Review of The Mandarin Mystery

The second film appearance of detective Ellery Queen marks a step down from the first, "The Spanish Cape Mystery". Queen is played this time by Eddie Quillan, who is a little too jokey to be very convincing as a crime-solving genius. However, Wade Boteler (who might have been THE most prolific actor ever - IMDb lists him with 444(!) credits) is perfectly cast as his gruff Inspector father, and Charlotte Henry is quite the sweetheart as the innocent (?) girl he falls in love with. The plot is kind of muddled and the poor existing prints don't help the viewer's comprehension much, but it does have some clever bits (like the explanation for the missing fruit from the room where the dead body is discovered). This one is recommended mostly for hardcore genre fans. ** out of 4.