Charlie Chan
WARNER OLAND
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) 9/10
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935) 8/10
Charlie Chan's Secret (1936) 7.5/10
Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) 7/10
Charlie Chan in London (1934) 6.5/10
The Black Camel (1931) 6/10
Charlie Chan in Paris (1935) 6/10
Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936) 6/10
Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) 6/10
Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937) 3/10
LOST FILMS (speculative scores based on available materials)
Charlie Chan's Chance (1932) 6.5/10
Charlie Chan's Courage (1934) 6.5/10
Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) 5.5/10
Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933) 5/10
SIDNEY TOLER AT FOX
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) 9.5/10
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) 9/10
Dead Men Tell (1941) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Panama (1940) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) 8/10
Castle in the Desert (1942) 8/10
Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940) 7/10
Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) 6/10
Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) 5/10
Murder Over New York (1940) 4.5/10
City in Darkness (1939) 3.5/10
SIDNEY TOLER AT MONOGRAM
The Shanghai Cobra (1945) 6.5/10
The Scarlet Clue (1945) 6.5/10
Dark Alibi (1946) 6/10
The Chinese Cat (1944) 5.5/10
The Trap (1946) 5.5/10
Dangerous Money (1946) 5.5/10
The Jade Mask (1945) 5.5/10
Black Magic (1944) 5/10
Shadows Over Chinatown (1946) 5/10
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) 4/10
The Red Dragon (1945) 3/10
ROLAND WINTERS
The Shanghai Chest (1948) 6/10
The Chinese Ring (1947) 6/10
The Sky Dragon (1949) 5.5/10
The Golden Eye (1948) 5/10
Docks of New Orleans (1948) 4/10
The Feathered Serpent (1948) 3.5/10
OTHER FILMS
The Return of Charlie Chan (1972) 5.5/10
They Were Thirteen (1931) 5/10
Behind That Curtain (1929) 1.5/10
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) 1/10
TV SHOWS
The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957-58) 5.5/10
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972) 4/10
ALL EXTANT FILMS RANKED
01 - Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) 9.5/10
02 - Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) 9/10
03 - Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) 9/10
04 - Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) 8.5/10
05 - Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936) 8.5/10
06 - Dead Men Tell (1941) 8.5/10
07 - Charlie Chan in Panama (1940) 8.5/10
08 - Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935) 8/10
09 - Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) 8/10
10 - Castle in the Desert (1942) 8/10
11 - Charlie Chan's Secret (1936) 7.5/10
12 - Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) 7/10
13 - Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940) 7/10
14 - Charlie Chan in London (1934) 6.5/10
15 - The Shanghai Cobra (1945) 6.5/10
16 - The Scarlet Clue (1945) 6.5/10
17 - The Black Camel (1931) 6/10
18 - Charlie Chan in Paris (1935) 6/10
19 - Dark Alibi (1946) 6/10
20 - Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936) 6/10
21 - Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) 6/10
22 - Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) 6/10
23 - The Shanghai Chest (1948) 6/10
24 - The Chinese Ring (1947) 6/10
25 - The Return of Charlie Chan (1972) 5.5
26 - The Chinese Cat (1944) 5.5/10
27 - The Trap (1946) 5.5/10
28 - The Sky Dragon (1949) 5.5/10
29 - Dangerous Money (1946) 5.5/10
30 - The Jade Mask (1945) 5.5/10
31 - They Were Thirteen (1931) 5/10
32 - Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) 5/10
33 - Black Magic (1944) 5/10
34 - The Golden Eye (1948) 5/10
35 - Shadows Over Chinatown (1946) 5/10
36 - Murder Over New York (1940) 4.5/10
37 - Docks of New Orleans (1948) 4/10
38 - Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) 4/10
39 - The Feathered Serpent (1948) 3.5/10
40 - City in Darkness (1939) 3.5/10
41 - The Red Dragon (1945) 3/10
42 - Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937) 3/10
43 - Behind That Curtain (1929) 1.5/10
44 - Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) 1/10
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) 9/10
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935) 8/10
Charlie Chan's Secret (1936) 7.5/10
Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) 7/10
Charlie Chan in London (1934) 6.5/10
The Black Camel (1931) 6/10
Charlie Chan in Paris (1935) 6/10
Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936) 6/10
Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) 6/10
Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937) 3/10
LOST FILMS (speculative scores based on available materials)
Charlie Chan's Chance (1932) 6.5/10
Charlie Chan's Courage (1934) 6.5/10
Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) 5.5/10
Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933) 5/10
SIDNEY TOLER AT FOX
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) 9.5/10
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) 9/10
Dead Men Tell (1941) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Panama (1940) 8.5/10
Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) 8/10
Castle in the Desert (1942) 8/10
Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940) 7/10
Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) 6/10
Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) 5/10
Murder Over New York (1940) 4.5/10
City in Darkness (1939) 3.5/10
SIDNEY TOLER AT MONOGRAM
The Shanghai Cobra (1945) 6.5/10
The Scarlet Clue (1945) 6.5/10
Dark Alibi (1946) 6/10
The Chinese Cat (1944) 5.5/10
The Trap (1946) 5.5/10
Dangerous Money (1946) 5.5/10
The Jade Mask (1945) 5.5/10
Black Magic (1944) 5/10
Shadows Over Chinatown (1946) 5/10
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) 4/10
The Red Dragon (1945) 3/10
ROLAND WINTERS
The Shanghai Chest (1948) 6/10
The Chinese Ring (1947) 6/10
The Sky Dragon (1949) 5.5/10
The Golden Eye (1948) 5/10
Docks of New Orleans (1948) 4/10
The Feathered Serpent (1948) 3.5/10
OTHER FILMS
The Return of Charlie Chan (1972) 5.5/10
They Were Thirteen (1931) 5/10
Behind That Curtain (1929) 1.5/10
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) 1/10
TV SHOWS
The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957-58) 5.5/10
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972) 4/10
ALL EXTANT FILMS RANKED
01 - Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) 9.5/10
02 - Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) 9/10
03 - Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) 9/10
04 - Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) 8.5/10
05 - Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936) 8.5/10
06 - Dead Men Tell (1941) 8.5/10
07 - Charlie Chan in Panama (1940) 8.5/10
08 - Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935) 8/10
09 - Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) 8/10
10 - Castle in the Desert (1942) 8/10
11 - Charlie Chan's Secret (1936) 7.5/10
12 - Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) 7/10
13 - Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940) 7/10
14 - Charlie Chan in London (1934) 6.5/10
15 - The Shanghai Cobra (1945) 6.5/10
16 - The Scarlet Clue (1945) 6.5/10
17 - The Black Camel (1931) 6/10
18 - Charlie Chan in Paris (1935) 6/10
19 - Dark Alibi (1946) 6/10
20 - Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936) 6/10
21 - Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) 6/10
22 - Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) 6/10
23 - The Shanghai Chest (1948) 6/10
24 - The Chinese Ring (1947) 6/10
25 - The Return of Charlie Chan (1972) 5.5
26 - The Chinese Cat (1944) 5.5/10
27 - The Trap (1946) 5.5/10
28 - The Sky Dragon (1949) 5.5/10
29 - Dangerous Money (1946) 5.5/10
30 - The Jade Mask (1945) 5.5/10
31 - They Were Thirteen (1931) 5/10
32 - Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) 5/10
33 - Black Magic (1944) 5/10
34 - The Golden Eye (1948) 5/10
35 - Shadows Over Chinatown (1946) 5/10
36 - Murder Over New York (1940) 4.5/10
37 - Docks of New Orleans (1948) 4/10
38 - Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) 4/10
39 - The Feathered Serpent (1948) 3.5/10
40 - City in Darkness (1939) 3.5/10
41 - The Red Dragon (1945) 3/10
42 - Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937) 3/10
43 - Behind That Curtain (1929) 1.5/10
44 - Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) 1/10
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- DirectorIrving CummingsStarsWarner BaxterLois MoranGilbert EmeryEve Mannering realizes too late that her abusive husband is a philanderer and murderer and seeks protection with her true love, explorer John Beetham."Behind That Curtain" confidently strides into every early talkie pitfall there is. For one, the acting is stagey to almost parodic levels. Everyone talks... very... very... slowly... indeed, enunciating every syllable separately, leaving long, whopping pauses between each sentence careful not to speak over his fellow actor's line. I am convinced that if everyone spoke normally the film would be over in half the time. The blocking is stilted even for 1920s standards. There are no camera movements and all the actors are positioned in flat, unimaginative tableaux, delivering their lines towards the camera without moving. They don't stand as much as pose. They don't walk as much as strut. The pace, consequently, is languid and each scene seems to run on for far longer than it should.
