Gavilla de asesinos

Ralph Bellamy made his fourth and final appearance as literary sleuth Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring. On this occasion, Ellery and his police-inspector father (Charley Grapewin) are summoned to a private hospital by its owner, philanthropist Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka). There've been some very weird goings-on at the hospital as of late, and Mrs. Stack wants to get to the bottom of things.

An ok-ish Ellery Queen where comedy features heavily, overriding the mystery and detecting; Margaret Lindsey and Ralph Bellamy carries things along, but it's just passable. George Zucco also stars, playing a menacing doctor.

This was more of a comedy than an Ellery Queen mystery from 1941.

Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka), the owner of a private hospital suspects her chief surgeon (George Zucco) is up to no good. Inspector Queen (Charley Grapewin) sends Ellery (Ralph Bellamy) in as a patient. Meanwhile, her son (Leon Ames), indebted to mobsters, needs his inheritance early so he arranges to have his mother murdered.

The would-be killers Page and Lou (Paul Hurst and Tom Dugan) try to run her over and fail. Mrs. Stack is injured and brought to the hospital along with Page, who broke his leg.

Nikki (Margaret Lindsay) shows up, disguised as a nurse. She mistakes what she sees going on in Mrs. Stack's room and tells Ellery the hospital is on fire. He runs out of his room, wrapped in his bedclothes with his pants on one leg and dragging his hospital bed. His other leg is stuck in a suitcase.

Turns out Mrs. Stack was indeed murdered. Page tries to get out of the hospital with the help of partner Lou, with Page posing as a corpse as he smokes a cigar under the sheet. His body is mixed up with that of Mrs. Stack.

There are more murders. It's mayhem. Nikki gets right in the middle. In fact she ends up in a trunk.

Also one of the orderlies mentions bank night. That refers to prizes given out at the movies to encourage people to attend. You can see how sometimes people might have needed an incentive.

The English actress wasn't very well known in America despite having appeared in several films, including the worthy 'Charlie Chan in London' entry in that series, where Barrie ably plays a socialite.

In this film her character doesn't become significant until near the end but when she steps forward she offers the only real dramatic merit in this enjoyable but otherwise pedestrian '40s romp.

Several of the other user reviewers LIKED this film. I could hardly wait for it to finish up and it was just a little over an hour long. . The silly bad guys tried to be like the stooges but couldn't even muster their level of low humor (riding around on a gurney, switched bodies, nurses uniform with a hoop skirt that kept exposing his shorts clad bottom (yawn) ) Bellamy and Zucco and other B players were wasted on this one. Even the title is meaningless.

Give it a skip !

Mrs Stack is a patron of a hospital who gets suspicious of how that establishment is being run. She calls Inspector Queen to provide her with a policeman who doesn't look like a policeman to make an undercover investigation there. Inspector Queen sends his son Ellery who manages to get himself admitted as a patient at the hospital. Mrs Stack is soon a patient there herself after getting hurt in a car collision. It's soon obvious that more than just one person is out to kill her before she is found dead after an operation.

You may find that this is one of the weaker of the seven Ellery Queen mysteries of the 1940 to 1942 period. It suffers from having too many comic characters involved. It's always good to see the saner presence of George Zucco who appears as the doctor under suspicion in this. His hospital becomes a bedlam of trolleys being switched and people under shrouds posing as corpses in order to hide themselves. And then there's people posing as nurses including a crook who does an unconvincing job on that score and also Ellery Queen's secretary who manages to get herself in uniform as well.

There are a number of characters who have murder as their intention. So it makes it difficult to guess the one who is actually responsible for the murders. I didn't get the killer until just before the reveal. Thus this film does satisfy as a whodunit even if you may tire a little of the comic knockabout.