The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935)

If you're looking for a decent classic mystery movie, then you might enjoy this one. Based on an Ellery Queen novel, it has Donald Cook (Queen) taking a vacation in California with his pal the judge (Berton Churchill). As they settle into their rented house and discuss the snooty family next door, they discover that the daughter of the family, Helen Twelvetrees, is tied up up the back room, her uncle has been kidnapped and the bodies are starting to pile up, while the local sheriff tries everyone as the murderer.It's more notable for being a good mystery than a good movie, even with the good acting talent involved, but if you've a taste for puzzle mysteries it should be a pleasant seventy-five minutes.

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.

****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.

The first Ellery Queen story to hit the big screen was The Spanish Cape Mystery and it starred Donald Cook as the intellectual crime solver and mystery writer. After solving a jewel theft, Cook decides he needs a vacation and he and Judge Berton Churchill take a cottage on the California coast.But no sooner do they get there than they get involved with a whole series of murders perpetrated against the Godfrey family who have gathered together. All the possible heirs to a fortune are there as the bodies start dropping. Cook develops a special interest in the family, especially in regard to Helen Twelvetrees. He also as a nasty antagonistic relationship with the local sheriff Harry Stubbs who finally has come begging for Cook's help.I have to say that Cook was all right in the part, not as bad as Eddie Quillan the following year. This film and Quillan's were made by Republic Pictures, but when the Ellery Queen series was picked up again it was by Columbia where Ralph Bellamy took over the part. Bellamy was far better in what my conception of Ellery Queen was.Still this one is all right and competently made.