The acting is of variable quality. Warner Baxter and Lois Moran are fine if not particularly memorable romantic leads and Gilbert Emery makes for a convincing authority figure. On the other end of the spectrum is Philip Strange whose portrayal of the snide villain is anything but subtle and whose delivery is an insult to wood. Boris Karloff makes his talkie-debut here in an inconsequential part that could easily go unnoticed. With the sinister looks he keeps giving the camera you'd think he was playing the villain instead of a lowly Arabic servant. The problem, however, is that everyone seems ill at ease on screen. Forced to act at such a languid pace and making an uncomfortable transition from silent movies, everyone seems self-conscious and discombobulated. In several long shots, the actors even seem to forget how to walk and seem to stagger in and out of rooms like toddlers.
But no one will be watching "Behind That Curtain" for its cinematic qualities. The film is best known as the oldest surviving cinematic outing of Charlie Chan, the brilliant Chinese detective who would go on to appear in further 4? films for Fox. While the film is based on Earl Derr Biggers' novel it is no mystery. Instead, it is a distinctly torrid melodrama, one to rival even the most over-the-top Indian soap operas. The story revolves around a love triangle between Eve (Lois Moran), her husband Eric (Philip Strange), and her childhood friend, the explorer Colonel Beetham (Warner Baxter). After Eve learns that Eric is a cheater and a murderer she escapes into the Arabic desert with Beetham pursued by a dogged Scotland Yard inspector Sir Frederick (Gilbert Emery). Chan is relegated to a tiny part as Sir Frederick's honourable colleague. He appears in only a single, unimportant scene and is amateurishly played by E.L. Park.
"Behind That Curtain" offers some interest but not due to its objective qualities. It is a lot of fun to watch as a kind of trashy 1920s soap opera with all the trappings of the genre. The over-the-top performances, overcooked emotions, explosive bust-ups and hilariously portentous dialogue delivered in voices shivering with emotion.
But if we look at it as a serious movie, "Behind That Curtain" is a bust. Besides some eye-catching desert photography and nice musical passages, the film is entirely without merit. With its stilted performances, stagy direction and languid pace, it is frequently a chore to get through its needlessly elongated 90-minute runtime.
1.5/10 - DirectorHamilton MacFaddenStarsWarner OlandJohn GarrickMarguerite ChurchillCharlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu, and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking.Of all the lost Charlie Chan films, "Charlie Chan Carries On" is the one that's easiest to get a good idea of. For one, its theatrical trailer still survives with a decent if brief glimpse at a few scenes from the film. Furthermore, a full shooting script is available for reading on the excellent Charlie Chan Family Home website. Last but not least, the Spanish-language remake, "They Were Thirteen", made on the same sets and with the same script, still exists and is available on home video.
That makes the task of mentally reconstructing "Charlie Chan Carries On" far easier than getting even a passing glimpse at what, say, "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" would have been like.
So, what does this mental reconstruction amount to? Well, I would say that "Charlie Chan Carries On" would not have been a million miles away from "The Black Camel", Charlie Chan's second cinematic outing which was also directed by Hamilton MacFadden, made in 1931, and which still survives. It is a stagy, dated effort, clearly displaying the awkwardness of the early talkie era. But it is also an undeniably enjoyable and atmospheric picture.
The story of "Charlie Chan Carries On", based on the same-named novel by Earl Derr Biggers, is a lot more engaging and original than the one featured in "The Black Camel". It revolves around a group of American tourists on a trip around the world which takes them from New York to France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, Singapore, and finally Honolulu. But what the travellers don't know is that among them is a dangerous killer, a ruthless diamond smuggler named Jim Everhard (an apt surname by all accounts).
While in London, Everhard murders one of the tourists, a kindly old man which sets the determined Inspector Duff (Peter Gawthorne) on his case. When a bullet puts Duff out of commission, his old friend, the brilliant Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) carries on the investigation. He boards the ship taking the tourists from Honolulu to New York and endeavours to find out which of the tourists is Jim Everhard before they reach their final destination.
The set-up is absolutely terrific but its execution in the screenplay by Barry Conners and Philip Klein is not as dynamic as the plot summary might suggest. Instead of beginning with Charlie Chan boarding the ship, it has a leaden 40-minute prologue in which we follow Inspector Duff's investigation and a bevvy of humorous but ultimately meaningless subplots about the tourists' personal lives.
I have no way of knowing how this prologue would have ultimately played on screen but I can say that I found it a rather dull affair in "They Were Thirteen" and that the script does not read any better. When the novel was adapted again in 1940 under the title "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise", the writers smartly introduced Charlie Chan right at the beginning. Leaving him out of the story for so long is, in my opinion, a major misstep.
Looking at the cast list of "Charlie Chan Carries On", I see some familiar and likeable names. I would have particularly loved to have seen Marjorie White, a terrific comedic actress, in the film. She has some of the script's best lines and her Spanish counterpart Blanca de Castejon absolutely stole every scene she was in. The brief glimpses in the trailer, however, are less kind towards Warren Hymer and John T. Murray whose performances come across as overly broad and stiff. Maybe they would have played better when viewed in the context of the whole picture but I have my doubts.
Even with all its flaws, I do think the script for "Charlie Chan Carries On" could have worked relatively well had it been played with the kind of paciness and dynamicity that later Chan films had. However, this was a 1931 film and if "The Black Camel" is anything to go by, I think that such attributes are wishful thinking. Even with Hamilton MacFadden's inventive, atmospheric direction, I fear that "Charlie Chan Carries On" was a stagy, stiff affair.
There is no doubt it is a massive shame that the first Warner Oland Charlie Chan film is missing but I am not going to claim we're short of a masterpiece. Having now read the script and seen both the trailer and the Spanish-language remake, I think that "Charlie Chan Carries On" would not have scored higher than a 6 in a best-case scenario.
I like the premise and the cast and a lot of the comedic dialogue is snappy and clever but it is hard to get around the fact that the story dilly-dallies for 40 minutes before Charlie Chan is finally introduced. We also should not ignore the technical limitations and awkwardness of early talkies which would have certainly marred this particular production. The realist in me will give "Charlie Chan Carries On" a speculative score of 5.5. - DirectorDavid HowardStarsJuan TorenaAna María CustodioRafael CalvoThis is the Spanish-language version, with a different cast and crew, of the Charlie Chan film Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), in which Charlie sets out to discover the killer of an American found dead in a London hotel room.First a little history lesson! In the early 1930s, the days of the awkward transition between silent films and talkies, major Hollywood studios started making the same film twice. This is not a smart-aleck way of criticising Hollywood's lack of imagination, I mean that literally. In order to sell their talkies worldwide, they'd make the English-language version of the film first and then shoot an alternative Spanish-language version on the same sets afterwards.
This bizarre and costly practice didn't have a terribly long life. It ended pretty much as soon as it began, once the studios discovered the magic of dubbing but it produced at least two significant alternatives. One is George Melford's "Dracula", a surprisingly improved alternative to the Tod Browning classic. The other is "They Were Thirteen", the Spanish-language remake of "Charlie Chan Carries On", the first of sixteen Charlie Chan films to star Warner Oland and the first of forty-two films that form the long-running series of movies about the eponymous Chinese detective.
The reason "They Were Thirteen" is significant is because, sadly, "Charlie Chan Carries On" is a lost movie. Thankfully, this Spanish-language version survives and offers an intriguing glimpse into what the progenitor of the Charlie Chan film series might have looked like.
