Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring

Ralph Bellamy made four Ellery Queen movies for Larry Darmour, releasing through Columbia in the early 1940s. The fourth is a typically well constructed murder mystery. Blanche Yurka is a penny-pinching rich woman whom everyone wants dead: her son, Leon Ames, whom she won't give any money to; her daughter, Jean Fenwick, whom she keeps on a similarly tight leash; George Zucco, the head doctor at the hospital she owns, who wants to give his medical advance to the world, when she insists she owns it; and gangsters Paul Hurst and Tom Dugan, who have run her off the road to kill her on Ames' instruction. She winds up in the hospital, not dead.... but dies, strangled.... everyone wants her dead. No one could have done it.

A fine mystery and, like the others in the series, it plays fair with the fans of the genre. Unfortunately, it's a lot weaker than earlier entries, being weakened by a ot of dumb humor to eke its length out to a standard length of just over 69 minutes. It's good to see Bellamy, Margaret Linday as Nikki Porter and Charley Grapewin as Inspector Queen again, but the movie would have been more pleasing had it been a bit less stereotyped. and rote.

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 !

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.

Augusta Stack was almost killed in a deliberate traffic accident. As a result, she's in the hospital...where Ellery Queen (Ralph Bellamy) is working undercover. She was shaken up and her leg broken...but oddly she died in surgery! Soon, other bodies start piling up and when the cops and Queen investigate, they find lots of people who had reason to kill the old woman...and perhaps the rest. Can Ellery solve the crimes before his lady friend, Nikki (Margaret Lindsay) gets herself killed while snooping into the case as well?

During the 1930s and 40s, a zillion B-murder mysteries were made in Hollywood. They all had a lot of similarities and cliches (such as in this one where Nikki essentially confronts the murderer while having no backup nor a weapon with which to defend herself!). But it is an enjoyable film...worth seeing if you like the genre and a bit better made than usual.

By the way, unlike many sleuths (such as Charlie Chan), tons of different actors played Ellery Queen and none came to own the role or appear in more than a few films. It's a shame Bellamy didn't do more of these films...he was pretty good here.

The fourth and final film of the Ellery Queen series that Ralph Bellamy starred in has the mystery writer checking into a hospital that grande society dame Blanche Yurka has endowed. Later on when Yurka is killed there are a lot of suspects at home and in the hospital. Her two children Leon Ames and Jean Fenwick who are about to be cut from her will for instance. Doctor in charge of the hospital George Zucco has a vested interest as does gangster Paul Hurst whom Ames is into for a lot of money. Not to mention all kinds of hospital staff and patients.

Two more deaths occur before Bellamy, girl Friday Margaret Lindsay and Inspector Queen played always by Charley Grapewin figure it all out.

There's more comedy in this Ellery Queen mystery than in any of the others I've seen, a lot of it involving Paul Hurst trying to break out of the hospital with the 'help' of his chief gunman Tom Dugan. Bellamy and Lindsay get a few laughs as well with her sneaking into the hospital disguised as a nurse.

Ellery Queen And The Murder Ring was a good farewell for Ralph Bellamy in the series.