A Close Call for Ellery Queen

William Gargan takes over the role of Ellery Queen as the mystery writer turned detective in A Close Call For Ellery Queen. He has a couple of close calls, but it's Margaret Lindsay who really puts herself in jeopardy with a masquerade.

Edward Norris private secretary to millionaire Ralph Morgan asks for Ellery's help in getting rid of a pair of unwanted guests who have planted themselves at Morgan's estate. Norris suspects blackmail of some kind, but before Gargan can go to work the guests Andrew Toombes and Charles Judel wind up shot to death in the back room of a waterfront dive.

Lindsay insinuates herself in the case by masquerading as a long lost daughter who with her 'sister' Kay Linnaker stands to inherit a fortune from Morgan. Still yet another murder occurs before all is revealed.

A Close Call For Ellery Queen is one of the best of the series. Gargan acquits himself well in the part though I do like Ralph Bellamy better. Though none of the screen Queens fit the author's conception of the part as Jim Hutton did on television, I still like the structure and direction of this film and the performances the director got from his cast.