"They Were Thirteen" falls for a lot of early talkie trappings. Its direction is stagy and stilted, the performances broad and declarative, and the pacing is occasionally quite leaden. Still, I must admit I enjoyed this movie mostly for its engrossing mystery.
Based on an Earl Derr Biggers novel, the film begins with the murder of an old man in a London hotel. It transpires that he was part of a thirteen-person tourist group on a trip which will take them from America to France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, Singapore, and finally Honolulu.
The indefatigable Scotland Yard Inspector Duff (Rafael Calvo) does not manage to solve the case before the group's departure from London but he does get in touch with his old friend Charlie Chan (Manuel Arbo), the marvel of the Honolulu police force, who joins the tourists in Honolulu. Will he manage to identify the killer among the remaining twelve before the ship reaches New York? You can bet your honourable behind that he will.
The film is a globe-trotting mystery and yet it never manages to shake off that claustrophobic stagy atmosphere that a lot of these early talkies have. I blame that failure on director David Howard whose work is competent but distinctly flat. If his work on the subsequent Charlie Chan mysteries is anything to go on, I'm certain that the English-language director Hamilton MacFadden found some interesting ways to make the film more visually dynamic. Howard, sadly, lacks MacFadden's imaginative touch. His camerawork is stiff and plain and is not at all helped by Sidney Wagner's flat and unatmospheric cinematography.
"They Were Thirteen" has one other significant issue and that is pacing. Despite a solid, intriguing opening, the film seems to spin its wheels for the first half of its runtime. It takes 41 minutes for Charlie Chan to first appear and he doesn't board the ship until 50 minutes of this 80-minute movie have passed. Once the investigation gets going, however, there is far too little time to develop the story, so the final third feels horridly rushed and fairly muddled. I'm still not sure who some of the suspects are! This problem was fixed when the novel was adapted again in 1940 with Sidney Toler in the lead role under the title of "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise".
Speaking of Charlie Chan, he's played here by Manuel Arbo who does an acceptable if unremarkable job imitating Warner Oland's interpretation of the character. He overdoes the whole "humble detective" act, for my liking, and lacks Oland's charisma and commanding presence. In the end, he comes across more like the film's comic relief than a serious detective protagonist.
The rest of the cast is uneven but mostly likeable with especially good performances coming from Rafael Calvo, Raul Roulien, and Blanca de Castejon. I enjoyed the little subplots going on in the background such as a rivalry between two young people which turns into a love affair. I especially enjoyed the brief but very entertaining scenes between Max Minchin (Raul Roulien), a tough-guy Chicago gangster and his moll Peggy (Blanca de Castejon) who nags him relentlessly and buys every souvenir in sight much to her husband's dismay. In a particularly funny scene, she ends up buying a massive reading lamp from a street vendor. "Maybe now that she has a lamp, she'll buy a book," quips Max.
"They Were Thirteen" is a stiff movie which definitely bears the marks of its age but it is bolstered by an interesting mystery (with, what must be said, a rather unsatisfying conclusion) and a consistently entertaining cast. I enjoyed it despite its leaden pace and unremarkable direction both as a diverting entry into the Charlie Chan film series and as a fascinating peek into what the lost "Charlie Chan Carries On" might have looked like.
5/10 - DirectorHamilton MacFaddenStarsWarner OlandSally EilersBela LugosiThe unsolved murder of a Hollywood actor several years earlier and an enigmatic psychic are the keys to help Charlie solve the Honolulu stabbing death of a beautiful actress.Since "Charlie Chan Carries On" is a lost film, "The Black Camel" remains the earliest surviving film starring Warner Oland as the great Chinese detective Charlie Chan, the marvel of the Hawaiian police force who hides his sparkling intelligence behind the mask of geniality.
Oland would go on to memorably essay the part in sixteen entertaining and atmospheric films. There is something of the Columbo method of detecting to his Chan here. He has the tendency to appear in the unlikeliest of places at the most inopportune of moments. He deliberately makes himself appear bumbling and harmless in order to weasel his way into a suspect's confidence. Oland is just wonderful here, mixing humour and a commanding, scene-stealing presence with the precision of a seasoned performer.
Also wonderful is the film's big guest star - Bela Lugosi who had already solidified his name in film history with "Dracula" earlier the same year. Here he plays Tarneverro, a manipulative and slyly charming mentalist who holds a Hollywood actress by the name of Shelah Fane (Dorothy Revler) in the palm of his hand.
Lugosi is superb at seeming both sinister and amicable at the same time. That is the quality that made him a defining Count Dracula and that very same quality makes him irresistible in "The Black Camel". There is a genuine allure of mystery around Lugosi whose scenes with Oland are absolutely electric. The verbal sparring and bizarre camaraderie that develops between these two polar opposite men is the most entertaining and interesting aspect of the movie.
The plot begins, of course, once Shelah Fane is found dead in the bedroom of her Honolulu house. She came to the island to make a movie and returned home in a coffin. As Charlie Chan memorably puts it, death is a black camel that kneels unbidden at every gate.
Chan's implacable boss (Robert Homans) is convinced that Tarnaverro is the killer but Chan is not so sure. He suspects that the motive for the murder of Shelah Fane is connected to a similar killing that took place three years before.
"The Black Camel" was made in 1931, smack in the middle of the awkward transition phase between silent movies and talkies. The earliest sound films suffered greatly from this rushed and stumbling transition, and "The Black Camel" bears many of the symptoms such as stagy mise-en-scene, stilted camera work, and stiff performances.
Surprisingly, however, "The Black Camel" is one of the more watchable early talkies, in my opinion. Director Hamilton MacFadden makes very good use of some terrific location work in beautiful Hawaii and his cinematographers Joseph August and Daniel Clark give us some truly atmospheric and downright creepy imagery. Look, for instance, at the wonderful seance scene in which Tarneverro and Shelah Fane are lit only by the eery light of the medium's crystal ball. Notice, as well, some really first-rate close-ups such as the one in which Charlie Chan, bathed in shadows and lit from beneath, delivers the memorable quote which gave the film its title.
McFadden's camerawork is also worth commending since he employs a lot more movement and innovation than is usual for early talkies. I wouldn't say that "The Black Camel" is quite as dynamic as the silent films that preceded it or for that matter the later talkies that followed but it is a lot less stagey than you might expect.
Also very good is the dialogue credited to Barry Conners and Philip Klein which is full of witticisms and barbs. A starlet offended by Chan's insistent questioning informs him that if she were a dose of poison, she'd give herself to him. Chan, later on, observes that whenever conscience tries to speak, the telephone goes out of order. Earlier on in the film, he tells Tarnaverro that like a shadow, his fame has followed him from Hollywood. When the elusive medium refuses to tell Chan whom he suspects of the murder Chan complains that he is trying to quench the fire of his curiosity with a handful of straw.
Sadly, the story, based on a novel by Earl Derr Biggers, is far less memorable than the dialogue. Once the novelty of a murder on a film set wears off, there's really little left to hold our attention. Chan's investigation is fairly straightforward, the murder itself is rather mundane and lacks any particular innovation, and the murderer, once revealed, could well have been anyone in the cast. Their identity feels more like it was plucked out of a hat than like it's been truly well thought out.
Also, I must note that as wonderful as Oland and Lugosi are, the rest of the cast fare a lot less well. Especially bad is the performance given by Dorothy Revier whose acting is very physically demonstrative and feels like it very much belongs in the silent era. Her line readings are notably over-rehearsed and sound false. Similarly over-the-top are the performances of William Post Jr. as Shelah Fane's unlucky fiancee and Dwight Fry who plays Ms Fane's butler with the same kind of overstated lunacy he had when he played Renfield in "Dracula".
The most out-of-place turn, however, comes from Otto Yamaoka as Chan's bumbling sidekick Kashimo. Charlie Chan is almost always paired with a comic relief sidekick, but unlike some of the best ones like Keye Luke, Yamaoka's performance very much feels like it belongs in a very broad slapstick comedy. He also lacks any kind of chemistry with Oland who mostly seems to be bemused by his co-star's antics and rather reluctant to participate.
