Ellery Queen the complete series, MacG brain in another form
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mrtape
Posted: 5 September 2010 - 08:21 AM                                    
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Ellery Queen The Complete Series (one season 23 episodes) / Not Rated
Ellery Queen has been solving mysteries since before Jessica Fletcher was born. The character was created by two cousins, Daniel Nathan aka Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manford Lepofsky aka Manfred Lee (1905-1971) who used the pseudonyms to write about a fictional detective known as Ellery Queen who supposedly was also the writer of the Ellery Queen stories. Lots of novels, short stories and even a long lived mystery magazine came out of their active and clever imaginations. From the ‘30’s forward, the EQ character also starred in movies, then TV. In 1971 Rat Packer Peter Lawford and venerable character actor Harry Morgan (Dragnet and M.A.S.H.) starred in a made for TV movie called Ellery Queen: Don’t Look Behind You. It was clever and fun especially for mystery fans. I thought it might spur a TV series and it did, although it took till the 1975-1976 season. But both PL and HM were gone. Replaced in the series by Jim Hutton (1934-1979) and David Wayne (1917-1995) they actually personified the characters and brought them to life. Unfortunately the show’s ratings only allowed it to run from March 1975 (the extended pilot episode), followed by it’s standard length premier in September ‘75 until it’s cancellation in April ‘76. The show took place in the ‘40’s. It had great supporting characters including John Hillerman (who went on to Magnum P.I., Murder, She Wrote and even played Dr. Watson in a Sherlock Holmes TV film in 1990) for 8 episodes playing Simon Bremmer a stuffy radio show detective who was trying to solve the same mysteries EQ was working on but always ended up coming up with the wrong solution. The series also featured a fine list of big stars of film and TV from the ‘30’s to the ‘70’s exactly like the show it spawned “Murder, She Wrote” (same creators and producers). It’s an interesting supposition that had EQ the series been successful and kept the writing/production team busy for 10 years or more if they would have ever created Murder, She Wrote at all. This would have meant that Angela Lansbury’s most famous character would never have come to TV let alone kept her busy for 12 years plus. AL was not the first choice for the JF part. It was turned down by Maureen Stapleton and Doris Day. Thank goodness. EQ was done in the same format as the original novels which meant that before the last commercial and just prior to the solution to the crime EQ would look at the camera, declare that the clues were all there and that he knew the “killer” and challenged you to do the same. Add a superb score (for six of the episodes) and a catchy and mysterious main theme by Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent 7, The Great Escape, and Hawaii are just a small sampling of his body of great film work) and you get a winner of a show even if nobody watched it. Seen rarely on TV and available up to now only on pirated DVD’s, the show including the pilot is finally available on a complete DVD set as of 9/28/2010 and is generally under 40 bucks. I guarantee it’s 40 bucks well spent. For mystery fans of shows like Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote it would be worth a lot more. I challenge you to watch it. Do you dare match wits with the great Ellery Queen? Jim Hutton’s son, actor Timothy Hutton, can currently be seen in the series “Leverage”. He can also be seen in the short lived but fun “Nero Wolfe” mysteries which seemed to be an homage to his dad in the EQ series. Now the DVD set gives everyone a chance to understand why an homage is due. Great Fun, He Wrote.
Rated 4.0 out of 4.0 reasons it’s a mystery why it took so long to make it to DVD.



 
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mrtape
Posted: 2 October 2010 - 10:33 AM                                    
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Posts: 383
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Country: USofA
SAK owned: Red handled

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Season: season 3
Episode:The flashback Western.
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket:  Black/Navy flight
House:  Loft



The set is now availble. Great transfers, a 24 page booklet and as a bonus an 18 minute interview with co creator and producer William Link. If you don't have it yet the cost is around $36 for the 6 DVD set. Big improvement on the pirate editions floating around. Includes the pilot episode and each individual episode is complete with the opening challenges. 1176 minutes, 4X3 ratio, monophonic. Elmer B.s theme sparkles at the beginning of each episode and over the menu options.



 
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