Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You

"Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You" was a super stylish pilot for a projected NBC series for the 1971-72 season.

"Ellery Queen" was up for a slot on the new "Wednesday Mystery Movie" wheel that wound up including "Columbo", "McCloud", and "McMillan and Wife". NBC almost picked "Ellery Queen" over "McMillan and Wife".

Barry Shear's direction of "Ellery Queen" was really stunning (including cartoon segments of the "hydra" killer).

Peter Lawford gave a light, suave, likable performance as Ellery Queen, even if he was miscast. Lawford was an appealing actor, who had been fine in "Good News", "The Longest Day", and "Advise and Consent". He even made a good Nick Charles in "The Thin Man".

I wish "Queen" had sold. "Ellery Queen" was really a who-done-it mystery, which you can't say for "Columbo" or "McCloud". "Ellery Queen" could have been a fine fourth detective on the mystery wheel. I think it would have been a success.

I could well have lived with the charming Peter Lawford as Ellery, but if the role had to be recast I think James Wainwright, Roy Thinnes, Mike Farrell, Michael Douglas, Michael Parks, or Bradford Dillman might have been interesting.

Andrew Duggan or Jose Ferrer would have been cool as Inspector Richard Queen, Ellery's father. But Harry Morgan made an excellent Inspector Queen in the movie.

To produce the show, I would have tried to get the great Richard Alan Simmons ("Trials of O'Brien", the "Banyon" movie pilot).

The writer of this "Ellery Queen" pilot movie was "Ted Leighton", which was a pseudonym for Richard Levinson and William Link ("Columbo"). Levinson/Link later produced the fondly remembered "Ellery Queen" series with Jim Hutton and David Wayne. (Edward Herrmann was also considered to play Ellery in the series in addition to Jim Hutton.) Levinson/Link sold their first story to "Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine" when they were teenagers. They must have been big fans of the writer/detective. Levinson/Link later created "Murder, She Wrote" about a woman writer/detective.

Don't Look Behind You does deserve to be judged separately, but the comparisons will be inevitable, it's just that when you watch this film and then the TV series or vice versa it is easy to see which is superior(in this case the TV series with Jim Hutton, one of my personal favourite shows of the 70s). Don't Look Behind You is not bad though, certainly better than it is given credit for despite its debits being really quite problematic. It is far from cheap, the soft grained image has a real charm to it, the lighting does give off a sinister and not too obvious atmosphere and it is evocative detail-to-period wise. The music has a real suavity and liveliness, there is some amusing smart dialogue especially between Ellery and Inspector Queen and the story and mystery is mostly diverting and keeps us guessing. The animation images for the hydra are genuinely creepy and still look good today, and the acting is serviceable with solid if fairly careful support acting and good chemistry between them. Harry Morgan is very good as Inspector Queen and Stefanie Powers is beautifully seductive. Peter Lawford from personal opinion however is miscast, that he is too old is not so much a problem but, while there are moments where he is very suave(and he has a pleasant speaking voice), he does come across as too aloof and too self-assured. The opening credits are cool but go on for far too long, the suspense is rather dragged out at times and when my house mates and I watched this all of us correctly guessed the identity of the killer too early. Some of the lighting at the end is a little too bright and somewhat surrealist as well. In conclusion, better than it's given credit for but not great. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I caught this on Youtube last night. I am a devotee of giallo and 70s horror and 60s/70s stylish detective/mystery films. The cast in particular intrigued me: Peter Lawford, Stefanie Powers, EG Marshall, Harry Morgan. The film itself is about a serial murderer in NYC, and there are scenes of public demonstrations as the entire city bunkers down to avoid being slain by the Hydra, who mysteriously strangles people based upon their age.

Stylistically, this is the pinnacle of 70s coolness. There are all of the decor elements (lamps with huge shades, shag carpeting, everyone with luxurious hair, groovy overcoats) and 1970 NYC is filmed beautifully, with its parks and sidewalks and traffic creating a very iconic backdrop for the acting.

The acting. Stefanie Powers can give a line reading like almost no one else. She really is in command of every dimension of the craft of acting, from microexpressions to posture to movement to speaking. She drops her voice down and uses a hushed girl-next-door tone when she speaks alone with Peter Lawford, and it's unbelievably warm and compelling. I found myself wishing that there were more scenes with her.

Lawford plays an annoying narcissistic juvenile of sixty whose only interests are substance abuse and promiscuity, and although I raised my eyebrow and was repulsed at first, I was won over quite soon. Harry Morgan is funny, and EG Marshall is a pompous and cold psychiatrist who makes me think of every TV psychiatrist I've ever seen.

The story is fun. They reveal the killer far earlier than I expected, and the rest of the film is a cat-and-mouse caper. There is one scene on the World Trade Center roof that suddenly becomes a Hitchcock-styled surrealist fantasy. NYC was beautiful in 1971, and the film uses the city for maximum effect.

I recommend this movie for fans of stylish and hip comedic murder mystery films.

In this adaption of an Ellery Queen novel obviously meant to be a TV pilot for a series, Peter Lawford essays the part of the famed mystery writer Criminologist. The case that he solves for the NYPD involves the seemingly random strangulations of certain men and women who have no apparent connection to each other. They're strangled with ribbons, blue for the men and pink for the women. And the press has given the serial killer the name of the Hydra.

The colors of the ribbons might give you a clue to what common denominator the victims have. And the motive is a twisted one from a very twisted mind.

Harry Morgan was a very good choice to play the part of Inspector Queen of the NYPD. Given their relative ages I thought that Peter Lawford was too old to be believable as Morgan's son. But fans of Ellery Queen must have been shocked when Morgan becomes Ellery's uncle and only a half brother at that to his father.

That helped the believability in ages, but Lawford turns out to be quite the swinger, something the cerebral Ellery Queen never was in the novels. Purists must have been aghast. Later on in the Seventies, Jim Hutton was perfect as the cerebral intellectual Ellery with David Wayne as his detective father. Too bad that series didn't have a longer life as well as it star should have.

E.G. Marshall plays a consulting psychiatrist who has an agenda himself and Coleen Gray his wife. Possible suspects and victims include Stefanie Powers and Skye Aubrey.

The film is all right, but Ellery Queen fans no doubt were disappointed.

The 70's Ellery Queen series is a joy for any mystery buff like me. I have the ones from the 30's and would love to obtain all of the ones from the 70's. Hutton is the best yet. Today' movies just cannot compete They depend too much on special effects The earlier movies gave you a chance to become part of it. You were able to think along with the characters. Solve the crime or at least attempt to.