User Reviews

In a few moments, this newspaper publisher will take his last express elevator ride. The question is was it his sister, the Editor in Chief, the attorney, the well connected reporter, the muckraking columnist or someone else that killed him? Pat Harrington who later became a fixture on the CBS sitcom as Schneider, Mr Fixit for Bonnie Franklin is in the guest cast here along with actress Dina Merrill. Elevators with dead people riding them seem to come along more often in the media and this one is no exception.

Frank Flanagan, the scoop Meister who splits time with John Hillerman's Simon does one of his 5 episodes here. While Frank is OK, I sometimes think that Insepctor Queen gives Frank more breaks than he does Simon. Frank gets a lot of breaks here, but it still takes Ellery to get this clever killing right.

Another fun episode, but it comes with a problem which it shares with the original pilot movie. In both, the victims manage to leave highly improbable clues as to their killers.

The story also leaves the viewer wondering how the killer could know the exact moment the victim enters the elevator. A more tantalizing puzzle is where did the victim go when the elevator first shows up on the 12th floor empty?

There's a huge clue to the identity of the murderer which stares Ellery, his Inspector Dad and the viewer right in the face. A matter of simple misdirection keeps the viewer from recognizing the obvious. But it is right there for the viewer to spot, just as Ellery Queen always promises.

Ultimately, it's the victim's clue which knocks the script down a notch. Like the victim in "Too Many Suspects" who drags herself across her living room to provide investigators with a death bed clue, the victim in this episode manages to ward off what should be instant death so he can press several elevator floor buttons in a certain sequence. With all the time (and effort!) that would have taken, he could have dipped his finger in the puddle of his blood on the floor and written a short note on the wall for investigators to discover.

Several suspect characters provide enough interest to liven the proceedings. A no nonsense City Editor. A knock-out sister of the victim who gleefully takes over running the newspaper. A disappearing company lawyer. A commie-hating fake-story-generating journalist. A snooty obituary writer and a wacky plant/baseball broadcast loving Grandmother. Ellery has his hands full with this caper and he's loving every minute of it.

The dying clue that Manners left still doesn't hold, like most on the series so far. He was lying in a pool of his own blood, shot, dying... and he still managed to reach up and hit the elevator buttons? Wouldn't the blood splatters show he had crawled over and reached up? Where's Dexter where you need him?

Other than that, the episode is pretty good. There are some veiled comments about retiring and women in charge. And I like Ruth McDevittt in her brief upstaging role as Zelda. It's Miss Emily from Kolchak! We also get Ken Swofford as Flannigan, and he's as entertaining as he was in his first appearance an episode ago. I like how he's brash and unapologetic about how he's in it for the story. Flannigan reminds me of Carl Kolchak, particularly when he puts on a bogus accent to try and fool the Queens. It seems like the kind of goofy "disguise" that Kolchak often used.

David Wayne doesn't have much to do except be irascible. However, it's David Wayne so he does it well. Ellery seems to do some actual sleuthing, or at least talking to suspects. So Jim Hutton gets a little more to do and in previous episodes. How much of Ellery's absent-mindedness and clumsiness is an act is the real mystery. Does he fake it like Columbo, or are both of them actually faking it? Judging from the opening apartment scene, Ellery is really that dopey.

The guest cast is forgettable.

The episode is a reflection of the times, and the newspaper and elevator seems somewhat anachronistic. Like it was a 40s murder mystery. Which I suppose is what it's supposed to be. But in 2021 it seems dated. Newspapers, what are those? :)

"Express" also strikes me as the first mystery on the show that played fair. Ellery mentions that the killer studied as an electrical engineer, we see Ellery go to the basement via elevator, and there's a brief scene of the killer's office number that makes the dying clue... solvable. So everything is there, the viewer just has to put it together.

Overall, "Express" is the first good story of the series. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?