Republic Tries a Whodunit

Ellery Queen Solves The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935)

Republic does  Ellery Queen, and it's darn good. Everyone thinks of that outfit in galloping or cliffhanger terms, but there were stabs at a mainstream, many turning up on Netflix and not a few of interest for those who've pigeonholed the Yates factory too long. Besides, it not as though we can see Ellery Queen elsewhere, the Columbia series with Ralph Bellamy long out of circulation. Donald Cook plays the detective as indolent observer of seaside murders, bodies piled like cordwood before he takes active interest. Cook requires getting used to, our dominant image of him the priggish brother to James Cagney in Public Enemy. Republic's 1935 release schedule saw as many modern dress actioners as westerns, their ID with the genre not yet firmly established. Helen Twelvetrees had landed there on a slope from stardom, is top-billed in The Spanish Cape Mystery. There are exteriors as the title implies, shot at Laguna according to then-trades. Cook as Ellery goes on vacation with elderly and irascible judge Berton Churchill, a head-scratcher as to what these two would have in common over a month spent at a rental cottage. Still, it's a novel set-up, and Churchill for-once sympathetic is refreshing. I was pleased with myself for guessing the killer about halfway in, though most could probably have figured it in a first ten minutes. Excellent quality on Netflix.