 The
Ellery Queen Mysteries
(30 min)
Show Description
If Perry Mason is the greatest fictional attorney
of American literature, Ellery Queen is arguably the greatest fictional
detective of American literary creation.
Each Ellery Queen
episode begins with a opening sound montage, in which the announcer says
something like, “This famous song-writer is about to be murdered. Who is
guilty? Is it...” Each suspect is profiled in a brief sound bite,
speaking a short phrase (sometimes deliberately skewed to sound
off-beat and humorous), then: “Or is it… someone else? Match wits with
Ellery Queen and see if you can guess… who done it!”
Adding to the authentic feel of the radio series is
the “challenge to the listener” in which Queen turns to the in-theater
audience and then invites them to add up the clues and name the guilty
party. These are based on the “Challenge to the Reader” sections in the
various Ellery Queen novels.
Show History
For nine years The Adventures of Ellery Queen
was a weekly favorite on the radio; and in 1950 TV Guide gave the
Ellery Queen program its national award for the best mystery show on TV.
Ellery Queen has won five annual Edgars (the national
Mystery Writers of America Awards, similar to Hollywood’s Oscars),
including the Grand Master award in 1960, and both the silver and gold
Gertrudes awarded by Pocket Books, Inc.[21]
Ellery Queen
was one of two brainchildren of the team of cousins, Fred Dannay and
Manfred B. Lee. Dannay and Lee entered a writing contest, envisioning a
stuffed-shirt author called Ellery Queen who solved mysteries and then
wrote about them. Queen relied on his keen powers of observation and
deduction, being a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rolled into one. But
just as Holmes needed his Watson—character with whom the average reader
could identify—the character Ellery Queen had his father, Inspector
Richard Queen, who not only served in that function but also gave Ellery
the access he needed to poke his nose into police business.
Dannay and Lee chose the pseudonym of Ellery Queen
as their (first) writing moniker, for it was only natural—since the
character Ellery was writing mysteries—that their mysteries should be
the ones that Ellery Queen wrote. They placed first in the contest, and
their first novel was accepted and published by Frederick Stokes. Stokes
would go on to release over a dozen “Ellery Queen” publications.
At the beginning, “Ellery Queen” the author was
marketed as a secret identity. Ellery Queen (actually one of the
cousins, usually Dannay) would appear in public masked, as though he
were protecting his identity. The buying public ate it up, and so the
cousins did it again. By 1932 they had created “Barnaby Ross,” whose
existence had been foreshadowed by two comments in Queen novels. Barnaby
Ross composed four novels about aging actor Drury Lane. After it was
revealed that “Barnaby Ross is really Ellery Queen,” the novels were
reissued bearing the Queen name. Even after the cousins’ identities were
disclosed, their novels continued to be published under their now-famous
pseudonym.[22]
In a rare development, the character of Ellery
Queen was adapted to radio by its creators. Dannay and Lee, as former
advertising writers, knew the promotional power of radio. The authors
brought to the new medium the “challenge to the reader” from their
earlier books. This said, in essence, “You now have all the clues; can
you solve the crime?” On radio, this took the form of the fictional
Ellery stopping the action and delivering the challenge in person to the
listener at home and, in some incarnations, to a celebrity sleuth there
in the studio. The Ellery Queen radio show ran in one form or another on CBS,
NBC, and ABC. Scripts were by Dannay and Lee, and later by Lee assisted
by others, most notably Anthony Boucher. Ellery was played by Hugh
Marlowe (who would later take the role on television, as well), Larry
Dobkin, Carleton Young, and Sidney Smith. Marion Shockley was the first
actress to portray Nikki Porter, Ellery’s secretary and low-key love
interest. This character appeared in films, short stories, and novels,
but was created for radio.
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