Ventro the ventriloquist disappears just days after his arrival in New York. His daughter asks friend Nikki Porter for help, knowing that Nikki works with mystery writer and amateur detective Ellery Queen. They discover Ventro's dead body in his penthouse hotel suite....but who killed him? And where is the treasure he brought back from China to raise money for his Chinese friends?
Ellery and Nikki alternately flirt and bicker in this entertaining but not overly exciting series mystery.
Margaret Lindsay is fun to watch as Nikki, Ellery's spirited secretary. Fed up with typing for Ellery, Nikki quits and heads to the hotel to investigate the murder. She sneaks into the suite but she's not alone: A crook is sneaking around in the dark, a mysterious woman watches from a neighboring balcony, the coroner and his team come in to collect the body - it's a busy place.
Ralph Bellamy is fine as Ellery Queen, although his effectiveness as a genius crime-solver is perhaps hindered by the fact that he seems more interested in Nikki than he is in the actual case. Bellamy and Lindsay do their best to generate one of those witty rivalries but most of the dialog between the pair just isn't that good. (Lindsay: "The way you order me around, anyone would think I was your wife." Bellamy: "Yeah. Listening to you a stranger would assume you were.")
Unfortunately, as the plot thickens, the action slows way down. The somewhat muddled story involves Russell Hicks and Eduardo Cianelli as crooked business associates with a scheme to grab Ventro's treasure; Anna May Wong is Ventro's mysterious Chinese contact who may be involved somehow. Mantan Moreland brightens up his scenes as Hicks's butler.
It's plenty passable for fans of mystery series and character actors....but overall this one just lacks focus.
