Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941)

Genres - Mystery  |   Sub-Genres - Detective Film  |   Release Date - Mar 24, 1941 (USA - Unknown)  |   Run Time - 69 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues, Inspector Queen (Charles Grapewin) asks his son Ellery (Ralph Bellamy) to help out. The suspect list includes Cobb's ex-partner Walsh (Russell Hicks), phony nobleman Count Brett (Eduardo Cianelli), sleight-of-hand artist Jim Ritter (Theodore Von Eltz), Chinese patriot Lois Ling (Anna May Wong), and reporter-in-disguise Sanders (Frank Albertson). Despite his inability to make a move without breaking something or taking a pratfall, Ellery Queen solves the case.

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Keywords

disguise, magician [performer], murder, murder-suspect, private-detective, reporter, jewel-robbery, ventriloquist