On the other hand, I quite enjoyed Murray Kinnell as a beach bum who also happens to be a painter, C. Henry Gordon as one of Shelah Fane's Hollywood cronies, and Marjorie White who absolutely steals the show with her brief but very entertaining turn as a witty starlet.
"The Black Camel" does bear the mark of its age. It's occasionally stagy and stilted, full of over-the-top performances and dodgy line readings, but the scenes between Oland and Lugosi alone are worth the price of admission (or rather the price of the DVD). Furthermore, I found the film an atmospheric and entertaining thriller whose only major failing is a less-than-engaging mystery. It's not top-tier Charlie Chan but it delivers the goods.
6/10 - DirectorJohn G. BlystoneStarsWarner OlandAlexander KirklandH.B. WarnerCharlie is the intended murder victim here, and he avoids death only by chance. To find the murderer (since, of course, murder does occur), Charlie must outguess Scotland Yard and New York City police.In 2006, when the Charlie Chan films were released on DVD in five beautiful, extras-laden box sets, Fox saw fit to produce two reconstructions of the early lost Chan films "Charlie Chan's Chance" and "Charlie Chan's Courage". These reconstructions were audio plays based on the surviving scripts illustrated by production stills and photoshopped collages. The acting in them is pretty ropey (especially, unfortunately, from the man playing Charlie Chan) but they are currently the best way to get an idea of what these lost films might have been like. Another terrific resource is The Charlie Chan Family Home website where you can read the surviving screenplays for these two films as well as the two that sadly weren't reconstructed for the DVDs.
Having both seen the reconstruction and read the script I can safely claim that the loss of "Charlie Chan's Chance" is an unfortunate one. The engaging and clever story based on a novel by Earl Derr Biggers has Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) investigating the murder of a policeman who had been investigating a cold case. He was, in fact, on the tail of Alan Raleigh, a dangerous English murderer who had escaped capture several years ago and is now hiding in New York.
The dynamic script takes Charlie all across town in pursuit of this dangerous man. The film begins with the discovery of the policeman's body in a Wall Street penthouse and continues with pacy, atmospheric scenes in nightclubs, New York's poor neighbourhoods, and even the Hudson River which Charlie and his colleagues NYPD's Inspector Flannery (James Kirkwood) and Scotland Yard's Inspector Fife (H.B. Warner) cross in a police boat.
This film was released a year after "The Black Camel" and feels a lot livelier. For one, it is less drowned in dialogue relying a fair bit on visual storytelling. The shooting script reveals a lot about director John G. Blystone's style. There are plenty of mentions of sinister shadows and outlines of mysterious men stalking our heroes. In an interesting sound montage sequence, we follow a telephone signal as it bounces around from telephone pole to telephone pole all the way from New York to London. There is even an exciting scene in which a man driving a car is gassed to death and has a crash on a busy street. Furthermore, reading the shooting script indications, one gets an idea that the overall editing pace was much faster and the mise-en-scene less stagy.
A particular scene I am sorry we cannot see is very suspenseful even to read. It involves an almost James Bond situation in which a bad guy rigs up a gun to shoot at a particular chair at a particular moment. Seated in the chair is Charlie Chan, oblivious to the danger. The intercutting between Chan's dialogue with the bad guy and the gun about to go off is positively Hitchcockian.
The production stills also show off a well-designed movie. The art-deco sets by Gordon Wiles look slick and appropriately lush for a film set among the New York jet set. I wonder if Joseph August's cinematography would have been as shadowy and atmospheric as the script suggests, however.
On the subject of the script, it is much better, storytelling-wise, than "The Black Camel". For one, Charlie Chan is immediately involved and positioned clearly as the protagonist and the man in charge of the investigation. Second, the story is told more clearly and dynamically. Third, the suspects are much better profiled and are more memorable so that when the killer is revealed we don't have to rewind the film to figure out who they are.
Less ingratiating, however, are some of the script's racial insensitivities. A lot has already been written about the problem of racism in Charlie Chan films. I don't intend to go into it and instead suggest Yunte Huang's terrific book which examines the matter with intelligence and calm not usually exhibited with such hotly-debated topics.
However, one thing is for certain, in all the films Charlie Chan is presented squarely as a positive character, a role model, and a person who dispels all negative prejudices held by his contemporaries. In "Charlie Chan's Chance", however, we have, for the only time that I know of, examples of uncontested racist statements. Passing showgirls refer to Charlie as "chop suey" and quip that they have "no laundry today". Uncharacteristically, Charlie merely stands back and takes the insults.
Also uncharacteristic of the series is the presence of a very cliched Asian villain in the form of Li Gung (Edward Peil, Sr.), the kind of devious and untrustworthy foreigner stereotype that Charlie Chan was expressly created to oppose.
Furthermore, some distinctly 1930s cringeworthy dialogue seeps into the script. Asked about his family full of boys Charlie says that he has been lucky. Pointing to his daughters he quips "Out of eleven opportunities, I've been unfortunate three times". How strange to hear such derogatory statements about his family from Charlie himself.
"Charlie Chan's Chance" is certainly a film of its time but if we put that aside we are still left with what promises to have been a very fine picture indeed. Livelier and more engaging than "The Black Camel" and better plotted than "Charlie Chan in London". I suspect that if we had the good fortune to see it, I'd end up rating it a 6.5. - DirectorHamilton MacFaddenStarsWarner OlandHeather AngelRoger ImhofWhen a good-for-nothing man named Dan is stabbed to death and his arm broken, Charlie Chan is on the case. His first clue comes from the victim's sister, who noticed a prowler wearing a glow-in-the-dark wristwatch.Unlike the two films flanking it, "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" was not reconstructed for the DVD box set. This is a strange decision seeing how its script is easily the most suitable to being turned into an audio play with its heavy reliance on dialogue. The shooting script (available for reading on the excellent Charlie Chan Family Home website) indeed reads like a stageplay. The scenes are long and talky and begin with characters walking into a room and don't end until everyone has left. There is little evidence of the dynamics present in "Charlie Chan's Chance" and because of that "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" feels like a significant step back.
Despite its title, the story, based on Earl Derr Biggers' novel, is not really all that great. It is a very straightforward and simplistic parlour mystery which revolves around the murder of Dan Winterslip (Robert Warwick), a rich layabout who wiles away his days in his fancy Hawaiian mansion. There are few twists in this tale, especially when compared to the much more engaging mysteries of the preceding four films.
Furthermore, here we encounter the most thoroughly unlikeable supporting cast of any Charlie Chan film consisting of Puritans, racists, and entitled rich people none of whom are in the least bit fleshed out or even clearly defined.
The dialogue written for them is equally to blame for just how fake and thin these characters seem. They incessantly describe themselves and explain their actions in bursts of declarative exposition. The funniest moment in the entire script is when a gangster walks into a scene and immediately announces that he's sick of Hawaii and that he has to "get back to New York and the mob". If that isn't stereotypical enough production stills reveal that he is dressed in a pin-stripe suit and that he sports a snarl on his face at all times.
On the other hand, the production stills and the few bits of surviving footage also reveal a handsomely photographed film. The director of photography was Ernest Palmer who also photographed the atmospheric "Charlie Chan in Paris". The director, meanwhile, was Hamilton MacFadden who also helmed the stagy but picturesque "The Black Camel" which similarly featured a hacky script but was turned into a decent film largely due to MacFadden's solid work.
The camera directions in the shooting script, however, reveal a less visually enticing film. A lot of the scenes are played in long, static shots which the actors walk in and out of like players on a theatrical stage. MacFadden seems to have embraced the idea that you should only cut when you absolutely cannot pan and that if you don't even have to pan all the better!
The script for "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" is fairly forgettable and bland but I don't want to give the impression that it is entirely meritless. For one, it is a rare Charlie Chan film that actually takes place in Honolulu and the script actually does a good job of showing Charlie working on his home turf.
