Rainey Dawn
I acquired this film in the Dark Crimes 50-Pack. It's NOT a Dark Crime film but rather a light comedy crime drama. It involves a mystery: a stolen $50,000 Chinese Mandari stamp and murder - all in a hotel. Who is the murderer? Inspector Queen & Ellery Queen must find out (a father and son team).This particular Ellery Queen is just weird. He's young and bizarre. Loves a certain young lady that had her stamp stolen, bubble baths, a strange relationship with his father, weird gestures & expressions on his face and lame humor.This film is not bad - it's mediocre. Not a film I would care to watch again but fun enough for a one time watch.4.5 /10
kidboots
I haven't seen many of Eddie Quillan's movies but it wouldn't be the first time that the characters in a film fail to resemble their bookish originals.Josephine Temple (Charlotte Henry) arrives in New York with the world's most valuable stamp - the Chinese Mandarin. For something so precious it is carelessly handled - she shows it to various people at the wharf and then carries it around in her purse. Of course it is stolen but the thief winds up dead and the stamp ends up with Josephine. This is one of those locked room mysteries. There is no end of suspects apart from Josephine. There is Donald Trent (George Walcott), who knew the dead man and owed him money. Irene (Kay Hughes) and Martha Kirk (Rita La Roy), sisters, who can't live on the allowance their uncle provides. Martha is just about to tell all she knows when she is killed by an unknown assassin. Ellery Queen (Eddie Quillan) solves the mystery with a re-creation of the crime. I quite liked him in the role. The rapport between him and his father was good. Franklin Pangborn does his turn as a harassed hotel manager.Charlotte Henry made a very lovely heroine. Her career was scuttled in 1933 when she won the coveted role of Alice in "Alice in Wonderland". After that, she said, people could only see her in those type of roles. It is very nice to see her portray a modern young woman.Recommended.
Boba_Fett1138
What are people complaining about! This is a pretty decent movie for what it is. It's a very entertaining movie to watch, thanks to its fine good old fashioned style of humor.If this movie was made as a serious one it would had been a very bad movie. I mean, there is not really much to the story. There are too many characters (Atleast for an one hour movie.), which makes the story and the whole whodunit element of the movie quite confusing at times. The actual plot also just isn't that interesting and concentrates on the worlds most rare stamp, that appears to have been stolen.The movie is really being saved by its fun. The movie foremost is like a comedy, rather than really a mystery movie. The actors are all entertaining in their roles and some of them are obviously deliberately over-the-top. It makes "The Mandarin Mystery" a real pleasant and light movie to watch. You know, the sort of movie that is great to watch in between.Nothing too impressive, just some good old fashioned- and effective, simple entertainment.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/
cutterccbaxter
Eddie Quillan struck me more as a second-banana comic-relief type actor than one who can carry a film. But such is the casting in many a B film. The script and Eddie's acting sets up Ellery Queen as some kind of goof ball crime solver. Eddie pretty much grins his way through the movie. I kept expecting another actor to show up with more gravitas, push Eddie aside, and say, "Thanks for filling in Eddie, I'll take over now." As the fussy hotel manager, Franklin Pangborn was his usual reliable self as he provided the best comedic moments in a film that otherwise really struggled to be funny. The mystery aspect of the story wasn't too bad. The killer certainly made good use of a dead body.
AD
