User Reviews

The guest cast here provides a lot of interest. First though is this episodes attempt to recreate the early live television atmosphere of the late 1940's when everything was live. Actually this is pretty effective except the cameras are way too advanced in the way they can follow Ellery around in Franks live show.

It is interesting that Bob Crane appears in this show (one of his later guest appearances) playing an ad executive who does not appear to be interested in women. Ironic considering within a few years he would be killed because of his womanizing and there is still no clue who killed Bob Crane in real life. Wonder where Ellery is now that we still have this real life mystery? In the cast is Juliet Mills who was a nanny on television and Herb Edelman who did a lot of television work in this era. An Executive is killed in his office (Mr Long) during lunch hour with Ellery & Flanagan being in office nearby when it happens. Richard Queen & Ellery are puzzled with what has happened.

Richard is supposed to be on Flangan's new show to update the investigation when he arrives late due to traffic. So Ellery does the show and reveals the murderer.

In my review of the earlier EQ episode, "The Adventure of the Chinese Dog", I wrote something to the like of, "Never trust a TV character who backs out of a room in mid-conversation with someone you never hear speaking." When that happened in that episode, I pretty much knew who the murderer was before anyone in the story realized that the victim was dead. Well, the EQ writers would never repeat a similar scenario like that, would they? Unfortunately, they would and they did - in this, "The Hardhearted Huckster" episode.

Not only did the writers repeat that scenario, they also, this time, gave the killer who backed out of the room, a connecting office door to the office of the murder victim. At first I thought that the writers couldn't possibly be making the identity of the killer so obvious. But yes, they did.

While there's not much mystery to whodunnit, there is still much fun to be had here. Especially with the return of Tabloid Newspaper Reporter Frank Flanigan. While Flanigan's jovial pursuits had been curtailed for his previous appearance in "The Wary Witness", this time he's back to his laugh-riot ways. The episode definitely benefits from it.

Once again there are lots of well known names and/or faces in the guest cast. Bob Crane ("Hogan's Heroes") plays an advertising man who knows that in 1947, "Television is the future!" Unfortunately the man he's working for - and who is soon to be dead - believes TV is just an idiotic passing fad.

Eddie Bracken, later to play the would-be Walt Disney, Roy Wally in "National Lampoon's Vacation" ("Drove the whole family to Florida. Worst two weeks I ever spent in my life. The smell from the backseat was terrible!"), plays the business man who the murdered man stepped over to become the Big Boss.

Juliet Mills ("Nanny and the Professor") plays the Dead Man's married, secretarial love interest. Inspecter Queen and Ellery come to learn that she knew all of the victim's secret quirks.

There's also a Gold-Digger, a lunch Delivery Man, a nosey Chauffer and a Copy Writer who would rather be writing scripts for Whodunnit Mystery TV shows.

In the midst of all these seriously calculating possible murderers is the positively perplexed Ellery Queen. Jim Hutton seems to casually wander through the episode's activities with a perpetual grin on his face. The actor glows with obvious enjoyment of the role and of the production. David Wayne as Papa Queen absolutely delights with each sneer of contempt for the collection of exasperating suspects with whom he is surrounded.

Then again, there's Ken Swofford as the wonderful weasel, Frank Flanigan. Crane's Ad Man taps him to host his own Tabloid TV show. Flanigan, already full of himself, completely gorges on the chance of uncontained celebrity. Flanigan goes entirely off the scales in delirious self-promotion. That is, until the two scheduled guests for his first show go missing. Then he catches sight of himself pre-show in a monitor and wonders who that horrid looking gray-fish wearing the press hat is. Once the cameras turn on, he's dead in his tracks. Luckily he finagled Ellery into sitting in the guest spot. Ellery quickly takes over Flanigan's show and proceeds to unmask the murderer on Live Television. The last moments of the show are hysterical as Flanigan closes the Quicksilver Cigar sponsored show by lighting up a cigarette. The studio lights dimmed, Crane's Ad Man wonders if alternative New York Newspaper Man, Ed Sullivan, has any asperations for television stardom.

Other than a not very mysterious mystery, this is yet another terrific episode of "Ellery Queen". It's also a great example of stupendous 1970's television.