Ventriloquist Ventro the Great has something of a secret identity—he's Gordon Cobb, a mysterious, well-connected, behind-the-scenes man (maybe a diplomat or a spy or just a playboy, we're never quite sure). In China, he's been hired by Tran Yan Sum to take a cache of jewels to the United States and sell it for money to be returned to China to buy food and supplies for refugees from the war with Japan. But we notice that some shadowy figures follow him across the ocean. When he arrives in New York City, the first thing he does is call a Miss Ling from his penthouse hotel room. Two days later, Sheila, his daughter, goes to detective Ellery Queen and his secretary (and girlfriend and would-be assistant sleuth) Nikki and asks for help as she knows her father arrived but she has not heard from him yet. Queen reluctantly agrees to investigate (he's apparently rented an office just to do work on a manuscript and resents it when Nikki accepts cases for him), and when he arrives at Cobb's hotel room, two porters are about to remove a trunk, but when Cobb's dead body tumbles from the trunk, Queen is definitely on the case. Others involved are Sanders, a bellboy who is actually a reporter; Count Brett, a passenger on the same ship which brought Cobb to the States; Walsh, overseer of Cobb's business affairs; Ritter, a gambler; and the exotic Miss Ling. This B-mystery starts off OK, but soon falls into the same trap as many other low-budget thrillers of the era: the urge to complicate matters in order to make up for cheap sets, lackluster acting and direction, and no musical score. I got so lost that by the climax, I didn't really care who killed Cobb. Ralph Bellamy, the fifth actor I've seen in the role, counting TV’s Jim Hutton, barely registers on screen; the best is Donald Cook; Charley Grapewin is his even blander father, Margaret Lindsay has little to do as Nikki. Frank Albertson does OK as Sanders and Anna May Wong is Miss Ling, a red herring role. Also with Mantan Moreland. I can't even really recommend this to B-mystery fans. The picture is a publicity shot of Lindsay, Bellamy and Wong. [YouTube]
Thursday, April 19, 2018
ELLERY QUEEN’S PENTHOUSE MYSTERY (1941)
Ventriloquist Ventro the Great has something of a secret identity—he's Gordon Cobb, a mysterious, well-connected, behind-the-scenes man (maybe a diplomat or a spy or just a playboy, we're never quite sure). In China, he's been hired by Tran Yan Sum to take a cache of jewels to the United States and sell it for money to be returned to China to buy food and supplies for refugees from the war with Japan. But we notice that some shadowy figures follow him across the ocean. When he arrives in New York City, the first thing he does is call a Miss Ling from his penthouse hotel room. Two days later, Sheila, his daughter, goes to detective Ellery Queen and his secretary (and girlfriend and would-be assistant sleuth) Nikki and asks for help as she knows her father arrived but she has not heard from him yet. Queen reluctantly agrees to investigate (he's apparently rented an office just to do work on a manuscript and resents it when Nikki accepts cases for him), and when he arrives at Cobb's hotel room, two porters are about to remove a trunk, but when Cobb's dead body tumbles from the trunk, Queen is definitely on the case. Others involved are Sanders, a bellboy who is actually a reporter; Count Brett, a passenger on the same ship which brought Cobb to the States; Walsh, overseer of Cobb's business affairs; Ritter, a gambler; and the exotic Miss Ling. This B-mystery starts off OK, but soon falls into the same trap as many other low-budget thrillers of the era: the urge to complicate matters in order to make up for cheap sets, lackluster acting and direction, and no musical score. I got so lost that by the climax, I didn't really care who killed Cobb. Ralph Bellamy, the fifth actor I've seen in the role, counting TV’s Jim Hutton, barely registers on screen; the best is Donald Cook; Charley Grapewin is his even blander father, Margaret Lindsay has little to do as Nikki. Frank Albertson does OK as Sanders and Anna May Wong is Miss Ling, a red herring role. Also with Mantan Moreland. I can't even really recommend this to B-mystery fans. The picture is a publicity shot of Lindsay, Bellamy and Wong. [YouTube]
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