Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You

When I got my first VCR in 1980, I set out to get as many detective films as possible, and looked forward to each as a gem in my collection. After reading about several such films, and having seen the Jim Hutton/David Wayne series, I thought when I found that Harry Morgan would be Inspector Queen, I knew there would be some fun watching it. I was not disappointed with Morgan's performance, but Peter Lawford seemed an unlikely choice to play the crime solver, Ellery Queen. I could easily see why this TV pilot was not picked up as a series. The casting. Simple as that. Lawford was all wrong. Now, I have yet to see more than still photos and reviews of the other E.Q. movies or several TV series (there were at least 4 different Ellerys) so I cannot compare one to the other, but I can tell you that I remember a TV guide article written by the son of one of the two Ellery Queen creators (I forget whether it was Manfred B. Lee or Frederick Dannay) and he said that his dad would agree that Jim Hutton was the closest to what Ellery Queen would be, and also David Wayne as the irascible Inspector. (Both actors for Inspector Queen were perfectly cast in my humble opinion.) It was a fairly good mystery as I remember it, and will have to watch it again sometime if I can ever dig it out of my over-sized collection. I remember loving the little animated "bumper" that was used at each commercial break. The book title was something about a "cat-o-nine tales." (Not that is not a typo either.) Now if only we could have seen the series that almost happened starring the seventh of a ton, orchid loving, gourmand detective Nero Wolfe, with Orson Welles (another time it was to be Raymond Burr) and John Ritter (still another time, Bill Cosby) as Archie Goodwin.

But that's another topic altogether.

I like Peter Lawford, and I like David Wayne, and I liked this movie.

The main reason I remember it so fondly was that many, many years ago there was a snowstorm in Frazee, Minnesota, and our local tv channel was down, so they spent the entire day rerunning this movie! I saw it five times!

The real problem for me wasn't the casting. The real problem was trying to update the basic story to the then-current 1970s.

It is easy to believe that a serial killer could paralyze New York City during the tense transnational period after World War II. It is harder to believe that ONE serial killer could paralyze the City to such a degree in 1971.

The casting would've worked better if they hadn't updated the story. Once again, it would've been easier to believe in the wake of two World Wars that an English-accented mystery author could have a New York police inspector as an uncle.

One thing I will critique about Peter Lawford's performance. At this point in his lengthy career producers (whether at his insistence or not I don't know) continually cast him as a swinging playboy. THAT is something this TV movie could've done without.

In this adaption of an Ellery Queen novel obviously meant to be a TV pilot for a series, Peter Lawford essays the part of the famed mystery writer Criminologist. The case that he solves for the NYPD involves the seemingly random strangulations of certain men and women who have no apparent connection to each other. They're strangled with ribbons, blue for the men and pink for the women. And the press has given the serial killer the name of the Hydra.

The colors of the ribbons might give you a clue to what common denominator the victims have. And the motive is a twisted one from a very twisted mind.

Harry Morgan was a very good choice to play the part of Inspector Queen of the NYPD. Given their relative ages I thought that Peter Lawford was too old to be believable as Morgan's son. But fans of Ellery Queen must have been shocked when Morgan becomes Ellery's uncle and only a half brother at that to his father.

That helped the believability in ages, but Lawford turns out to be quite the swinger, something the cerebral Ellery Queen never was in the novels. Purists must have been aghast. Later on in the Seventies, Jim Hutton was perfect as the cerebral intellectual Ellery with David Wayne as his detective father. Too bad that series didn't have a longer life as well as it star should have.

E.G. Marshall plays a consulting psychiatrist who has an agenda himself and Coleen Gray his wife. Possible suspects and victims include Stefanie Powers and Skye Aubrey.

The film is all right, but Ellery Queen fans no doubt were disappointed.

Peter Lawford as Ellery Queen is called in by his half-uncle, Harry Morgan as Inspector Queen, to investigate a serial killer dubbed 'the Hydra' who is terrorizing New York City.

It's based on the Ellery Queen novel Cat of Many Tails. Published in 1949, it may have been the first mystery novel to deal seriously with serial killers, and it made use of several novelties in telling its tale, including lengthy vignettes of the victims to begin the book. By 1971, serial killers were much more a commonplace of the world and fiction, and this TV movie soon gets bogged down in cliches. Lawford in a ridiculous toupee is poorly cast. While there was extensive shooting in Manhattan to provide atmosphere, the pieces are put together in a way that is clearly wrong; a commonplace of movie geography, alas. Finally, the solution to the mystery of who the murderer was turned out not to be too difficult. I had it figured out by the 40-minute mark. Well in advance of the intrepid crime novelist. With E. G. Marshall and Stefanie Power.

When NBC began the television series in 1975, they wisely used Jim Hutton as Ellery, and David Wayne as the Inspector.