(Possible spoiler ahead)
Ralph Bellamy stars as Ellery Queen,best selling author and son of Inspector Queen of the New York Police force. Ellery gets mixed up in the death of a fitness guru who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. However after changing his will and letting the vultures around him know they have all been cut out the old man is found dead. The body begins to go missing and Ellery has to keep the prime suspect out of police hands.
First in a short lived series, its an okay comedic mystery but a far from a great one. To be certain Bellamy is better than Eddie Quillan who played him in the truly awful Mandarin Mystery a few years earlier, but he's too lethargic and a bit too dense for such a great detective. Granted he's ahead of everyone else, but he doesn't seem to actually do much. The rest of the cast is fine consisting of a good group of supporting player stalwarts who play it as real as B-mysteries get. The real problem with the film is the script, plot holes abound, however the movie moves along at a good clip and its easy to forgive most of them. Not so easy to forgive is that three minutes in its plainly clear not only who the murderer is going to be, but also whats going on and why. I've never seen a killer so clear outside of a Columbo mystery where the whole point of the movie is to watch the detective and killer crash heads. It ruined the film since all suspense was drained from the proceedings, even with some final revelations (which raised more plot questions). Okay at best, its not one I'll probably watch again (I'll take out my tapes of the old Jim Hutton TV show).
Ralph Bellamy stars as Ellery Queen,best selling author and son of Inspector Queen of the New York Police force. Ellery gets mixed up in the death of a fitness guru who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. However after changing his will and letting the vultures around him know they have all been cut out the old man is found dead. The body begins to go missing and Ellery has to keep the prime suspect out of police hands.
First in a short lived series, its an okay comedic mystery but a far from a great one. To be certain Bellamy is better than Eddie Quillan who played him in the truly awful Mandarin Mystery a few years earlier, but he's too lethargic and a bit too dense for such a great detective. Granted he's ahead of everyone else, but he doesn't seem to actually do much. The rest of the cast is fine consisting of a good group of supporting player stalwarts who play it as real as B-mysteries get. The real problem with the film is the script, plot holes abound, however the movie moves along at a good clip and its easy to forgive most of them. Not so easy to forgive is that three minutes in its plainly clear not only who the murderer is going to be, but also whats going on and why. I've never seen a killer so clear outside of a Columbo mystery where the whole point of the movie is to watch the detective and killer crash heads. It ruined the film since all suspense was drained from the proceedings, even with some final revelations (which raised more plot questions). Okay at best, its not one I'll probably watch again (I'll take out my tapes of the old Jim Hutton TV show).