Starring Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charley Grapewin, Anna May Wong, James
Burke, Charles Lane
Directed by James P. Hogan

Print: black/white
Runtime: 69 min.
Genre: mystery
Print Quality: B

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.