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Ellery Queen Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
23 Episodes 1975 - 1976
Episode 0
Too Many Suspects
Sun, Mar 23, 197598 mins
When Monica Grey, successful clothing designer, is found murdered in her 1947 NY penthouse apartment, there is no shortage of suspects. But, as fast as Inspector Richard Queen, NYPD finds grounds to charge one, his novelist son, Ellery Queen, debunks his theory... until he catches the guilty party.
Episode 1
The Adventure of Auld Lang Syne
Thu, Sep 11, 197549 mins
At a New Year's Eve party where Guy Lombardo (as himself, albeit about 30 years older than he would have been at the time), Inspector Queen finds blood on a drawing-room floor outside a phone booth, and a knife wedged in the phone booth's door. When Inspector Queen pulls the knife out and opens the door, a body tumbles out. Inspector Queen then finds the phone itself dangling, picks it up and hears a bewildered stranger on the other end. The dead man, a wealthy industrialist, had telephoned the stranger but couldn't talk because the knife had severed his vocal cords. The industrialist had been unable to crawl out of the booth because the knife jammed it shut. There are a plethora of suspects whom the industrialist had insulted just before his death.
Episode 2
The Adventure of the Lover's Leap
Thu, Sep 18, 197549 mins
Stephanie Kendrick, a wealthy fountain pen heiress, is found dead on the front lawn of her mansion. Prior to her death she was reading Ellery's book "The Adventure of the Lover's Leap" and it seems that she acted out a passage in the book which leads to her to jump from her bedroom balcony. Inspector Queen thinks her death is suicide, but Ellery seems to have other thoughts when a technical print man finds a small shard of glass on the balcony. Later, during the questioning of suspects, Simon Brimmer arrives at the Kendrick mansion and, in his typical pompous fashion, offers his help to Inspector Queen solve what he concludes to be a murder. Ultimately, Brimmer brings the cast together at the conclusion to disclose the guilty party, but Ellery finds the exact time to speak up and reveal the killer's identity.
Episode 3
The Adventure of the Chinese Dog
Thu, Sep 25, 197549 mins
Ellery and his father are on a fishing vacation 200 miles from New York City when they are informed of the murder of Eben Wright. He was a rich manufacturer of galoshes, killed by a blow to the head from a valuable Chinese Temple Dog made of solid gold and encrusted with gemstones. Although Inspector Queen would rather catch fish instead of a murderer, Ellery is intrigued enough to sort through the evidence and eventually unhands a dying clue which helps him to pin down Eben's killer.
Episode 4
The Adventure of the Comic Book Crusader
Thu, Oct 2, 197549 mins
Ellery picks the wrong man to mess with when he becomes irate with a comic-book editor who had dictated a series of books depicting Ellery as a two-fisted brawling sleuth. The following night, as the editor is working alone in his office, a custodian hears three gunshots. The editor is found slumped over a panel he was reworking, and with a blue pencil he has crossed through Ellery's dialog balloon. If that wasn't incriminating enough, newspaper reporter Frank Flannigan finds the murder weapon, a revolver, in Ellery's fish tank, where the water has long since washed off all prints. Ellery must clear himself in a big hurry before he goes to trial.
Episode 5
The Adventure of the 12th Floor Express
Thu, Oct 9, 197549 mins
A newspaper publisher gets onto the express elevator on the way to his 12th-floor office. But when the elevator, a new model with push buttons for each floor (the operator pushed the top-floor button) gets to the top floor, the publisher is nowhere to be found. The elevator closes and goes down. To the horror of staffers on two lower floors, the elevator opens at each floor to reveal the publisher, who's dead from a gunshot wound. The publisher himself had pushed the buttons for the two floors before he died, implicating someone -- but who?
Episode 6
The Adventure of Miss Aggie's Farewell Performance
Sun, Oct 19, 197548 mins
Miss Aggie is the central character on an immensely popular radio soap opera. The actress playing her collapses in the recording studio, and it's revealed that the water jug she drank from was poisoned. The actress survives and seems to be recovering. Her producers try to stifle the police investigation into the crime, claiming the actress poisoned herself to garner the sympathy vote from fans -- her contract was expiring, and she was about to be written out of the show ("Pow! Double pneumonia and she's off the air for a month and when she comes back nobody will remember what she sounded like."), Unfortunately, the killer comes back -- this time with a gun -- and Miss Aggie's departure is indeed permanent. When a hospital attendant is arrested for robbing the body of the actress's prize bracelet, it's revealed that she had left a dying clue for Ellery.
