Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You

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.