Jim Hutton plays the mystery character/author Ellery Queen in this series about kinder, gentler murders.
It's New Year's Eve shortly after World War II and Guy Lombardo (ubiquitous to New Years celebrations when the series aired) has a prominent, though non-speaking part.
The cast is interesting, if not particularly moving: old movie actor Farley Granger (from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train"); a pre-"Charlie's Angels" David Doyle; a pre-"Dynasty" (but still famous) Joan Collins; George Wyner; Ray Walston, Herb Edelmann . . . And they're all acting like crazy. Believe me, Hitchcock, this ain't.
Unfortunately, Jim Hutton's likeable Ellery absent-mindedly arrives late to the party. Part of the joy of this series is the chemistry between Hutton and David Wayne, who plays his father; and in this episode they only come together near the climax.
Some of the solutions in this series are silly but the fun is the journey, not the destination. This early in the series, they hadn't quite hit their stride. Better episodes lay over the horizon.
While some reviewers think of the series as old-fashioned, it *is* set in the 1940s. And when the series first aired it would evoke nostalgia, being no farther from its time period than we at 2024 are from the turn of the 21st century. And while they do a good job of evoking a stylized 1840s, the series has 1970s written all over it.
Still, weak "Ellery Queen" is better than most shoot-em-ups.
It's New Year's Eve shortly after World War II and Guy Lombardo (ubiquitous to New Years celebrations when the series aired) has a prominent, though non-speaking part.
The cast is interesting, if not particularly moving: old movie actor Farley Granger (from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train"); a pre-"Charlie's Angels" David Doyle; a pre-"Dynasty" (but still famous) Joan Collins; George Wyner; Ray Walston, Herb Edelmann . . . And they're all acting like crazy. Believe me, Hitchcock, this ain't.
Unfortunately, Jim Hutton's likeable Ellery absent-mindedly arrives late to the party. Part of the joy of this series is the chemistry between Hutton and David Wayne, who plays his father; and in this episode they only come together near the climax.
Some of the solutions in this series are silly but the fun is the journey, not the destination. This early in the series, they hadn't quite hit their stride. Better episodes lay over the horizon.
While some reviewers think of the series as old-fashioned, it *is* set in the 1940s. And when the series first aired it would evoke nostalgia, being no farther from its time period than we at 2024 are from the turn of the 21st century. And while they do a good job of evoking a stylized 1840s, the series has 1970s written all over it.
Still, weak "Ellery Queen" is better than most shoot-em-ups.