Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

There's lots of intriguing goings-on in this jewel smuggling mystery. The Great Ventro is the smuggler but he soon disappears after he checks in to the Hollandsworth Hotel in New York. Ellery Queen discovers his body in a trunk which is just about to be smuggled out of the hotel. The main mystery is what has Ventro done to the jewels he has brought into the country from China?

The Oriental intrigue in this is good. Mystifying coded message are being sent. The codes in them seem to represent the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Ellery Queen has to discover their significance.

There is a bellboy at the hotel who seems to know too much. A Count Brett is sniffing around to find the jewels. A Chinese woman is also snooping and really gets up the nose of Ellery Queen's secretary. I enjoy the way that secretary always feel she has to chaperone any female that goes anywhere near Ellery Queen.

Ralph Bellamy and Margaret Lindsay play off each other well as Ellery Queen and his secretary. It's an enjoyable film that has the viewer wondering throughout.

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.

Ventro the ventriloquist disappears just days after his arrival in New York. His daughter asks friend Nikki Porter for help, knowing that Nikki works with mystery writer and amateur detective Ellery Queen. They discover Ventro's dead body in his penthouse hotel suite....but who killed him? And where is the treasure he brought back from China to raise money for his Chinese friends?

Ellery and Nikki alternately flirt and bicker in this entertaining but not overly exciting series mystery.

Margaret Lindsay is fun to watch as Nikki, Ellery's spirited secretary. Fed up with typing for Ellery, Nikki quits and heads to the hotel to investigate the murder. She sneaks into the suite but she's not alone: A crook is sneaking around in the dark, a mysterious woman watches from a neighboring balcony, the coroner and his team come in to collect the body - it's a busy place.

Ralph Bellamy is fine as Ellery Queen, although his effectiveness as a genius crime-solver is perhaps hindered by the fact that he seems more interested in Nikki than he is in the actual case. Bellamy and Lindsay do their best to generate one of those witty rivalries but most of the dialog between the pair just isn't that good. (Lindsay: "The way you order me around, anyone would think I was your wife." Bellamy: "Yeah. Listening to you a stranger would assume you were.")

Unfortunately, as the plot thickens, the action slows way down. The somewhat muddled story involves Russell Hicks and Eduardo Cianelli as crooked business associates with a scheme to grab Ventro's treasure; Anna May Wong is Ventro's mysterious Chinese contact who may be involved somehow. Mantan Moreland brightens up his scenes as Hicks's butler.

It's plenty passable for fans of mystery series and character actors....but overall this one just lacks focus.

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.