Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You (TV 1971)Detective Ellery Queen has to solve a series of murders where the victims were killed in numerically descending ages, the male victims were strangled with blue cords and the female victims with pink ones. Director:Barry Shear |
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"Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You" was a super stylish pilot for a projected NBC series for the 1971-72 season.
"Ellery Queen" was up for a slot on the new "Wednesday Mystery Movie" wheel that wound up including "Columbo", "McCloud", and "McMillan and Wife". NBC almost picked "Ellery Queen" over "McMillan and Wife".
Barry Shear's direction of "Ellery Queen" was really stunning (including cartoon segments of the "hydra" killer).
Peter Lawford gave a light, suave, likable performance as Ellery Queen, even if he was miscast.
I wish "Queen" had sold. "Ellery Queen" was really a who-done-it mystery, which you can't say for "Columbo" or "McCloud". "Ellery Queen" could have been a fine fourth detective on the mystery wheel. I think it would have been a success.
I could well have lived with the charming Peter Lawford as Ellery, but if the role had to be recast I think James Wainwright, Roy Thinnes, Mike Farrell, Michael Douglas or Bradford Dillman might have been interesting.
Andrew Duggan or Jose Ferrer would have been cool as Inspector Richard Queen, Ellery's father.
To produce the show, I would have tried to get the great Richard Alan Simmons ("Trials of O'Brien", the "Banyon" movie pilot).