THE MURDER RING
US, 1941, 70 minutes, Black-and-white.
Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charley Grapewin, Mona Barrie, Paul Hurst, James Burke, Leon Ames, George Zucco, Blanche Yurka.
Directed by James Hogan.
This is the fourth film for Ralph Bellamy as Ellery Queen. Many of the same cast continued to with three more films, however, William Gargan took Ralph Bellamy's place.
This film is slight, B-budget supporting feature, but significant in the history of the short stories and novels written by Ellery Queen as well as the film and television adaptations. In the mid 1930s there were short films featuring Donald Cook and Eddie Quillan as Ellery Queen.
Charley Grapewin repeats his role as Inspector Queen, a genial policeman, collaborating with his associate, corny comic touches from James Burke, and very tolerant of his author son who is also prone to bumbling and pratfalls even as he contributes to the solution. Margaret Lindsay repeats her feisty role as Ellery Queen's assistant and secretary. There is a strong supporting cast of character actors including a very severe Blanche Yurka, Leon Ames as her son, George Zucco appearing as a hospital surgeon.
The film focuses on a hospital, a charity hospital supported by a matron who was run off the road and injured, taken to her hospital, found dead but strangled. The two thugs who ran her off the road also have their own accident, one of them taken to hospital with a broken leg, the other coming to try to get him out which leads to a whole lot of comic action, mistaken identities of the bodies on trolleys. The matron was also disinheriting her two children, her son being a gambler (played by Leon Ames) who set up the accident. George Zucco is very suspicious as the surgeon.
A lot of the action is at the hospital, the police investigations, the interrogation of the nurse who was on guard and her reticence, she then being found hanged in her room. There is a later revelation that the son was attracted to the other nurse on duty in the hospital. The son is then found dead, suicide.
Ellery Queen does put everything together, along with some ideas as well as interference from his secretary who has tangled the moving of the dead body. The villain turns out to be the fiancee nurse who wanted to marry the son get his fortune.
There were later films and television series with Jim Hutton as Ellery Queen.
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ELLERY QUEEN AND THE MURDER RING
US, 1941, 70 minutes, Black-and-white.
Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charlie Grapewin, Mona Barrie, Paul Hurst, James Burke, Leon Ames, George Zuccopsycho, Blanche Yurka, Charlotte Wynters, Tom Dugan.
Directed by James Hogan.
This was the fourth Ellery Queen murder mystery starring Ralph Bellamy as Ellery Queen. There were three more Ellery Queen films but with William Gargan in the central role.
At the core, there is a good murder mystery line, several murders, in fact, and quite a number of suspects ranging from the children of a murdered matriarch, owner of the hospital, the doctor doing experiments at the hospital, and the son hiring some rather dim-witted thugs against his mother. In fact, the actual murderer will be quite a surprise to most audiences.
There is the usual investigation by Ellery Queen’s father, Charlie Grapewin, and his associate, with some comic touches by James Burke, and the usual interplay between Ellery Queen and his secretary, Nikki Porter, Ralph Bellamy and Margaret Lindsay, he dominating her in a rather old-fashioned style, she sometimes asserting herself, sometimes taking it!
But, much of the film is played for laughs, the two thugs as comic characters, shenanigans in the hospital, pratfalls, mistaken identities, some repartee (more reminiscent of Damon Runyon than Ellery Queen).
While the comedy might have been funny at the time, it seems intrusive and it would have been better to have the murder scenario played straight.
