Ellery Queen: Season 1
Fairmont/Foxcroft Productions (1975)
TV Series  /  Drama, Family, Crime, Mystery
In Collection
#2158
0*
Seen ItNo
741952675594
IMDB   8.3
1172 mins USA / English
DVD  Region 1   US - TV-PG
David Wayne Inspector Richard Queen
Jim Hutton Ellery Queen
Tom Reese Sgt. Thomas Velie
John Hillerman Simon Brimmer
Nina Roman Grace
Nick Borgani Caterer
Ken DuMain Party Guest
Bob Harks Pedestrian
Ken Swofford Frank Flannigan
Ray Milland Carson McKell
Murray Pollack Party Guest
Dee Wallace-Stone Waitress / Mamie
Benjie Bancroft Photographer
John Finnegan Matthew Thomas Cleary
Monty O'Grady Party Guest
Dick Cherney Court Clerk
Basil Hoffman Fingerprint Expert
Cosmo Sardo Club Member
Arch Johnson The Commissioner
Ross Elliott Judge
Director
Seymour Robbie
Jack Arnold
Walter Doniger
Peter H. Hunt
Producer Richard Levinson
William Link
Peter S. Fischer
Michael Rhodes
Writer Richard Levinson
William Link
Frederic Dannay
Manfred Lee
Cinematography John M. Nickolaus Jr.
Howard Schwartz
Alric Edens
Musician Elmer Bernstein
Dana Kaproff
Jimmie Haskell

This is one of the classic TV whodunits -- with a twist. The show's format was such that the audience would see everything that the show's namesake character would see, including all of the clues, and then, right before the final scene started (you know... the one where all the suspects are brought into the room for the "YOU... killed the victim. And you did it because..." scene, the star (Ellery Queen, of course) would turn to the TV audience and state "Okay, you've got all the clues. Do you know who did it? I think I do. Can you guess?" And the audience had the chance to be part of the show. Quite unique and half the fun.
Episodes
 92 mins    3/23/1975  1.  Too Many Suspects
When a famous fashion designer is found murdered, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD is baffled by her dying clue, prompting him to bring in his son, mystery writer Ellery Queen, to help in the investigation.
 49 mins    9/11/1975  2.  The Adventure of Auld Lang Syne
After a wealthy industrialist threatens to disinherit family and staff at a New Year's Eve party, he is soon found murdered in a nearby phone booth by fellow guest Inspector Queen, who calls on son Ellery to help unmask the killer.
 49 mins    9/18/1975  3.  The Adventure of the Lover's Leap
When an heiress is found dead from an apparent suicide, Ellery Queen suspects she was murdered, but the investigation is hindered by interference from radio detective Simon Brimmer.
 49 mins    9/25/1975  4.  The Adventure of the Chinese Dog
A fishing trip for Richard and Ellery Queen soon becomes a working vacation when they are asked to help investigate the murder of a small town magnate.
 49 mins    10/2/1975  5.  The Adventure of the Comic Book Crusader
A tyrannical comic book creator is shot to death in his office, and Ellery Queen becomes the prime suspect.
 49 mins    10/9/1975  6.  The Adventure of the 12th Floor Express
Inspector Queen calls in his son Ellery to help investigate the murder of a newspaper publisher, who first disappears from his private express elevator then is later found there dead by gunshot.
 48 mins    10/19/1975  7.  The Adventure of Miss Aggie's Farewell Performance
Beloved Vera Bethune stars as Miss Aggie in a radio soap opera, but is about to be written out. One day she drinks water from a jug and is poisoned in a murder attempt. She is taken to the hospital and survives, but the killer returns.
 49 mins    10/23/1975  8.  The Adventure of Colonel Nivin's Memoirs
Ellery's publicist becomes embroiled in a murder investigation when she finds the body of one of her clients, a World War II spy who recently wrote a tell-all memoir.
 49 mins    10/30/1975  9.  The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party
Ellery finds himself in a country house with a missing producer and a number of guests who wanted the producer gone for good.
 49 mins    11/13/1975  10.  The Adventure of Veronica's Veils
A burlesque show producer drops dead of a heart attack, and leaves a post-humous tape asking Simon Brimmer to find his killer.
 49 mins    12/11/1975  11.  The Adventure of the Pharaoh's Curse
Ellery and Simon join forces to figure out if an airplane manufacturer was murdered - or killed by a 2,000-year-old Egyptian curse.
 49 mins    12/18/1975  12.  The Adventure of the Blunt Instrument
Edgar Manning, a mystery writer, wins the annual Blunt Instrument Award for his year's work and goes to pick it up at a party. Ellery, who was Edgar's rival for the award, is sidelined because of a nasty cold. So Edgar gleefully phones Ellery and gives a blow-by-blow description of the award ceremony (including describing the trophy) as he leans back in his easy chair. But the phone call is interrupted by a sickening thud. Ellery calls out to Edgar but gets no response. Cut back to Edgar, who's now face down on his desk. His skull was shattered by ... The Blunt Instrument, the trophy itself.
 49 mins    1/4/1976  13.  The Adventure of the Black Falcon
Letting a fine wine "breathe" proves deadly for the wine's owner Nick Kingston, who leaves it unattended for a killer to poison it. The vintner, who's hosting a party upstairs, comes back only to collapse. He tries to implicate the killer but breaks the wine cellar's only pencil, so he crawls to a wine rack and grabs a bottle, smashing it on the floor. The shattered bottle bears the label Black Falcon, indicating it was tied to World War One. But how?