Episode 7
The Adventure of Colonel Nivin's Memoirs
Thu, Oct 23, 197549 mins
At a book signing Ellery is introduced to Colonel Alec Nivin who is signing his recent publication "Memoirs of a Spy" on the book's first day of sale. The book is a character assassination of various British, French, and Russian operatives who are now living in the United States after WWII. Later that evening when one of the exposed operatives kills Nivin, Ellery and Inspector Queen must sort through Nivin's files to find the killer. As the list of suspects keeps growing, it isn't till Ellery realizes that the killer could only have bought Nivin's book on the day of the murder at the Gotham Book Store since Ellery was there and he bought the last copy of the book.
Episode 8
The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party
Thu, Oct 30, 197549 mins
Fun-loving theatrical producer Spencer Lockridge invites Ellery to his mansion for a weekend of working out how to adapt one of Ellery's works for the stage. But the producer disappears shortly thereafter and is presumed murdered. A series of apparent clues are delivered.
Episode 9
The Adventure of Veronica's Veils
Thu, Nov 13, 197549 mins
George Burns (who receives "special appearance by" billing in the end titles) plays Sam Packer, a wisecracking theatrical producer who appears in his own funeral, via a film he made shortly before his demise from an apparent heart attack. Packer's monologue, in true Burns style, is a riff on his own death and how he believed he would be murdered. It turns out the Packer was indeed poisoned in the dressing room of a stripper queen. But she didn't have enough clothes on to smuggle the poison into the room, did she? In fact, nobody seemed to be able to get into the room with the poison. As Ellery says just before revealing the killer: "You'll know who once you figure out how."
Episode 10
The Adventure of the Pharaoh's Curse
Thu, Dec 11, 197549 mins
Much-hated museum benefactor Norris Wentworth is found dead in the museum. The autopsy indicates he died of a heart attack but did he have help in dying? He was let into the museum by somebody and couldn't reach his nitroglycerin medicine, indicating that whoever let him in also intimidated him. An Egyptologist shows up and claims that the piece, a pharaoh's tomb, was stolen from Egypt and vows that a curse has been laid upon the tomb to haunt anyone who robs it.
Episode 11
The Adventure of the Blunt Instrument
Thu, Dec 18, 197549 mins
Edgar Manning, a mystery writer, wins the annual Blunt Instrument Award for his year's work and goes to pick it up at a party. Ellery, who was Edgar's rival for the award, is sidelined because of a nasty cold. So Edgar gleefully phones Ellery and gives a blow-by-blow description of the award ceremony (including describing the trophy) as he leans back in his easy chair. But the phone call is interrupted by a sickening thud. Ellery calls out to Edgar but gets no response. Cut back to Edgar, who's now face down on his desk. His skull was shattered by ... The Blunt Instrument, the trophy itself.
Episode 12
The Adventure of the Black Falcon
Sun, Jan 4, 197649 mins
Letting a fine wine "breathe" proves deadly for the wine's owner Nick Kingston, who leaves it unattended for a killer to poison it. The vintner, who's hosting a party upstairs, comes back only to collapse. He tries to implicate the killer but breaks the wine cellar's only pencil, so he crawls to a wine rack and grabs a bottle, smashing it on the floor. The shattered bottle bears the label Black Falcon, indicating it was tied to World War One. But how?
Episode 13
The Adventure of the Sunday Punch
Sun, Jan 11, 197649 mins
During a practice bout, a lucky shot knocks champion boxer Kid Hogan unconscious. He revives enough to sip some water from his manager's "swill bottle," then falls comatose and is soon pronounced dead. An autopsy reveals he was poisoned, and the "swill bottle" was loaded with poison. The manager is strongly implicated, but so is the opponent Joe Simpson.
Episode 14
The Adventure of the Eccentric Engineer
Sun, Jan 18, 197648 mins
Famous inventor Lamont Franklin suddenly withdraws from the world and starts holing up in his shed, playing incessantly with his toy trains. So why would someone kill him? A clue at the beginning of the show: before the inventor answers the knock of his killer, he hides some secret formulas in a secret - compartment desk drawer.
