NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

blanche-2 1935's The Spanish Cape Mystery is an Ellery Queen story starring Donald Cook as Ellery and Helen Twelvetrees. Now, that's a name out of the past! She stopped working in 1939.Ellery Queen goes on vacation to California with one Judge Macklin. They stay at a rented cabin, and before they know it, they are engulfed in murder and mystery. It all involves the Godfrey family who live on the Spanish Cape in a fabulous showplace.Ellery, smitten with Stella (Twelvetrees) tries to stay out of it, but too many murders, and the police detective arresting a new person every day, means he must step in. I have seen Ralph Bellamy do Ellery, and he's a warmer actor, more sarcastic, and more interesting than Cook, who nevertheless enjoyed a prolific career in film and on stage. Considering this film was probably made in a few days it's not bad. It's a little stagy, and the police detective yells at the top of his lungs through the whole movie, which is annoying.I enjoyed the opportunity to see Helen Twelvetrees. I found Donald Cook on the bland side, but Ellery is a cerebral detective, and it's easy to see why he wouldn't register much personality. I did like it, though not as much as some of the other Ellery Queen films.

Robert J. Maxwell Great title, "The Spanish Cape Mystery." It carries a double meaning too. The location at which Ellery Queen and his elderly companion are vacationing is named Spanish cape. And the first murder victim among the dozen or so guests at the estate is found near the beach, wearing only bathing trunks, and covered by an opera cloak, which is some kind of cape, although not a Spanish one, as far as we know.It's pretty routine as these 1930s murder mysteries go. Donald Cook is Ellery Queen and Berton Churchill, a great windbag, is his partner. They put up at an estate on the California coast. The other guests are in cahoots or in conflict over money or love. The butler eavesdrops. The first body shows up shortly after Queen's arrival. Then, at twelve-hour intervals, two more bodies show up. The clues point all over the place. Ellery Queen solves the mystery not so much by detection as by fulgurating intuition.There's not much to be said about it. Cook is inoffensive as Queen. He wears a condescending smile, almost amounting to a smirk, as he watches the hapless Chief of Police try to untangle the web of clues and suspicions. Ellery Queen is sarcastically referred to by the cops as "Sherlock", "Philo", "Mr. Chan," and so forth. But he's not them, because there's nothing distinctive about Cook's Ellery Queen. He doesn't shoot dope like Sherlock, doesn't speak with an accent like Chan, and never gets tipsy like Nick Charles.It's an inexpensive entertainment, diverting for the audience. It couldn't have been more than that.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** In him being in love with the #1 murder suspect Stella Godfrey, Helen Twelvetree, in the case hot shot detective Ellery Queen, Donald Cook, who together with his pop Inspector Queen, Guy Usher, while being on vacation grudgingly takes on to solving the case that by the time it's over some half dozen people end up being whacked. It's the local Sheriff Moley, Harry Stubbs, who's more of a hindrance then a help to Queen who he feels that he's upstaging him and making him look like a fool, which in fact he is, in trying to solve the case.Queen realizes right from the start that the killer is mentally unbalanced, as well as seeing black spots before his eyes, quickly eliminates anyone of the sane suspects in the case. That takes a while with most of those sane suspects ending up dead thus ironically making Queen's job of exposing him that much more easier. Queen also realizes that whoever is knocking off the guests at the Spanish Cape summer resort is doing it to eliminate any live hairs to the deceased Walter Godfrey's fortune that's estimated to be $3,000,000.00.***SPOILERS*** Using Stella one of the last surviving members of Old, and dead, Man Godfrey's relatives as bait Queen gets the elusive killer out into the open, with him only dressed in bathing trunks, to be arrested by a squad of police lead by Sheriff Moley before he could do her in. It's in Ellery Queen noticing that all the murders were committed at high tide that had him finally solve the baffling case. In that way the killer after he murdered his victims can make his getaway on the beach and not leave any evidence, footprints, when the tied reseeds, that he was at the scene of the crime. A fact that the gracious Ellery Queen gave the credit to the bumbling Sheriff Moley who was up for election the following fall.

tedg Wow, what fun. You might not like this if you think of detective stories as an excuse to parade a colorful detective. The guy in this case is nearly nothing at all. Flat jokes.But what a cool mystery! Its a mystery in the old sense, where things happen and you know more than the detective does, just enough to be ahead of him. And you can easily figure it out.A body is found by the beach at night. In wet swimming trunks not his own, wearing a woman's shawl. Its a remote house and there is inheritance involved. Very typical constraints and model of detecting. Very complex events we have to suss out. Why the trunks? Why the shawl? Another murder and trunks follows.There isn't a character here that you'll remember. But you'll have fun if you like puzzle-stories.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.