Displaying items by tag: Sig Ruman

ENEMY AGENTS MEET ELLERY QUEEN

US, 1942, 64 minutes, Black-and-white.

William Gargan, Margaret Lindsay, Charlie Grapewin, Gale Sondegaard, Gilbert Roland, Sig Ruman, James Burke, Ludwig Donath.

Directed by James P.Hogan.

This is the last of the seven Ellery Queen supporting features from the early 1940s. The first four and Ralph Bellamy as the star. The final three had William Gargan. The regulars who appeared in all films are Margaret Lindsay as Ellery Queen secretary, Charlie grape and as his father, James Burke as his assistant and providing the more comic touches.

This film was made at the time of Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war. There were various German spy rings in the US. There were also members of resistance movements with contacts to countries in Europe like Holland.

The initial action takes place on a train, introducing the spires, their trying to get information, their headquarters in New York, the targeting of an intermediary played by Gilbert Roland. He had encountered Margaret Lindsay is Nicky Porter with help with currency, then is suspicious when she encounters him again and he thinks he is Mrs Gestapo.

The involvement of Ellery Queen and the interventions is Nickki Porter, mysterious imports of Egyptian antiquities to the US, the finding of the wood Roland’s body, suspicions of Nicky, interventions on the Ellery Queen – but, in this final film, some praise for James Burke’s character, failing in initial action on the train, dismissed by his boss, but very much supported by Ellery and Nicky and arranging the final evidence to indicate that it was through Burke’s investigations.

The series ending on an optimistic note as regards the characters – and in intervention in the war effort.