There are a few terrific scenes showing the Chan family life. I especially love the one in which Charlie's numerous family help him get ready in the morning when he is unexpectedly woken up by a telephone call. The final scene in which the entire Chan Clan is packed into a single car must have also been a scream. I also found the portrayal of the life of ex-pats living in Hawaii quite interesting if not sufficiently fleshed out.
Still, there's no escaping that I had no interest in the story whatsoever. Couple that with a smaller amount of screen time for Warner Oland and a supporting cast full of shrill, unlikeable characters, I doubt that "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" was anywhere close to his greatest film. I think this one would be rated somewhere around a 5. - DirectorEugene FordeGeorge HaddenStarsWarner OlandDrue LeytonDonald WoodsCharlie is hired to deliver a pearl necklace to a millionaire at his ranch. When murder intervenes he disguises himself as a Chinese servant and begins sleuthing.There was clearly a fear from the Fox producers in the 1930s that Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective, could not carry a picture on his own. That must be why the first five Chan films, all based on Earl Derr Biggers novels, always have a white protagonist accompanying Chan and sometimes even doing most of the detecting. All that would change with "Charlie Chan in London" but for now let's focus on "Charlie Chan's Courage", the last lost Chan film.
Much like "Charlie Chan in London", this is a take on the old manor house mystery trope. Here the manor in question is a lavish house in the Californian desert belonging to the thuggish financier J.P. Madden (Paul Harvey), nicknamed "the Wall Street plunger". The mystery at the centre of "Charlie Chan's Courage", however, is better than the one Charlie had to solve in London. It is, in fact, one of the more intriguing of the whole series as the question is not only whodunnit but also who was it done to?
Let me try to explain the complicated setup. Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is asked by a jeweller (Reginald Mason) to deliver a priceless necklace to Madden's house. Chan, however, smells a rat and has the jeweller's son Bob (Donald Woods) go to Madden's house first. On arrival, Bob finds Madden absent from the house and a conspicuous bullet hole in the big man's bedroom.
The next twist comes the following morning when Madden in all of his brash glory shows up alive and well. Who was murdered then? Maybe the more prudent question is who will be murdered next?
But where is our hero? The indefatigable Charlie Chan of the Honolulu police. Well, in the kitchen. You see, he disguises himself as an itinerant Chinese worker and secures himself a job as Madden's cook. This could be an interesting premise for a detective film (indeed "Murder, She Said" did it to perfection some 30 years later) but I'm not entirely convinced "Charlie Chan's Courage" pulled it off as well.
For one, most of the screen time is devoted to Bob and his flirtation with Paula (Drue Leyton), a woman he meets on the train and immediately falls in love with. Meanwhile, Chan skulks in the background observing and "narrowing his eyes" which is about as much action as the script gives him before the big finale.
There is a lot of mysterious goings-on in the Madden household. Interesting scenes all of which seem to end with Charlie being revealed in the background "giving a smile and a nod". Not quite what I hope to get out of a Charlie Chan picture.
He also spends most of the film affecting the sing-songy, "me no likey dlinky" accent he so derisively dismissed as a racist stereotype in "Charlie Chan in Paris". This too might be unfortunate.
But the story is so damn good that I'm willing to believe the film could have been a real corker. The mystery constantly twists and turns and whenever you think you know what's going on new characters show up to blow your theory to smithereens. The solution is quite ridiculous, of course, but it has that old-school golden age of mystery charm to it.
Unfortunately, the closest we can get to seeing this film is by watching the reconstruction done for the DVD box set. Like the reconstruction of "Charlie Chan's Chance", it's an audio performance of the original screenplay illustrated with production photos and photoshopped composites.
The acting in this one is better than in the first one but there are a lot more liberties taken with the script and several glaring mistakes. A character who should be arriving "from Chicago" instead goes "to Chicago". More egregiously, a parrot who used to live in a "barroom" is described as formerly occupying a "bedroom".
Still, the mystery is so engaging and fun that I was willing to forget the reconstruction's errors and go along with it. Of the three lost films, this one has the tightest, most entertaining script and based on that I think the film could have gotten a 6.5 from me despite the egregious lack of Charlie Chan. - DirectorEugene FordeStarsWarner OlandDrue LeytonRay MillandCharlie visits a wealthy country home in England. Suspects in the murder range from a housekeeper, to a stableman, to a lawyer.The brilliant Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is in London receiving an award for his work on a previous case when he is visited by a young lady in distress. Seeing how Chan is a perfect gentleman, he is unable to refuse her tearful pleadings for help and soon finds himself investigating a murder involving German spies, the RAF, and top-secret military plans.
Set in a lavish countryside mansion during the hunting season, "Charlie Chan in London" has more than a whiff of Agatha Christie about it. In fact, it is rather reminiscent of her story "The Incredible Theft" which was first published some three years later.
The young lady who came to Chan for help is one Pamela Gray (Drue Leyton), the sister of a man accused of murdering his employer, RAF Captain Hamilton, and awaiting execution despite maintaining his innocence. Chan, in his usual shrewd manner, ingratiates himself among England's societal elite by pretending to be nothing more than a "humble Chinese detective".
"Charlie Chan in London" is the sixth Charlie Chan film starring Warner Oland but unfortunately only the second still in existence. Comparing it to "The Black Camel", you can see that the film series has evolved somewhat and become a lot more confident both in its tone and its leading character. This sixth instalment strikes a much better mix of humour and mystery.
The story, from an original script by Philip MacDonald, is stronger than the one in "The Black Camel". It is an early Charlie Chan take on the old manor house mystery (done a lot better in some later instalments such as "Castle in the Desert") and MacDonald uses the tropes to his advantage. The story is familiar and the villain predictable but it is a lot of fun to watch. I especially appreciated the variation of the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.
On the technical side, most of the kinks of the early talkies have been ironed out by 1934. The camera work is smoother, the mise-en-scene is a lot less stagy, and the performances have been toned down with the exception of the comic relief characters who often feel like they've stepped down directly off a music hall stage.
Having said that, the one major advantage "The Black Camel" has over "Charlie Chan in London" is its inventive director Hamilton MacFadden. This instalment, meanwhile, was directed by Eugene Ford whose work is distinctly more workmanlike and less dynamic. Consequently, the film lacks the sinister, mysterious atmosphere that made "The Black Camel" such an enjoyable watch.
I must also confess that I preferred Warner Oland's performance in the earlier film as well. He is still a very charming and likeable protagonist but he has lost some of his commanding presence. This film plays up the whole "humble detective" schtick making Chan a lot less intimidating and interesting character than before.
Still, "Charlie Chan in London" is a very entertaining entry in the series mostly due to its engaging mystery and solid supporting cast (including a very young Ray Milland). It is a less distinctive and significantly less atmospheric movie than "The Black Camel" but the story is a lot better, the pace less leaden, and the production is moving away from the awkwardness of the early talkies.
6.5/10 - DirectorLewis SeilerHamilton MacFaddenStarsWarner OlandMary BrianThomas BeckHired to investigate forged bonds, Charlie is thwarted by the murder of his undercover agent, but the arrival of son Lee helps him uncover the true culprits.The seventh Charlie Chan film, "Charlie Chan in Paris" finally completes the formula by introducing Charlie's number one son Lee (Keye Luke) into the equation. Even though Lee would eventually be supplanted by the even more incompetent Jimmy, a comic relief sidekick became a staple of the series as much as Charlie's Confucian sayings.
The character of the bumbling sidekick clearly takes root from the hapless Kashimo, a Honolulu PD rookie who assists Chan in the original Earl Derr Biggers novels and in the film adaptation of "The Black Camel" where he was played by Otto Yamaoka. But Lee Chan is a considerable improvement over his progenitor in pretty much every way. For one, Keye Luke plays him not as a mindless idiot but as an enthusiastic young man whose mistakes and goofs can be excused by his lack of experience. He is a much more believable character than the cartoonish Kashimo whom Charlie himself found as annoying as I did. The other reason is the loving relationship between Charlie and Lee which Oland and Luke play beautifully and which adds an unexpected dollop of warmth to what is otherwise a pretty rote mystery movie.
