Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You

The 70's Ellery Queen series is a joy for any mystery buff like me. I have the ones from the 30's and would love to obtain all of the ones from the 70's. Hutton is the best yet. Today' movies just cannot compete They depend too much on special effects The earlier movies gave you a chance to become part of it. You were able to think along with the characters. Solve the crime or at least attempt to.

"Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You" was a super stylish pilot for a projected NBC series for the 1971-72 season.

"Ellery Queen" was up for a slot on the new "Wednesday Mystery Movie" wheel that wound up including "Columbo", "McCloud", and "McMillan and Wife". NBC almost picked "Ellery Queen" over "McMillan and Wife".

Barry Shear's direction of "Ellery Queen" was really stunning (including cartoon segments of the "hydra" killer).

Peter Lawford gave a light, suave, likable performance as Ellery Queen, even if he was miscast. Lawford was an appealing actor, who had been fine in "Good News", "The Longest Day", and "Advise and Consent". He even made a good Nick Charles in "The Thin Man".

I wish "Queen" had sold. "Ellery Queen" was really a who-done-it mystery, which you can't say for "Columbo" or "McCloud". "Ellery Queen" could have been a fine fourth detective on the mystery wheel. I think it would have been a success.

I could well have lived with the charming Peter Lawford as Ellery, but if the role had to be recast I think James Wainwright, Roy Thinnes, Mike Farrell, Michael Douglas, Michael Parks, or Bradford Dillman might have been interesting.

Andrew Duggan or Jose Ferrer would have been cool as Inspector Richard Queen, Ellery's father. But Harry Morgan made an excellent Inspector Queen in the movie.

To produce the show, I would have tried to get the great Richard Alan Simmons ("Trials of O'Brien", the "Banyon" movie pilot).

The writer of this "Ellery Queen" pilot movie was "Ted Leighton", which was a pseudonym for Richard Levinson and William Link ("Columbo"). Levinson/Link later produced the fondly remembered "Ellery Queen" series with Jim Hutton and David Wayne. (Edward Herrmann was also considered to play Ellery in the series in addition to Jim Hutton.) Levinson/Link sold their first story to "Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine" when they were teenagers. They must have been big fans of the writer/detective. Levinson/Link later created "Murder, She Wrote" about a woman writer/detective.

Peter Lawford as Ellery Queen is called in by his half-uncle, Harry Morgan as Inspector Queen, to investigate a serial killer dubbed 'the Hydra' who is terrorizing New York City.

It's based on the Ellery Queen novel Cat of Many Tails. Published in 1949, it may have been the first mystery novel to deal seriously with serial killers, and it made use of several novelties in telling its tale, including lengthy vignettes of the victims to begin the book. By 1971, serial killers were much more a commonplace of the world and fiction, and this TV movie soon gets bogged down in cliches. Lawford in a ridiculous toupee is poorly cast. While there was extensive shooting in Manhattan to provide atmosphere, the pieces are put together in a way that is clearly wrong; a commonplace of movie geography, alas. Finally, the solution to the mystery of who the murderer was turned out not to be too difficult. I had it figured out by the 40-minute mark. Well in advance of the intrepid crime novelist. With E. G. Marshall and Stefanie Power.

When NBC began the television series in 1975, they wisely used Jim Hutton as Ellery, and David Wayne as the Inspector.

When I got my first VCR in 1980, I set out to get as many detective films as possible, and looked forward to each as a gem in my collection. After reading about several such films, and having seen the Jim Hutton/David Wayne series, I thought when I found that Harry Morgan would be Inspector Queen, I knew there would be some fun watching it. I was not disappointed with Morgan's performance, but Peter Lawford seemed an unlikely choice to play the crime solver, Ellery Queen. I could easily see why this TV pilot was not picked up as a series. The casting. Simple as that. Lawford was all wrong. Now, I have yet to see more than still photos and reviews of the other E.Q. movies or several TV series (there were at least 4 different Ellerys) so I cannot compare one to the other, but I can tell you that I remember a TV guide article written by the son of one of the two Ellery Queen creators (I forget whether it was Manfred B. Lee or Frederick Dannay) and he said that his dad would agree that Jim Hutton was the closest to what Ellery Queen would be, and also David Wayne as the irascible Inspector. (Both actors for Inspector Queen were perfectly cast in my humble opinion.) It was a fairly good mystery as I remember it, and will have to watch it again sometime if I can ever dig it out of my over-sized collection. I remember loving the little animated "bumper" that was used at each commercial break. The book title was something about a "cat-o-nine tales." (Not that is not a typo either.) Now if only we could have seen the series that almost happened starring the seventh of a ton, orchid loving, gourmand detective Nero Wolfe, with Orson Welles (another time it was to be Raymond Burr) and John Ritter (still another time, Bill Cosby) as Archie Goodwin.

But that's another topic altogether.

Don't Look Behind You does deserve to be judged separately, but the comparisons will be inevitable, it's just that when you watch this film and then the TV series or vice versa it is easy to see which is superior(in this case the TV series with Jim Hutton, one of my personal favourite shows of the 70s). Don't Look Behind You is not bad though, certainly better than it is given credit for despite its debits being really quite problematic. It is far from cheap, the soft grained image has a real charm to it, the lighting does give off a sinister and not too obvious atmosphere and it is evocative detail-to-period wise. The music has a real suavity and liveliness, there is some amusing smart dialogue especially between Ellery and Inspector Queen and the story and mystery is mostly diverting and keeps us guessing. The animation images for the hydra are genuinely creepy and still look good today, and the acting is serviceable with solid if fairly careful support acting and good chemistry between them. Harry Morgan is very good as Inspector Queen and Stefanie Powers is beautifully seductive. Peter Lawford from personal opinion however is miscast, that he is too old is not so much a problem but, while there are moments where he is very suave(and he has a pleasant speaking voice), he does come across as too aloof and too self-assured. The opening credits are cool but go on for far too long, the suspense is rather dragged out at times and when my house mates and I watched this all of us correctly guessed the identity of the killer too early. Some of the lighting at the end is a little too bright and somewhat surrealist as well. In conclusion, better than it's given credit for but not great. 6/10 Bethany Cox