Episode 15
The Adventure of the Wary Witness
Sun, Jan 25, 197648 mins
Linville Hagen, on trial for murder, claims that the victim Nick Danello was shot through a window from a fire escape, and that Hagen fired at the killer. The defendant's lawyer Leo Campbell claims that he can bring in a witness, a woman who was beaten up by the victim. But the woman can't be found. When she's finally tracked down, Inspector Queen, Ellery and Frank Flannigan hear a gunshot from outside her window, break down the door and find the woman lying unconscious -- shot from the fire escape.
Episode 16
The Adventure of the Judas Tree
Sun, Feb 1, 197648 mins
Soemone makes the murder of wealthy George Sherman look like a ritualistic killing, hanging his corpse from a Cersis tree (aka a Judas tree, after the one Judas Iscariot supposedly hanged himself from) and adorning it with branches. When George is found to be far less wealthy than thought (he had given everything away except a huge life insurance policy), suspicion turns to his wife Paulette, who already has a boyfriend on the side.
Episode 17
The Adventure of the Sinister Scenario
Sun, Feb 8, 197648 mins
Gil Mallory, an actor playing Ellery Queen in a motion picture, is supposed to be shot on camera, then jump up and nab the woman who shot him, exclaiming "Bulletproof vest!" The rehearsal with blanks goes fine. But the ensuing take with the same gun finds it loaded with real bullets, and Mallory drops dead. The film crew tries to carry on, and soon stunt man Mike Hewitt is killed when the car he was driving is rigged to wipe out before he was ready. Are the two murders linked -- and how?
Episode 18
The Adventure of the Two-Faced Woman
Sun, Feb 29, 197648 mins
Society matron Lillian McGraw is stabbed to death while examining a painting she purchased at auction. She had started to scrape off the painting to get at another painting underneath, and had uncovered the artist's signature -- "Lazar," a key figure in an unsolved (and heinous) murder in Paris 25 years earlier. When the rest of the painting is revealed, it's a portrait of the dead woman herself. Investigation reveals that the woman was in Paris at the time of the murder and may have been the killer, but she lost her memory. Somebody didn't want her to regain it.
Episode 19
The Adventure of the Tyrant of Tin Pan Alley
Sun, Mar 7, 197660 mins
Famous crooner and cutthroat record producer Alvin Winer is doing a radio interview when songwriter Danny Murphy breaks into the studio and angrily accuses the singer of stealing his song. Danny threatens Alvin, then storms out with several others in pursuit. Alvin is soon found in the music library, dead and clutching a recording of "Danny Boy," which would seem to implicate Murphy. But is it a dying clue or a red herring?
Episode 20
The Adventure of Caesar's Last Sleep
Sun, Mar 14, 197648 mins
Mobster Ralph Caesar survives a bombing attempt and plays dead, hiding out in a hotel room with two police guards. But he is found dead anyway, of poison. Furious crusading District Attorney Erwin Murphy accuses Inspector Queen and the two guards (including Velie) of serving poisoned chewing gum, the only thing the mobster had to dine on. Ellery thinks this unlikely because nobody opened the packet except Caeser, and starts looking for other ways the poison could have been administered.
Episode 21
The Adventure of the Hardhearted Huckster
Sun, Mar 21, 197648 mins
Madison Avenue advertising executive James Bevin Long wants to make newspaper columnist Frank Flanagan a TV star by setting him up with a variety show. But then Long is murdered in his private bathroom, stabbed in the back. The killer had to be someone who knew Long's meticulous habits. The plans for the TV show go forward and Ellery takes an inside look at the advertising industry to determine how the killer could have slipped in and out undetected.
Episode 22
The Adventure of the Disappearing Dagger
Sun, Apr 4, 197648 mins
An elderly amateur criminologist finally figures out how a five-year-old "locked-room" murder was committed, and is murdered by the killer before he can alert Inspector Queen. Ellery takes up the challenge himself. The criminologist had first implicated an airline pilot, because he was flying the plane where the murder was committed and had the opportunity to toss the murder weapon out the window. Nobody else seems to have been able to get rid of the weapon, but Ellery finds that the murder victim had stolen someone else's invention, and that the murderer may have invented the weapon as well.