The story sees Charlie (Warner Oland) arriving in Paris to investigate a series of forged bonds being spread around Europe from a Parisian branch of the venerable Lamartine Bank. As soon as he lands, however, he is greeted by a threatening letter and a sinister blind beggar who seems to appear wherever Charlie goes.
The film moves at a decent enough pace but the story by Philip MacDonald simply didn't grab me as much as that of "Charlie Chan in London". Banknote forgery is not a terribly exciting crime and seeing Charlie Chan go up against organized bandits is less interesting to me than seeing him face a more human killer.
Furthermore, even though the first murder occurs as early as 12 minutes into the picture it is not until the second murder some 40 minutes in that there's any sense of momentum or plot progression. The film devotes a lot of time to its supporting cast which would be commendable if any of them were well-developed or even clearly delineated characters but since all of these bankers and Haute société minglers look, talk, and dress the same I had the devil of a time keeping stock of who was who.
Once the investigation gets fully on track, there's a lot of fun to be had with "Charlie Chan in Paris". I enjoyed seeing Charlie breaking into a victim's apartment and hiding from the police. I loved all the scenes with Charlie and Lee. I especially enjoyed the final 10 minutes in which Charlie finally faces the sinister beggar in the sewers of Paris. However, it's not a terribly good sign that once the killer was unmasked I couldn't actually remember who the character was.
Compared to its immediate predecessor, "Charlie Chan in London", this Parisian adventure is less engrossing but better made. The film was directed by Lewis Seiler whose direction is a lot more atmospheric and dynamic. I also really enjoyed Warner Oland's performance here. After a somewhat buffoonish turn in the previous film, he is back to being the cunning, fearsome Chan we know and love. There's a particularly good moment in one of the earlier scenes in which one character assumes that because Charlie is Chinese he does not speak good English. Chan's takedown of the borderline-racist man is both hilariously polite and brutally cutting at the same time.
Like most of these early Chan films, "Charlie Chan in Paris" is not a top-tier Chan film but it is an enjoyable one and since by 1935 all the awkwardness of the early talkies has been overcome I don't feel the need to qualify that assessment. It has a nice atmosphere, a few truly entertaining scenes, and wonderful chemistry between Oland and Luke. If only the mystery was more engaging.
6/10 - DirectorLouis KingStarsWarner OlandPat PatersonThomas BeckWhile investigating the theft of antiquities from an ancient tomb excavation, Charlie discovers the body of the expedition's leader concealed inside the mummy's wrappings.As someone who is a massive fan of mysteries set in exotic locales, supernatural events which are then revealed to be clever ploys, and films revolving around archaeology, "Charlie Chan in Egypt" was almost destined to be a favourite. In fact, it reminded me a lot of one of my favourite Agatha Christie short stories, "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" in which, similarly, a group of archaeologists are picked off by a mysterious killer hiding his identity behind an ancient curse.
The script written by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan is not as inventive nor as airtight as Christie's story but it has a fantastically engaging mystery at its heart, an air of exoticism, and a rather ingenious method of murder employed by a very devious killer indeed.
The story is set in an archaeological camp led by Professor Arnold (George Irving), an indefatigable bloodhound on the trail of Ancient Egyptian treasures. One day, Professor Arnold leaves the camp never to return and his body is eventually found inside a sealed sarcophagus wrapped like a mummy. Charlie Chan (Warner Oland), the great Chinese detective, who is in Egypt on the trail of some priceless missing artefacts investigates.
With such a terrific location and a good, spooky story what could possibly go wrong? Well, a few things. The first is the rickety direction of Louis King, a rather unimaginative hired hand whose flat, sometimes stagy visuals do somewhat undermine the terrific story. He robs the picture of any atmosphere or eeriness it should have had.
Another problem is the character of Snowshoes, a bumbling camp servant, played by Stepin Fetchit. Fetchit was the most popular black comedian in the 1930s who specialized in playing crudely stereotypical comic relief characters. Now, if you can believe it, Snowshoes is actually one of his least racially insensitive caricatures but that does not make him any less annoying. His incomprehensible stuttery muttering schtick gets old very quickly and by the end of the film, I would wince whenever he'd show up. His presence is especially grating because the comic relief in this film rightfully should have been the terrific Keye Luke who had been introduced in the series as Charlie Chan's son in the previous instalment.
The rest of the film, however, is pretty good and I found it to be the most entertaining and intriguing of the Charlie Chan films so far. The story is solid, the solution clever (if predictable), the supporting cast up to the task, and Warner Oland absolutely magnificent. Charlie Chan is at his best when he's not played for jokes. Another excellent aspect of the film worth mentioning is the sets. Even though they were probably pilfered from higher-budgeted productions, they do a terrific job of suggesting the warm, sandy atmosphere of an Egyptian archaeological site.
7/10 - DirectorJames TinlingStarsWarner OlandIrene HerveyJon HallWhen a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.It is a massive shame that despite its Chinese setting "Charlie Chan in Shanghai" does not have a single credited Chinese character besides the Chans themselves. All of the suspects are ex-pats, foreign policemen, and spies. Combined with some distinctly European-looking sets, this robs the film of any atmosphere of its exotic locale which was so wonderfully evoked in "Charlie Chan in Egypt".
This is the only major kink in what is otherwise a top-notch Charlie Chan film, a really entertaining and engaging little thriller in which the brilliant Chinese detective (Warner Oland) hunts for opium dealers in the deliciously grimy Shanghai underground. The gangsters are led by a shadowy Russian spy Ivan Marloff (Frederik Vogeding) who, we suspect, may have grander plans in sight than mere opium smuggling.
Note the two men who co-wrote this film: Edward T. Lowe Jr. and Gerard Fairlie. Fairlie is best known as one of the writers of the highly popular Bulldog Drummond novel series the title character of which is a WWI veteran travelling the world looking for excitement. There is a real taste of a Bulldog Drummond adventure in "Charlie Chan in Shanghai". There is an inordinate amount of peril. Charlie is shot at twice, kidnapped, and even engages in a fistfight! The villains are also Drummondian - mysterious spies, opium smugglers, filthy bandits, and gun-toting baddies.
Edward T. Lowe Jr., meanwhile, was an itinerant screenwriter best known to Chan fans as the man who co-wrote "Charlie Chan in Paris". Even a cursory glance at the synopsis of "Charlie Chan in Shanghai" can tell you that it is clearly a reworking of Lowe's previous scripts. Both films see Chan go up against an organized gang - the only difference is that in the previous film, the gang forged banknotes.
Thankfully, "Charlie Chan in Shanghai" is a resounding improvement over "Charlie Chan in Paris" in every way. The suspects are more clearly defined, the pace is faster, there is a much more tangible sense of urgency, and there is a bigger role for Lee Chan (Keye Luke), Charlie's honourable offspring whose unbound enthusiasm and clumsiness keep landing him in trouble.
The chemistry between Oland and Luke is again the highlight of the film. There is such genuine warmth, chemistry, and precise comic timing between them that their scenes together are an absolute joy to watch. Especially witty are the scenes in their shared hotel room where we simply observe a relationship between a traditional Chinese father and his thoroughly Americanised son. These scenes, unburdened of any actual plot importance, are an unfortunate rarity in thrillers. As can be seen here, however, they go a very long way in establishing the protagonists and making us care for them.
The film was directed by James Tinling whose work is decidedly workmanlike but more than acceptable. His visuals are uninventive and there is a distinct lack of atmosphere to the film, but he keeps the plot moving at a fittingly fast pace and there is a constant feeling of tension throughout.
"Charlie Chan in Shanghai" is a real early gem in the Charlie Chan series and a million miles away from the stagy, stodgy instalments of only a year ago. It is a dynamic, engaging, endlessly entertaining thriller that should be a delight even for those who've never even heard of Charlie Chan before. Not only is there a taut intrigue at its heart, but there are also a liberal dollop of humour and even a clever little locked-room mystery. Its solution is rudimentary but its presence is a welcome surprise.
