Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

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.

This outing for the famed detective really did remind me of the contemporary "Charlie Chan" adventures and to be honest, it comes off the worst. When a wealthy Chinese family donate some gems to try and help alleviate the problems of their starving population. It falls to ventriloquist "Madison" (Gordon Cobb) to get them to New York when they can be converted into cash - some $300,000! He goes missing so his daughter contacts her pal "Nikki" (an on-form Margaret Lindsay) who just happens to work for our eponymous sleuth (Ralph Bellamy) - and off we go on a rather complex cloak and dragon dagger mystery that includes a body in a trunk in a penthouse and more suspects than you can shake a stick at. Can the constantly bickering "Queen" and "Nikki" get to the bottom of the mystery before the jewels are gone forever? It's quite a characterful edition of the franchise this with Bellamy competent enough, but it's let down by a pretty formulaic story and a conclusion that is too convenient and rushed. Keep an eye out for Mantan Moreland, but otherwise this is just standard detective fayre that amiably but forgettably kills an hour.

Noel Madison who is a professional ventriloquist and also something of an international man of mystery is given a fortune in jewels to take from China to New York. The money from the sail is to provide war relief for the starving Chinese people. But complications do ensue.

When Madison disappears his daughter Ann Doran seeks out her friend Margaret Lindsay. In the only reference to a previous Queen film that I've seen so far she compliments her on assisting Ellery Queen in the John Braun death from Ellery Queen Master Detective.

With such a flattering reference how could Ralph Bellamy resist a call for assistance. Bellamy finds the dead Mr. Madison stuffed in a trunk about to be shipped to Chicago.

Bellamy has a nice collection of suspects including the mysterious Anna May Wong, business manager Russell Hicks, another man of mystery Eduardo Ciannelli to name three. Eventually the murder is solved and quite frankly I guessed who it was, but the motive came out of left field.

Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery was the second of four with Ralph Bellamy, dare I say it, the best of the movie Queens.

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.