Ralph Bellamy stars as Ellery Queen in Ellery Queen, Master Detective, from 1940. Margaret Lindsay plays Nikki Porter, here a competitor and a potential love interest of Ellery's. Charles Grapwin plays Inspector Queen.John Braun, who owns a fitness company and is a perfect specimen, finds out from his doctor that he's terminally ill. The next day, he changes his will, disinheriting his family and putting everything in the hands of the company.His daughter (Marsha Hunt) is estranged from him, and Nikki goes to talk to him about the situation. He's signed the will and locked himself in his study.Nikki waits a while and then finds out that she can't leave as the other door is locked. When she and Ellery finally get the door open, they find Braun dead from stabbing. The will and the murder weapon are gone. Ellery tells Nikki that as of now, she's the only one who could have done it.I haven't seen all the actors who have played Ellery Queen by any means - I remember George Nader when I was a child and Jim Hutton later on. The Jim Hutton series was marvelous. The George Nader version may have been live TV -- for some reason I distinctly remember him saying murtel and then correcting himself and saying murder. Bellamy is excellent, giving a spirited, light performance. He has good chemistry with Lindsay and with Charles Grapwin. His Ellery is super-smart and on the sarcastic side. "There's a door," Nikki says. "Oh, thank you," Ellery says. "I never would have found it." Margaret Lindsay is marvelous as Nikki, who goes after a plot that Ellery wanted to use in his next book, that of this locked room mystery. He hides her in his house, and the next day introduces her as their new cook. She can't even boil water and incurs the ire of Inspector Queen.I liked it - director Kurt Neumann keeps this 65-minute film moving. The plot is clever, and the film is enjoyable. Look for Charles Lane, who died in 2007 at the age of 102.

Now THERE's a mystery if ever there was one: John Braun, who's always been the perfectly healthy and athletic model for his fitness enterprise, learns that he's incurably ill - and changes his will the next day, disinheriting his family and leaving everything to his company. His daughter's friend Nikki goes to his home to talk to him right after he's signed the will and locked himself up in his study. She waits in the anteroom - and soon finds out that she can't get out, because the other door is locked as well; and when they finally manage to open the door, they find Braun sitting at his desk, stabbed, and both the will and the murder weapon missing - which leaves Nikki as the ONLY person who could have committed the murder...In this third 'Ellery Queen' mystery, Ralph Bellamy for the first time plays the police detective's son, writer, and hobby sleuth; and he does quite well, although he isn't quite as charming and funny as Donald Cook in the first one - he's more the serious, clever, and slightly ironic type. But the center of attraction (in every way) is Margaret Lindsay as Nikki, who is TRAPPED in every sense of the word...This is one of the movies to which should be added 'Don't tell the ending to anyone!' - because it REALLY takes a crime film or novel expert to solve the case. Classic murder mystery at its best here!

Fans of Ellery Queen had to feel quite a bit better with what Ralph Bellamy did with this and successive Ellery Queen movies. Ellery Queen, Master Detective has Ralph Bellamy both shielding a suspect and trying to find the evidence that will clear the woman he's shielding.The one whom Bellamy is shielding is Margaret Lindsay who would turn up in a few subsequent Ellery Queen features as his girl Friday. She's a friend of the daughter of the deceased and Lindsay resemblance to Marsha Hunt causes her and Bellamy a lot of grief.Silent film classic director Fred Niblo plays the deceased, a kind of Charles Atlas who is a physical fitness guru. His doctor and prospective son-in-law Michael Whalen has diagnosed him with an incurable disease and faced with the prospective of a long and lingering death, Niblo kills himself. But the weapon and a new will he made out are missing. And Lindsay was the last one to see him.As it turns out the events surrounding the crime can all be explained as they eventually are by natural causes. Except for the fact that Niblo's body is stolen twice from the hands of coroner Charles Lane. Someone had a real good reason for not wanting an autopsy.Bellamy was quite an improvement over Donald Cook and Eddie Quillan who played the mystery writer/sleuth before. Charley Grapewin settled nicely into the role of his patient, but somewhat harassed father Inspector Queen of NYPD homicide. I think you'll find this an interesting film for the performances and for the fact the solution is a somewhat unusual one.

This is the first entry in the "official" Ellery Queen film series (though actually the third film starring that character); Ellery is played by Ralph Bellamy, who is just a tad colorless in the part (Donald Cook of "The Spanish Cape Mystery" remains my favorite so far), but he does have a certain sweet chemistry with the beautiful Margaret Lindsay, especially when he wakes up in the middle of the night to cook her something to eat; Lindsay's presence and smile brighten the movie, and I'm glad they decided to make her a recurring character in the series. The plot is pretty ingenious - a seemingly unsolvable puzzle (the dead man is found in a locked room with his throat slashed; there is only one way in, but we know nobody went through there; he might have committed suicide, but then where is the weapon?) with a simple, oh-but-of-course! solution. But the film is not very exciting or suspenseful, although it does end with a brief car chase / crash which was somewhat of a surprise for a production of this caliber. ** out of 4.