Speaking of mystery, however, "Charlie Chan in Shanghai" is rather light on that particular ingredient. Most of the villains are known pretty much from the start as are their motivations. This is, however, perfectly in line with the Bulldog Drummond influence. Just like the Drummond novels/pictures, this film is more about the thrill of the hunt than the breed of the prey and that too is a rarity for Charlie Chan.
8/10 - DirectorGordon WilesStarsWarner OlandRosina LawrenceCharles QuigleyThe heir to a huge fortune is presumed drowned, then shows up, is then murdered."Mysterious shadows of the night cling to the old house like moss on a tombstone," says Charlie Chan (Warner Oland), the great Chinese detective, in his usual loquacious way as he approaches the eery Colby Manor where a dark and mysterious game is afoot. The heir to the massive family fortune, long thought dead, has resurrected and returned home only to be murdered mere minutes after his surprise arrival. His ghost, however, appears at a seance held at the request of his eccentric aunt and Chan's old friend Henrietta (Henrietta Crosman).
This spooky and intriguing mystery written by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan, and Joseph Hoffman is the second and far more successful attempt at an old-fashioned manor house mystery after "Charlie Chan in London". Fittingly, there is more than a tinge of Agatha Christie present here as well. The terrific finale seems to have been at least inspired by "The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor" in which Poirot pulls off a very similar trick as Charlie Chan.
But more than Christie, I was reminded of Nancy Drew, the fabulous girl detective who similarly investigated mysterious hauntings which turned out to have been accomplished by devious crooks with the help of secret passageways, mirrors, and hidden UV lamps. This is a delicious mystery indeed!
Most of the runtime is devoted to Charlie's explanations of the various supernatural goings-on at the Colby manor. Even though the solutions don't quite reach the cleverness of John Dickson Carr or even "Charlie Chan in Egypt", they are a lot of fun and Oland delivers them with grace and zest.
The final solution, however, - that of the killer's identity - is disappointingly predictable. The writers use the old trick of giving the killer the least runtime hoping that the audience will simply overlook them but that doesn't work anymore.
"Charlie Chan's Secret" is only the second film directed by Gordon Wiles, who didn't have a particularly notable career and died young in 1950. I am not surprised to find out he was also an art director as he seems more interested in showing off the sets than the actors' faces. Seriously, I have never seen such wide interior shots in my life. Frequently, we'll see shots of actors in the Colby manor living room, for instance, where the camera is pulled so far back that they appear minuscule in comparison to the looming walls around them. We also get a very good look at the ceilings of the house, a technique which Orson Welles would get a lot of praise for five years later.
Wiles is not a terribly good director. His shots are very stagy, his camera movements are stiff, and his pace leaden. Most of the dialogue scenes are awkwardly filmed in side-on wide shots in which the characters exit and enter like actors on a theatrical stage. Wiles inadvertently achieves a sort of cinematic proscenium, an impression that we're seated before a set and not observing a three-dimensional space.
He is also not a good director of actors. Besides Oland who gives a characteristically shrewd and well-considered performance, the entire supporting cast pitches their performances at absolutely melodramatic levels. Especially annoying is Herbert Mundin as a grating comic relief butler whose performance belongs in a very different movie indeed.
Thankfully, the rest of the visuals in "Charlie Chan's Secret" are superlative. The sets designed by Duncan Cramer and Albert Hogsett are especially good. The Colby manor is designed almost like an expressionist nightmare with its crooked windows, high arches, and no straight lines. Cinematographer Rudolph Mate lights the sets especially atmospherically making them some of the most effective in the entire Charlie Chan series. They are a delight to watch!
"Charlie Chan's Secret" is a strange film. It has an engaging mystery and some of the best visuals in the whole series but is directed in such an artificial and stodgy manner that it almost turns into a self-parody of 1930s movies. It is stiff and occasionally plodding but delightfully atmospheric and entertaining. Had it been directed by a more dynamic and skilled director it would have no doubt been the highlight of the Charlie Chan film series. As it stands, it's a creeky but effective curio that occasionally dips quite ably into horror territory.
7.5/10 - DirectorHarry LachmanStarsWarner OlandKeye LukeGeorge BrasnoWhile visiting the circus with his family, Charlie is recruited by the big top's co-owner to investigate threatening letters that he's received.In the 1930s, everybody got to go to the circus. Charlie Chaplin went in his wonderful film "The Circus", as did Laurel and Hardy in "The Chimp". The Marx Brothers followed suit in 1939 as did W.C. Fields in the largely forgotten but worthy "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man".
Charlie Chan's turn at the circus came in 1936 with "Charlie Chan at the Circus", one of the more roundly entertaining and enjoyable of the Chan films starring Warner Oland. This is the first Charlie Chan film I ever saw, one afternoon on TV when I was 9, and it's absolutely no surprise that I immediately fell in love with the great Chinese detective. Put in the appropriate verbiage - this film is an absolute gas!
The story, written by the now very experienced duo of Robert Ellis and Helen Logan, sees Charlie and his number one son Lee (Keye Luke) join the circus in pursuit of a dangerous murderer who is using the circus animals to do his evil bidding. No one is safe from him, not even Charlie who has a wonderfully suspenseful encounter with a venomous snake in his bed.
But the story is not what really counts here. "Charlie Chan at the Circus" very much swings the tonal pendulum towards comedy. It is a film full of wonderful, perfectly executed gags and running jokes.
The star of the show is, without a doubt, Keye Luke who proves once again that Lee Chan is the finest comic relief character the series has. Not only is he charming and instantly loveable as the over-eager and trouble-prone number-one son, but he is also adept at physical comedy which sees him go from one slapstick situation to the next.
My favourite running joke of the film, however, is Lee's fruitless pursuit of the circus contortionist Su Toy (Toshia Mori). In a bid to get close to her, he tries to turn himself into a human pretzel, much to the amusement of his father who quips that his attitude proves Darwin's theory correct.
Indeed, circus performers are extraordinarily well used in "Charlie Chan at the Circus" not merely as sideshow attractions but as likeable characters in their own right. The best in the show are George and Olive Brasno, a couple of little people whose comedic timing and patter make them resemble stars from screwball comedies. The film devotes a lot of time to them, rightfully trusting their abilities to light up the screen.
The film is well directed by Harry Lachman who would go on to helm a number of Chan films. His direction is not flashy or artsy nor does it call attention to itself, but it is dynamic, technically adept, and occasionally even quite atmospheric. That is why I would say that this is the best directed Chan film so far. Unassuming but wonderfully effective.
The mystery itself is not one of the best in the series. Coming on the heels of the much more intriguing "Charlie Chan's Secret", it even appears somewhat pedestrian. The solution itself is silly, while the killer's identity is impossible to figure out due to a lack of clues and careful preparation.
But the sheer joy and good humour of "Charlie Chan at the Circus" overrides the weak story. It is a fun, often hilarious romp, perfectly paced and continuously entertaining. It even offers the rare pleasure of seeing the entire Chan clan together in the memorable opening scene in which all fourteen walk into the circus together like a marching band.
8.5/10 - DirectorH. Bruce HumberstoneStarsWarner OlandKeye LukeHelen WoodWhen a friend of Charlie's is found kicked to death by his own race horse on board a Honolulu-bound liner, the detective discovers foul play and uncovers an international gambling ring.The murder of a horse-owner friend sends the great Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) into Dick Francis territory. Maybe the fact that I never much cared for Francis' equestrian thrillers explains why I found "Charlie Chan at the Race Track" such hard going or maybe it just isn't all that engaging a movie.
The story revolves around a dastardly scheme to cheat at the Melbourne Cup. The villains' plot is explained several times but I found my attention drifting. Lots of horse talk will do that to me. I generally don't care much for sports or betting and this film did nothing to pique my curiosity.
