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The Spanish Cape Mystery | |
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Directed by | Lewis D. Collins |
Written by |
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Produced by | M.H. Hoffman |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Gilbert Warrenton |
Edited by | Ernie Leadlay |
Music by | Mischa Bakaleinikoff |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 73 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Spanish Cape Mystery is a 1935 American mystery film directed by Lewis D. Collins and starring Donald Cook, Helen Twelvetrees and Berton Churchill. It is based on the novel of the same name featuring the detective Ellery Queen. [1]
After unmasking a clever jewel thief for the benefit of his police inspector father, Ellery Queen and his friend Judge Macklin leave for what they hope will be a bachelor vacation on the California Coast. Macklin assures Queen that there is only one large mansion in the area where they will be staying. But when they arrive at their cabin, they find heiress Stella Godfrey bound and gagged to a chair.
Stella, while being driven back to her mansion explains that she has been resisting the efforts of all her family members to marry her off to the first available man. Only her uncle David seems to be sympathetic to her views. That night, a gunman abducts the two of them at gunpoint, left them tied in the cabin, and apparently escaped to sea in the family yacht.
When the grounds are searched, the dead body of society sponge John Marco is found on the patio, garroted to death some time ago and wearing only a bathing suit.
The next night, abusive husband George Munn is killed in a similar manner. His wife is the leading suspect. But Queen suspects the motive is inheritance money, not hate. Since the local sheriff seems to be going around in circles, Queen and Macklin interrupt their vacation to tackle the case.
Boston blueblood Leslie Court is then killed in his upstairs room even though he had been out of their sight for less than 15 minutes and all of the suspects were downstairs and their movements accounted for. Court, though ostensibly engaged to Stella, had also been courting one of the Godfrey family maids.
Stella receives a note that says if she wants her uncle back she should come to a deserted high balcony area of the estate. But Betty Blythe wanders into the meeting place area first, and she is pushed to her death by a masked assailant.
With Stella bravely acting as bait, the next night the killer enters her bedroom and walks into a police trap. It is the "missing" uncle Dave, who faked his abduction to divert suspicion from himself. Queen had learned from the family gardener that all the murders took place at high tide. Uncle Dave had been living on the "missing" yacht, and swam ashore at high tide time each night to commit the murders. For the first murder, he lingered too long and was stranded at low tide. He changed clothes with his victim; so he wouldn't look strange walking the streets in a bathing suit. He then dressed his other victims in bathing suits to keep up the misdirection.
Queen opines that while the first murder was committed for money, somewhere along the line Uncle Dave's mind snapped and he became a thrill killer who was even willing to kill the niece he loved.
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905–1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder cases. From 1929 to 1971, Dannay and Lee wrote around forty novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character.
Berton Churchill was a Canadian stage and film actor.
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a minor character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it."
Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson, an English crime writer and a cousin of actor-screenwriter Miles Malleson. She also wrote fiction and a 1940 autobiography, Three-a-Penny, as Anne Meredith.
Ellery Queen is an American TV drama series, developed by Richard Levinson and William Link, who based it on the fictional character of the same name. The series ran for a single season on NBC from September 11, 1975, to April 4, 1976. Jim Hutton stars as the eponymous sleuth, along with David Wayne as his father, Inspector Richard Queen.
Charles Ellsworth Grapewin was an American vaudeville and circus performer, a writer, and a stage and film actor. He worked in over 100 motion pictures during the silent and sound eras, most notably portraying Uncle Henry in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's The Wizard of Oz (1939), "Grandpa" William James Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941), Uncle Salters in Captains Courageous (1937), Gramp Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936), Wang's Father in The Good Earth (1937), and California Joe in They Died With Their Boots On (1941).
The French Powder Mystery is a novel that was written in 1930 by Ellery Queen. It is the second of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Dutch Shoe Mystery is a novel which was written in 1931 by Ellery Queen. It is the third of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Egyptian Cross Mystery is a novel that was written in 1932 by Ellery Queen. It is the fifth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Siamese Twin Mystery is an English language American novel written in 1933 by Ellery Queen. It is the seventh of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Spanish Cape Mystery is a novel that was written by Ellery Queen as the ninth book of the Ellery Queen mysteries. Published in April in hardcover by Frederick A. Stokes, it also appeared as a "complete, book-length novel" in the April 1935 issue of Redbook.
The Finishing Stroke is a mystery novel by Ellery Queen, published in 1958. Extremely complex and with many baroque touches, it is something of a throwback to the original Ellery Queen novels of the late 1920s and early 1930s, unlike the more realistic mysteries of Queen's later period. It is set in New York state at three different times in the 20th century: early 1905; the Christmas-New Year's holidays of 1929-1930; and midsummer 1957.
Banquets of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1984, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in June 1986. The first British edition was issued by Grafton in August 1986.
The Union Club Mysteries is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional mystery solver Griswold. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1983 and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in 1985.
The Four of Hearts is an American mystery novel published in 1938, written by Ellery Queen. It is primarily set in Los Angeles, United States.
Calamity Town is a mystery novel by American writers Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay, published in 1942 under the pseudonym of Ellery Queen. It is set in the fictional town of Wrightsville, a place that figures in several later Queen books.
The Scarlet Letters is an English language novel published in 1953 by American author Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel set primarily in New York City.
Dana Cameron is an American archaeologist, and author of award-winning crime fiction and urban fantasy.
The Dark Hour is a 1936 American film directed by Charles Lamont.
Mr. Monk Gets Even is the fifteenth novel written by Lee Goldberg to be based on the television series Monk. It was published on December 31, 2012. Like the other novels, the story is narrated by Natalie Teeger, Monk's assistant. It is the final novel of the series to be written by Lee Goldberg.