Simply A Masterpiece

Great Film overall

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

In between being bested of the leading lady in numerous comedies, Ralph Bellamy played Ellery Queen in the second of four mysteries for Columbia. It's a nicely tangled murder. Noel Madison has been asked by the Chinese government to bring some gems to New York to be auctioned for poor relief. When he turns up dead in a trunk, with the jewels missing, there are plenty of people to suspect, and plenty of talent on view, including Margaret Lindsay as girlfriend/secretary Nikki Porter, Charley Grapewin as Inspector Queen, Anna May Wong, Charles Lane, Mantan Moreland, Theodore von Eltz... lots of familiar faces for fans of old movies. Director James Hogan directs efficiently with no particular flair, but with his fine company, it's an enjoyable trifle and mystery fans should have no issue with the rules of the game.

"Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery" from 1941 was a B movie. One of the reviews here complained about the casting and the script. I'm sure this film was slapped together, but I can't say I really minded it. I The cast was terrific: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Anna May Wong, Ann Doran, James Burke, Eduardo Ciannelli, Charles Lane, and Mantan Moreland. Noel Madison (Gordon Cobb) is a ventriloquist currently in China. He is known to the Chinese, so he is given jewels that will bring about $300,000 (nearly $5 million today) and provide relief for starving China, who were invaded by Japan in 1937 and brought them under brutal rule.The Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.Madison makes it back to New York but disappears. His daughter (Ann Doran) asks her friend Nikki (Margaret Lindsay), who works for Ellery, to help locate him. Nikki not only works for Ellery, but she's his competitor. He catches her at one point writing a book on his time about Madison's disappearance.Mr. Madison is found in his trunk, about to be sent to Chicago. No jewels anywhere. Plenty of suspects though.I actually like Bellamy in this role. The script provides some humor and he has a nice chemistry with Lindsay. Are these movies true to the Ellery Queen books? No - he didn't have someone like Nikki around, for one thing. Viele was not an object of derision. How often have we seen this type of thing with books made into movies? Tons. It was a surprise to see the wonderful comic actor Mantan Moreland make an appearance, as well as Charles Lane, who died at age 102 in 2007 after a 65-year career. In 1941 alone, he made 19 films. I remember Ann Doran as one of the mothers in "Lassie" - she's very young here.All in all, entertaining, though even at a little over 60 minutes, these films can seem longer.

In the fourth 'Ellery Queen' movie and the second starring Ralph Bellamy, for the first time the detective's son and hobby sleuth in his own right gets involved with wartime affairs concerning China (due to the year of production; at the same time, 'Charlie Chan' was also working for the Secret Service against the Japanese danger to his country): rich Chinese have donated their jewels in order to help the starving population, but they have to be smuggled into the US in order to be sold there to raise money - but, of course, some reckless gangsters are after the 'hot stuff' as well...A PRETTY complicated plot with lots of suspects for the amateur film fan sleuth to choose from; but nothing really inventive concerning the criminal part of the story. We must, however, give credit to the film for making the audience aware of the suffering of the Chinese people...And as for the entertainment - the constant quarrels between Ellery and his assistant Nikki provide plenty of that again! So this otherwise routine serial movie does have some interest for the fans of Ellery Queen in particular and for the classic crime genre in general.

A ventriloquist is sent on a mission to smuggle some priceless jewels from China to New York, but almost as soon as he arrives there, he gets killed and the jewels are nowhere to be found. His daughter happens to be a friend of Nikki Porter, who is now working as Ellery Queen's secretary. And that's how Ellery himself gets involved in the case, although he insists that all he wants to do is finish writing his latest book. The second entry in the Ralph Bellamy - Ellery Queen series (and fourth film starring this character in total) is occasionally fun to watch, especially thanks to the delightful Margaret Lindsay as Nikki Porter and the comic relief provided by Inspector Queen's dim-witted assistants, but suffers from a shockingly weak "climax" - the entire solution to this rather complex case is over and done with in about 30 seconds with as little fanfare as possible. ** out of 4.