Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues, Inspector Queen (Charles Grapewin) asks his son Ellery (Ralph Bellamy) to help out. The suspect list includes Cobb's ex-partner Walsh (Russell Hicks), phony nobleman Count Brett (Eduardo Cianelli), sleight-of-hand artist Jim Ritter (Theodore Von Eltz), Chinese patriot Lois Ling (Anna May Wong), and reporter-in-disguise Sanders (Frank Albertson). Despite his inability to make a move without breaking something or taking a pratfall, Ellery Queen solves the case. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi