This has to be the most juvenile version of a private detective I've ever seen on screen. Imagine younger versions of Philo Vance, Nick Charles, Boston Blackie, Nick Carter or Dick Tracy, chasing girls and gangsters at the same time, and stopping off to ogle some innocent beauty while en route. That's what happens here, with Ellery Queen at his most collegiate. As played by Eddie Quillan, he's a far cry from what Ralph Bellamy or Jim Hutton would later play. Like those later incarnations of the famous detective, Ellery Queen has his king, and that's his dad Wade Boteler who is tough on him, not just because that's dad's personality (as was the case in the later film and TV series) but because Ellery's got a lot to learn and a lot of toning down to do. That weakens this entry which concerns two murders and a theft, with Charlotte Henry as the heroine whose finances are at risk and who is tied to the murders and the theft. As juvenile as he seems, the methods Ellery uses are smart, more thanks to the script than reality. Franklin Pangborn is amusing as the continuously fainting hotel clerk who can't bear all the dead bodies. Bad editing (over 10 minutes cut out for TV viewing) makes this choppy, but that's the fault of whoever over at Republic pictures decides that their films needed a reel chopped out for TV viewing.

Plot: Inspector Queen, helped by his quick-witted son, Ellery, find themselves investigating the murder of an unknown man amidst the world of stamp collecting.Review: This is a light and humorous affair, with a good set of character actors. It looked interesting from IMDb reviews and I was keen to find out what 'Ellery Queen' was all about.The Ellery Queen novels were originally written for magazine publication in the 1920s, with the idea of giving the reader all the necessary clues to solve the mystery for themselves, if they had the patience, or just enjoy them as cleverly put-together detective mysteries.The movie doesn't quite live up to that ideal, but the character acting more than makes up for this. Charlotte Henry and Eddie Quillan play the leads and give enjoyable, easy-going performances. Charlotte Henry disappeared from the screen after the early 1940s, moving to stage work. Eddie Quillan has a certain quality about him, and it wasn't a surprise to discover he was in The Grapes of Wrath playing the moody husband who abandons his pregnant wife when times get hard. Acting from the age of seven, he continued into his early 70s, his last appearance being in 1987 in the TV series Matlock.The Mandarin Mystery doesn't really merit in depth analysis, other than to say it passes an hour easily. Simply a good fun one-off, with neither the director or stars making any movie shorts in a similar vein.www.thebestmovieof.com

This adaptation of an Ellery Queen mystery concerns the theft of a rare Chinese stamp (the Mandarin of the title), which takes place in a hotel with several shifty characters and an hysterical manager (the priceless Franklin Pangborn). The mystery, such as it is, concerns both the stamp theft and two murders, and shows Ellery and his father the Inspector as a team rubbing together just enough to solve the case.As Ellery Queen, Eddie Quillan is all wrong - he was more at home in light comedy and musicals, and this is the way he plays the character. As the heroine/chief suspect, Charlotte Henry (only remembered nowadays as 'Alice in Wonderland') isn't too bad, while others who have some impact in the cast include Rita Le Roy and Kay Hughes as sisters, and Wade Boteler as Queen senior.

Using the Ellery Queen characters, this little yarn spins a tale of a stolen stamp of great value. A murder is committed and the victim doesn't seem to fit the situation. It has that thirties silliness where all the police are a bunch of snarly knuckleheads. They couldn't find their way out of a shoebox. Anyway the young Queen, who is irreverent and extremely amorous, condescends to enter the case because he has designs on the leading lady, a feisty thing who doesn't seem to be affected by much of anything, including a corpse. There is a little crime solving of the CSI variety built in. There's lots of comedy, including a fainting hotel manager (who actually detracts from the affairs at hand. Still the plot is entertaining and fast moving and isn't as stilted and sappy than many of its genre. Queen is a bit too much for my tastes, but, then, this was another time and another place. It shows why the Thin Man series worked so well. It was the charm of their characters and they way they played off one another. Give this one a look if you can.