The Mandarin Mystery

The world's most valuable stamp is arriving in port. Reporters crowd the dock to welcome the beautiful Miss Templeton, who owns the stamp and carries it in her purse. At the same time, noted mystery writer Ellery Queen is at the dock. He accidentally tosses some flowers into Miss Templeton's lap while she is being interviewed, which is apparently a cute way to meet.

The plot develops quickly: Miss Templeton visits a hotel to meet a collector who may buy the stamp. A stranger sneaks into Miss Templeton's room, steals the stamp out of her purse...and moments later he is murdered in a side room. We don't really think Miss Templeton killed him but she did come running out of that same room with the stamp in her hand.

The murder investigation is led by Inspector Queen, with inevitable help from his son Ellery, who after all is already acquainted with the leading suspect. Other suspects include the collector, his nieces, a boyfriend....

Charlotte Henry is earnest and cute as Miss Templeton but the character doesn't offer many surprises. Eddie Quillan is a mischievous and energetic Ellery who talks nonstop. His confident banter is sometimes humorous but often merely obnoxious.

Franklin Pangborn has a moderately amusing bit as the flustered hotel manager. Wade Boteler comes across well as the irascible Inspector Queen, and this picture's best moments are probably those that feature interplay between the two Queens.

Overall, Quillan is fun in the role but not especially convincing as a master of deduction. And the mystery itself--involving counterfeit stamps, a missing tangerine, and a locked door--is hard to get too excited about.

One funny line, though: Ellery pounds on the door of a hotel room that he knows is full of cops, and says, "Open in the name of the law!"

What are people complaining about! This is a pretty decent movie for what it is. It's a very entertaining movie to watch, thanks to its fine good old fashioned style of humor.

If this movie was made as a serious one it would had been a very bad movie. I mean, there is not really much to the story. There are too many characters (Atleast for an one hour movie.), which makes the story and the whole whodunit element of the movie quite confusing at times. The actual plot also just isn't that interesting and concentrates on the worlds most rare stamp, that appears to have been stolen.

The movie is really being saved by its fun. The movie foremost is like a comedy, rather than really a mystery movie. The actors are all entertaining in their roles and some of them are obviously deliberately over-the-top. It makes "The Mandarin Mystery" a real pleasant and light movie to watch. You know, the sort of movie that is great to watch in between.

Nothing too impressive, just some good old fashioned- and effective, simple entertainment.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The Mandarin Mystery is the second of two Ellery Queen films done by Columbia Pictures and it features Eddie Quillan as the amateur sleuth and son of a professional one. Instead of the shy bookish Ellery as realized best by Jim Hutton on a shortlived television series, we get a Smart Aleck punk who lives to show up the police department, especially Inspector Queen played here by Wade Boteler. No wonder fans of the series were up in arms.

The Mandarin referred to here is a Chinese stamp which was a rare misprint edition because the Mandarin portrayed on the postage stamp had his clothes on backwards. Charlotte Henry is going to sell the stamp to collector George Irving, but the stamp is stolen and the thief killed.

Unfortunately several minutes were eliminated from this film by YouTube so I had to piece it together in my mind. Not a bad story, but Quillan really kills this film.

Eddie Quillan was an odd choice to play the lead in this detective film because he was essentially a small smart-allecky little pip-squeak--not the brilliant or studly hero you'd expect to see in this type of film. Because of this, the film certainly IS unusual. The problem is that even with this novel portrayal, the film isn't all that interesting or well-done. At best it's a mediocre time-passer and not the equal of other series detective B-films from the period. For my time, I would much rather watch a Charlie Chan, Saint or Sherlock Holmes film--they seemed to have better production values and writing as well as a leading man that was more likable. Sorry,...I just didn't particularly care for this film.

Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as the Chinese Mandarin stamp that is worth a fortune--this was made up for the film.

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.