Ellery Queen's Penthouse
Mystery
Director: James Hogan
Year: 1941
Rating: 5.0
This is the second Ellery Queen with Ralph Bellamy as the title character.
It isn't exactly an edge of your seat suspense murder case - more of a shaggy
dog story with an anti-climatic ending - much like the first one, Ellery
Queen Master Detective. These are for when you are in the mood just to see
a few good actors go through their paces in a low budget film with no ambitions
other than a few laughs and a hint of mystery.
This one has the added bonus of two famous actors in supporting roles. The
great Anna May Wong is in this one as a Chinese agent who gets into a cat
fight with Margaret Lindsay - a regular in the series of 7 films from Columbia
- and Mantan Moreland as some comic relief though admittedly in a very unPC
way. Mantan still always brings a smile to my face and with Anna you kind
of a wince because she is so much better than many of the roles she got in
Hollywood - check her out in the 1928 film Piccadilly if you ever can - a
tour de force of sexual magnetism.
This one begins in China when a group of wealthy Chinese men appoint a Gwielo
to take their jewelry to New York to be sold to help the Chinese cause. After
he arrives in the city he is murdered in his hotel penthouse and his body
hidden. His daughter is a friend of Nikki Porter (Lindsay) and she drags
Queen into another murder case. Anna May Wong is part of the Chinese patriot
group to support China. Very much as she was in real life. Both this film
and the first Master Detective are or at least were available on YouTube
though not in the greatest quality.
