogan. Ralph Bellamy starred as the writer and the first three. William Gargan in the later three. Veteran actor Charlie Grapewin appeared as Inspector Queen, Ellery Queen’s father in the whole six films as did Margaret Lindsay as secretary, Nikki Porter.
The film has an exotic opening, a ventriloquist touring in China entrusted with jewels to be taken to the US and sold for funds to support starting Chinese. Rival in America, he gets through customs, goes to New York to arrange the sale but is murdered.
His daughter, expecting some kind of contact, is upset and contact her friend Nikki. Which takes its to the office of Ellery Queen, something of a battle of the sexes (and Ralph Bellamy actually appeared in the same year in the classic battle of the sexes, His Girl Friday). They argue, she types his manuscripts, he berates her, they fall out, make up…
The murder mystery is quite complex and the author contacts his father, the New York police Inspector, Charlie Grapewin, who comes with his squad, several of whom are familiar faces from comic roles in other supporting features of the period.
There is a special villain, played by familiar character actor, Edward Ciannelli. There is also an alleged waiter at the hotel who is really a journalist undercover, following the trail from China.
All kinds of complications with the body, number of people searching the dead man’s room for evidence, a chief villain, played by Russell Hicks, often the villain, and his associates playing cards and one of them venturing out on his own and being murdered.
There is the Chinese link, especially with veteran Hollywood actress, Anna May Wong, who many historians lament did not get the roles she deserved and prejudiced Hollywood.
For audiences who enjoyed this murder mystery – there are another 6 to be seen.