 49 mins    1/11/1976  14.  The Adventure of the Sunday Punch
During a practice bout, a lucky shot knocks champion boxer Kid Hogan unconscious. He revives enough to sip some water from his manager's "swill bottle," then falls comatose and is soon pronounced dead. An autopsy reveals he was poisoned, and the "swill bottle" was loaded with poison. The manager is strongly implicated, but so is the opponent Joe Simpson.
 48 mins    1/18/1976  15.  The Adventure of the Eccentric Engineer
Famous inventor Lamont Franklin suddenly withdraws from the world and starts holing up in his shed, playing incessantly with his toy trains. So why would someone kill him? A clue at the beginning of the show: before the inventor answers the knock of his killer, he hides some secret formulas in a secret - compartment desk drawer.
 48 mins    1/25/1976  16.  The Adventure of the Wary Witness
Linville Hagen, on trial for murder, claims that the victim Nick Danello was shot through a window from a fire escape, and that Hagen fired at the killer. The defendant's lawyer Leo Campbell claims that he can bring in a witness, a woman who was beaten up by the victim. But the woman can't be found. When she's finally tracked down, Inspector Queen, Ellery and Frank Flannigan hear a gunshot from outside her window, break down the door and find the woman lying unconscious -- shot from the fire escape.
 48 mins    2/1/1976  17.  The Adventure of the Judas Tree
Soemone makes the murder of wealthy George Sherman look like a ritualistic killing, hanging his corpse from a Cersis tree (aka a Judas tree, after the one Judas Iscariot supposedly hanged himself from) and adorning it with branches. When George is found to be far less wealthy than thought (he had given everything away except a huge life insurance policy), suspicion turns to his wife Paulette, who already has a boyfriend on the side.
 48 mins    2/8/1976  18.  The Adventure of the Sinister Scenario
Gil Mallory, an actor playing Ellery Queen in a motion picture, is supposed to be shot on camera, then jump up and nab the woman who shot him, exclaiming "Bulletproof vest!" The rehearsal with blanks goes fine. But the ensuing take with the same gun finds it loaded with real bullets, and Mallory drops dead. The film crew tries to carry on, and soon stunt man Mike Hewitt is killed when the car he was driving is rigged to wipe out before he was ready. Are the two murders linked -- and how?
 48 mins    2/29/1976  19.  The Adventure of the Two-Faced Woman
Society matron Lillian McGraw is stabbed to death while examining a painting she purchased at auction. She had started to scrape off the painting to get at another painting underneath, and had uncovered the artist's signature -- "Lazar," a key figure in an unsolved (and heinous) murder in Paris 25 years earlier. When the rest of the painting is revealed, it's a portrait of the dead woman herself. Investigation reveals that the woman was in Paris at the time of the murder and may have been the killer, but she lost her memory. Somebody didn't want her to regain it.
 60 mins    3/7/1976  20.  The Adventure of the Tyrant of Tin Pan Alley
Famous crooner and cutthroat record producer Alvin Winer is doing a radio interview when songwriter Danny Murphy breaks into the studio and angrily accuses the singer of stealing his song. Danny threatens Alvin, then storms out with several others in pursuit. Alvin is soon found in the music library, dead and clutching a recording of "Danny Boy," which would seem to implicate Murphy. But is it a dying clue or a red herring?
 48 mins    3/14/1976  21.  The Adventure of Caesar's Last Sleep
Mobster Ralph Caesar survives a bombing attempt and plays dead, hiding out in a hotel room with two police guards. But he is found dead anyway, of poison. Furious crusading District Attorney Erwin Murphy accuses Inspector Queen and the two guards (including Velie) of serving poisoned chewing gum, the only thing the mobster had to dine on. Ellery thinks this unlikely because nobody opened the packet except Caeser, and starts looking for other ways the poison could have been administered.
 48 mins    3/21/1976  22.  The Adventure of the Hardhearted Huckster
Madison Avenue advertising executive James Bevin Long wants to make newspaper columnist Frank Flanagan a TV star by setting him up with a variety show. But then Long is murdered in his private bathroom, stabbed in the back. The killer had to be someone who knew Long's meticulous habits. The plans for the TV show go forward and Ellery takes an inside look at the advertising industry to determine how the killer could have slipped in and out undetected.
 48 mins    4/4/1976  23.  The Adventure of the Disappearing Dagger
An elderly amateur criminologist finally figures out how a five-year-old "locked-room" murder was committed, and is murdered by the killer before he can alert Inspector Queen. Ellery takes up the challenge himself. The criminologist had first implicated an airline pilot, because he was flying the plane where the murder was committed and had the opportunity to toss the murder weapon out the window. Nobody else seems to have been able to get rid of the weapon, but Ellery finds that the murder victim had stolen someone else's invention, and that the murderer may have invented the weapon as well.
Edition Details
Edition 6 DVD NBC Series
Series Ellery Queen
Distributor E1 Entertainment
Release Date 9/28/2010
Packaging Keep Case
Screen Ratio Fullscreen (4:3)
Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio Tracks Stereo [English]
Layers Single Side, Single Layer
No. of Discs/Tapes 6
Personal Details
Links IMDB
TheTvDb.com

Features
Disc 01 Interview with Co-Creator William Link