Perfect cast and a good story

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

I haven't seen many of Eddie Quillan's movies but it wouldn't be the first time that the characters in a film fail to resemble their bookish originals.Josephine Temple (Charlotte Henry) arrives in New York with the world's most valuable stamp - the Chinese Mandarin. For something so precious it is carelessly handled - she shows it to various people at the wharf and then carries it around in her purse. Of course it is stolen but the thief winds up dead and the stamp ends up with Josephine. This is one of those locked room mysteries. There is no end of suspects apart from Josephine. There is Donald Trent (George Walcott), who knew the dead man and owed him money. Irene (Kay Hughes) and Martha Kirk (Rita La Roy), sisters, who can't live on the allowance their uncle provides. Martha is just about to tell all she knows when she is killed by an unknown assassin. Ellery Queen (Eddie Quillan) solves the mystery with a re-creation of the crime. I quite liked him in the role. The rapport between him and his father was good. Franklin Pangborn does his turn as a harassed hotel manager.Charlotte Henry made a very lovely heroine. Her career was scuttled in 1933 when she won the coveted role of Alice in "Alice in Wonderland". After that, she said, people could only see her in those type of roles. It is very nice to see her portray a modern young woman.Recommended.

"The Mandarin Mystery" plays out as an interesting balance between mystery and comedy, with Eddie Quillan portraying a young Ellery Queen, casually following up hunches and clues to solve a couple of murders. That he's simultaneously romancing a possible suspect doesn't seem to bother him much, though he does express his reservations to Josephine Temple (Charlotte Henry) when she shows up with the murder weapon. No matter, the self assured detective will come through with a detailed explanation of the killer's modus operandi at film's end that even Charlie Chan would admire.The story involves a rare stolen stamp with a picture of an Oriental with his clothes on backwards. Quite coincidentally, the first dead body is found the same way in complementary fashion. It's a neat twist to a story that relies on some manufactured elements to solve a locked room murder mystery, but that's OK as getting there is much of the fun. The film has some great one liners and comedic banter between Queen and Temple, with Franklin Pangborn dropping by (literally) as the squeamish hotel manager.The film is peppered with it's share of red herrings as well. The Kirk sisters Martha and Irene (Rita LaRoy and Kay Hughes) rail at their father (George Irving) for squandering his fortune and their inheritance on his stamp collection. Irene's fiancée Donald (George Walcott) has a connection to murder victim Craig (Walter Merrill), and then there's the shady Howard Bronson (Edwin Stanley), operator of an auction house that would just love to get his hands on the Mandarin stamp. At least one of the above is removed as a suspect when they become a victim as well.With it's mix of fast paced crime solving and snappy dialog, the movie keeps the viewer slightly off balance wondering how it might end. Ellery Queen's demonstration of how the killer did it was quite ingenious, for that you'll have to watch the film. Pay attention though, as the story breezes by in just about an hour before ending with a kiss - was there ever any doubt?

The literary work on which this film was based--THE Chinese ORANGE MYSTERY--is a locked-room murder mystery that is light on characterization but heavy on the puzzle aspect of the murder, where no one knows who the victim is, the victim's clothes have all been turned inside out, and everything in the murder room has been turned backward. To do a faithful film adaptation of the book would probably be difficult, especially for a 55-minute b-movie which needs to be fast-moving and witty. In the Ellery Queen film made the year before, THE Spanish CAPE MYSTERY, which was an OK film, the filmmakers basically streamlined the plot, but were unable to give much depth or interest to any of the characters (other than Ellery and Inspector Queen). THE MANDARIN MYSTERY takes elements of the book THE Chinese ORANGE MYSTERY--a rare stamp, a murder in a locked room, some of the character names--and basically creates a new story around them. I had just re-read the novel before seeing this film, but they have little in common. If you can forget the book and just treat the film as an entity of its own, it's not that bad. Eddie Quillan is a charming screen presence, and he tries to restrain his comic mugging somewhat, but the script does not allow him to show much analytical prowess, and he spends far more effort romantically chasing the girl who is the main suspect than he does working on the crime. Wade Boteler plays Inspector Queen well--professional, but with a warm heart--and he and Ellery do show glimpses of the rapport they have in the books (and in the Jim Hutton/David Wayne TV series). On the whole, though, this film is an average 30s murder mystery, played with a light touch by a charming comic actor, but it has little to do with either the novel on which it was supposedly based or with the Ellery Queen series in general.

Nice little mystery, with a good deal of comedy mixed in. Eddie Quillan is not my favorite Ellery Queen, but he has an interesting twist to the character. I though Wade Boteler did a great job as Inspector Queen and Franklin Pangborn did a great job as comic relief as Mellish, the hotel manager.Overall, a nice film, I was quite pleased with it.