TV Review: The Adventures of Ellery Queen–The Hanged Acrobat
Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, and also the main character of their long-running mystery series. He was an intellectual, and a bit of a snob, who often helped his father, a New York City police inspector, solve murders. The series was noted for its fair play methods, with a point in the story where the reader is told that they have all the necessary clues to solve it before Mr. Queen gives the explanation.
Like other mystery series before it, there was a television adaptation, starting in 1950. I have one episode on DVD, “The Hanged Acrobat.” This was released on the Dumont network, and featured Richard Hart as Ellery Queen.
After a brief introduction revealing that Mr. Queen once had a summer job at a carnival, and thus he stopped at one on his way back from somewhere, we go to a small carnival with a gyrating “coochie dancer” dressed in what was for 1950 a pretty revealing outfit. While the barker extols her exotic talents, we see the dancer chewing gum with a bored expression on her face, and scratching her leg the moment the audience isn’t looking.
Louise (the dancer) also runs the milk bottle stand (knock the bottles down with a softball, get a prize) since the carnival is rather short-handed. It’s here she meets Ellery Queen, and confesses that she’s more interesting in being a trapeze performer, and has been training for that.
At this point, the female half of the current trapeze act turns up dead, hanging from a noose in their tent. The knot of the noose is a specialty tie usually found on cattle ranches, where a roustabout named Tex used to work. Tex was also the last person to see the trapeze artist alive when they went for drinks together.
However, Ellery quickly learns that Tex has taught that knot to several other carnival workers, and the trapeze artist was strangled to death before being hanged, in a most unusual way. Was the killer Tex? Hugo, the grieving husband? Louise, who will be promoted to the high act? Or is it the Colonel, the carnival owner who used to be a strongman and still has impressive gripping power? Maybe the bumbling sheriff, who seems awfully interested in having this case closed without outside interference?
There’s not really a lot of mystery here, and most long-time fans will be able to figure out the culprit slightly before Ellery does. The story is padded out with Ellery being tied and gagged so that the killer can proceed with their plans. It’s a so-so show, with the best performance being Louise as the cynical and worldly-wise character who still has just a sliver of romance left in her soul.
