Saturday, June 2, 2018

The Mandarin Mystery (1936)

Eddie Quillan stars as Ellery Queen in this light-hearted and fast paced crime drama. The rarest stamp in the world (the Chinese Mandarin) has been bought to New York by Ms Temple (Charlotte Henry) but it is stolen before she can sell it to Dr Kirk (George Irving), a murder also takes place. Inspector Queen (Wade Boetler) and his cheeky amateur detective son Ellery are on the case...

Being a Golden Age type detective story it is fairly nonsense of course. Don't expect much reality in the police investigation which mostly involves rushing around a suite of hotel rooms and of course the amateur detective Ellery is allowed to control the investigation. However do expect some nice twists in the case and a few unexpected turns. The relationship between father and son Queen makes the film though. A total joy.