Tag: James Burke

Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring (1941, James P. Hogan)

Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring‘s title confuses me for a couple reasons. First, Ralph Bellamy’s Ellery Queen disappears for long stretches of the seventy-minute runtime. When he does show up, he usually makes a mistake or overlooks something, then someone else comes in and gets the investigation back on track. Second is the Murder Ring. There isn’t one in the movie. Not in either obvious usage of the word “ring.”

Most of Murder Ring takes place at a hospital–wait a second, they never solve the inciting mystery in the film. It gets so confused, everyone (including the viewer, hopefully) forgets.

Anyway, most of the picture involves two bumbling crooks, played by Paul Hurst and Tom Dugan, trying to escape from the hospital. They’re worried they’re murder suspects, so they assault cops, kidnap girls and so on to escape and prove their innocence.

Did I mention Murder Ring is really dumb?

The hospital hijinks probably take more than a third of the runtime–maybe forty minutes of it–and then the case gets solved in the last fifteen. Bellamy doesn’t do much solving. His assistant, an appealing Margaret Lindsay does most of the work… even though she’s not much brighter than Bellamy. They do have decent chemistry though.

Mona Barrie and James Burke give the best supporting performances. Hurst’s W.C. Fields impression gets tiresome.

Hogan’s direction is adequate, but Dwight Caldwell’s editing is awful.

It’s probably most useful as an example of why whodunits shouldn’t be slapstick.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by James P. Hogan; screenplay by Eric Taylor and Gertrude Purcell, based on a story by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee; director of photography, James S. Brown Jr.; edited by Dwight Caldwell; music by Zee Zahler; produced by Larry Darmour; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Ralph Bellamy (Ellery Queen), Margaret Lindsay (Nikki Porter), Charley Grapewin (Insp. Queen), Mona Barrie (Nurse Marian Tracy), Paul Hurst (Page), James Burke (Sgt. Velie), Leon Ames (John Stack), George Zucco (Dr. Edwin L. Jannery), Blanche Yurka (Mrs. Augusta Stack), Charlotte Wynters (Miss Fox), Tom Dugan (Lou Thomas), Olin Howland (Dr. Williams), Dennis Moore (Dr. Dunn), Jean Fenwick (Alice Stack) and Pierre Watkin (Crothers).

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The Mystery Man (1935, Ray McCarey)

I hope Robert Armstrong got paid well for The Mystery Man, because it doesn’t do him any other good. While it’s nice to see Armstrong in a lead role, the film’s so incompetently produced, it’s sometimes painful. Armstrong acts well but director McCarey doesn’t know how to compose shots. You’ll get what should be a close-up as a medium shot. Of course, the script’s bad too so Armstrong’s working against it too.

The plot isn’t terrible—Armstrong’s a newspaper reporter with more ego than sense who finds himself broke after a week-long bender. He meets Maxine Doyle, who’s in similar financial straits. The problem with the film is mostly Doyle. If she were any good, the film might be charming, regardless of technical merits and writing. But she’s awful—just painfully bad.

But so’s the rest of the supporting cast. Armstrong’s sidekicks, played by James P. Burtis, Monte Collins and Sam Lufkin, all awful. His bosses—Henry Kolker and James Burke—awful. Guy Usher turns in the closest thing to a decent performance, but he’s not good by any stretch.

Meanwhile, there’s Armstrong moving through these inept actors, trying to do what he can with the bad dialogue, on the incredibly cheap sets (the hotel suite appears to be the newspaper editor’s office too, based on the wall design)… and he maintains some dignity.

The concept isn’t bad; it could have been a good leading man vehicle for Armstrong… instead of an unfortunate, disappointing entry in his filmography.