I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Now THERE's a mystery if ever there was one: John Braun, who's always been the perfectly healthy and athletic model for his fitness enterprise, learns that he's incurably ill - and changes his will the next day, disinheriting his family and leaving everything to his company. His daughter's friend Nikki goes to his home to talk to him right after he's signed the will and locked himself up in his study. She waits in the anteroom - and soon finds out that she can't get out, because the other door is locked as well; and when they finally manage to open the door, they find Braun sitting at his desk, stabbed, and both the will and the murder weapon missing - which leaves Nikki as the ONLY person who could have committed the murder...In this third 'Ellery Queen' mystery, Ralph Bellamy for the first time plays the police detective's son, writer, and hobby sleuth; and he does quite well, although he isn't quite as charming and funny as Donald Cook in the first one - he's more the serious, clever, and slightly ironic type. But the center of attraction (in every way) is Margaret Lindsay as Nikki, who is TRAPPED in every sense of the word...This is one of the movies to which should be added 'Don't tell the ending to anyone!' - because it REALLY takes a crime film or novel expert to solve the case. Classic murder mystery at its best here!

Fans of Ellery Queen had to feel quite a bit better with what Ralph Bellamy did with this and successive Ellery Queen movies. Ellery Queen, Master Detective has Ralph Bellamy both shielding a suspect and trying to find the evidence that will clear the woman he's shielding.The one whom Bellamy is shielding is Margaret Lindsay who would turn up in a few subsequent Ellery Queen features as his girl Friday. She's a friend of the daughter of the deceased and Lindsay resemblance to Marsha Hunt causes her and Bellamy a lot of grief.Silent film classic director Fred Niblo plays the deceased, a kind of Charles Atlas who is a physical fitness guru. His doctor and prospective son-in-law Michael Whalen has diagnosed him with an incurable disease and faced with the prospective of a long and lingering death, Niblo kills himself. But the weapon and a new will he made out are missing. And Lindsay was the last one to see him.As it turns out the events surrounding the crime can all be explained as they eventually are by natural causes. Except for the fact that Niblo's body is stolen twice from the hands of coroner Charles Lane. Someone had a real good reason for not wanting an autopsy.Bellamy was quite an improvement over Donald Cook and Eddie Quillan who played the mystery writer/sleuth before. Charley Grapewin settled nicely into the role of his patient, but somewhat harassed father Inspector Queen of NYPD homicide. I think you'll find this an interesting film for the performances and for the fact the solution is a somewhat unusual one.

This is the first entry in the "official" Ellery Queen film series (though actually the third film starring that character); Ellery is played by Ralph Bellamy, who is just a tad colorless in the part (Donald Cook of "The Spanish Cape Mystery" remains my favorite so far), but he does have a certain sweet chemistry with the beautiful Margaret Lindsay, especially when he wakes up in the middle of the night to cook her something to eat; Lindsay's presence and smile brighten the movie, and I'm glad they decided to make her a recurring character in the series. The plot is pretty ingenious - a seemingly unsolvable puzzle (the dead man is found in a locked room with his throat slashed; there is only one way in, but we know nobody went through there; he might have committed suicide, but then where is the weapon?) with a simple, oh-but-of-course! solution. But the film is not very exciting or suspenseful, although it does end with a brief car chase / crash which was somewhat of a surprise for a production of this caliber. ** out of 4.

(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).