The horse owner discovered the plot and was murdered on the ship bound for Melbourne. Charlie Chan boards the ship in Honolulu and begins an investigation of those present. There are plenty of suspects in this film - family members, trainers, jockeys, and businessmen - but there's surprisingly little mystery. Of the two bad guys involved in the murder, one is revealed right at the beginning of the film and the other is so obvious that you could identify him merely by glancing at the photos of the cast. You just couldn't imagine that actor playing anyone but a villain.
The script by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan, and Edward T. Lowe Jr. does not keep us in suspense. Mysterious events are introduced and then immediately explained away. The villains' plot is clear as day from the moment it's hinted at and Charlie explains exactly how they'll pull it off before the race even begins. There is some interesting business involving the technology of the time - cameras that are meant to capture the finish of the race - and some early forensics, but beyond those, there's very little sleuthing going on in this film.
Also lacking is the humour. Keye Luke is, as usual, wonderful as the overenthusiastic number one son Lee but the material he's given is not as varied nor as witty as before. The running joke of him being undercover as a ship steward quickly grows thin and beyond that, there's little for him to do. Of course, his interactions with Warner Oland are still the high point of the film. However, compared with his antics from "Charlie Chan at the Circus" where he was not only in pursuit of a murderer while dressed up as a nanny but also in pursuit of a beautiful contortionist, the repetitive stuff he has to do here seems awfully underwhelming.
Also present as comic relief is John Henry Allen, a second-rate Stepin Fetchit impersonator who does Fetchit's already annoying mumbling routine with even less charm. The less said about his performance the better except to note that he is roundly outacted by his pet monkey who looks damn cute in his little sailor outfit.
I don't want to rag on this picture too much because it's not really a bad film. It's a handsomely mounted production, well-designed, and well-directed by H. Bruce Humberstone who exhibits the kind of unassuming professionalism I like in Charlie Chan films.
However, I also found "Charlie Chan at the Race Track" to be a distinctly unengaging film which poorly reproduces a lot of the schtick from its better predecessors and then infuses it into an overly complicated story full of bland, forgettable suspects and lacking any real sense of mystery or threat.
One gets the idea that Charlie enjoyed his cruise but a nice holiday does not make a thrilling detective movie and I personally hope not to have to take this journey again.
6/10 - DirectorH. Bruce HumberstoneStarsWarner OlandBoris KarloffKeye LukeA dangerous amnesiac escapes from an asylum, hides in the opera house, and is suspected of getting revenge on those who tried to murder him 13 years ago."Warner Oland vs. Boris Karloff," proudly proclaim the opening credits of "Charlie Chan at the Opera", a most ambitious and unusual Chan film, a delightful mixture of horror and mystery, of the operatic and the cinematic.
The opening sequence wastes no time establishing the film's grandiose gothic tone. We open on a dark and stormy night. A Dutch-angle close-up shows the sign of the Rockland State Sanitarium awash with rain and lit by a single gas lamp. The gloomy building is guarded by a pair of spooked guards hiding under the eaves from the torrential storm. Their voices are muffled by the raging wind but a sound cuts right through its midnight howl. It is the sound of singing emanating from the room of an amnesiac patient (Boris Karloff).
It is a masterful opening straight out of one of those Universal horror films or a Val Lewton chiller. Of course, by the end of it, Karloff has escaped his confinement, his flight motivated by a newspaper article announcing the opening night of an opera starring Mme. Lili Rochelle (Margaret Irving). The entire police force is up in arms chasing the escaped madman but the one place where they aren't looking is the city's opera house, the very place the man is headed to.
So where does Charlie Chan fit in this gothic horror film? Well, he is on holiday in the States with his overenthusiastic number one son Lee (Keye Luke) when he is invited to the premiere by Mme. Lili herself. The great prima donna has been receiving threatening messages and she begs Charlie and his good friend Inspector Regan (Guy Usher) to find out who has been sending them.
The two plots converge during the opening night and by the end of the first act there are two dead bodies in the theatre. The police come down upon the opera house like rain in the opening sequence looking for Karloff but Charlie has other ideas in mind. Will he be able to find the true killer by the end of the third act? You know the answer...
Set largely over the course of three or so hours inside the opera house, "Charlie Chan at the Opera" is quite simply one of the tautest and most exciting of the Warner Oland Chan films. Written by Scott Darling, Charles Belden, and Bess Meredyth, the script does a wonderful job of emulating the plot of an opera with its lost daughters, love triangles, and crimes from the past coming back to haunt their perpetrators. The innate theatricality of the Chan films suits this script extremely well.
The mystery itself is also one of the best with a convincing and memorable cast of suspects and one hell of a red herring in the form of Boris Karloff. His performance is a tad too broad for my taste but his presence is tremendous and his sinister silkiness perfect for the role of the mysterious amnesiac. The revelation is definitely too rushed to be clearly understood but by that point, we're so enraptured with the whole premise we don't really care for all the details.
Warner Oland, however, has definitely brought his A-game for this cinematic clash. This is easily his finest performance as Charlie Chan, quietly commanding, mellifluous, charming yet enigmatic. He never lets his mask of perfect politeness slip and yet he is consistently doubtlessly in charge of the investigation. The Chan we see here is a far more serious figure than he has been in the past few films. He is a lot closer to the way he was portrayed in "The Black Camel", for instance, where he let others play the comedy while he was deadly serious.
There is a lot less comedy in "Charlie Chan at the Opera" in general. The role of the comic relief is split between the wonderful Keye Luke and a newcomer, Sgt. Kelly (William Demarest), the kind of two-fisted dumb cop that's been the but of jokes in detective films from Sherlock Holmes to Philip Marlowe and beyond. Also very funny is the wiry, neurotic stage manager Mr Arnold (Maurice Cass). Anyone who's ever been behind the scenes of a theatre can vouch that his character is 100% authentic. They all do a good job of keeping the spirits up but the film really shines in its more sinister, mysterious scenes.
Director H. Bruce Humberstone keeps the proceedings moving at a fast tempo. His direction is slick and smooth without ever being flashy or distracting. He is a skilled professional who delivers an entertaining, engaging, and atmospheric thriller.
I was also fascinated by all the little technical details Humberstone manages to squeeze into the film. There is a terrific shot in which we see the opera being performed while stagehands run around in the background making the magic happen on stage. Another very interesting scene involves a newspaperman (Selmer Jackson) explaining how photos are sent by wire from one city to the next. Fascinating stuff and cleverly integrated into a taut, tense mystery picture.
"Charlie Chan at the Opera" is frequently named the best Chan film of all time. I'm not sure I agree entirely with that statement (some of the Toler films are definitely even slicker and smarter) but its reputation is not entirely overblown. It is by far the best of the Oland films and just about as good as a B-movie could be in 1936. With its wonderful sets (designed by Duncan Cramer and Lewis Creber) and some atmospheric, moody cinematography from Lucien N. Andriot, it is also a most pleasing film to look at which can't be said for all the early Chans.
Special mention, of course, must be made of "Carnival", the opera performed in the film and composed specially for the occasion by Oscar Levant. It is a tad repetitive but the fact that I've been humming it ever since I first saw the film around the age of 10 is by far the highest praise I can give it and the best indicator of its haunting qualities.
9/10 - DirectorH. Bruce HumberstoneStarsWarner OlandKatherine DeMillePauline MooreWhen a strategically important new aerial guidance system is stolen, Charlie traces it to the Berlin Olympics, where he has to battle spies and enemy agents to retrieve it.After defeating murderers, counterfeiters, opium dealers, and horse-race fixers, the great Chinese detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) finally comes face to face with foreign spies in "Charlie Chan at the Olympics", a lean, furiously fast romp which will doubtlessly entertain Chan fans and casual viewers alike.
The film also functions as a historical curio with its 1936 Berlin Olympics setting. No mentions of Nazism are made and great care is taken to blot out even the slightest hint of a swastika but through some terrific use of archival footage director H. Bruce Humberstone evokes the exciting atmosphere of the last international sporting event before the outbreak of war.
The film also has the edgy, nervous atmosphere of these pre-war years when the conflict seemed to be at once inevitable and delayed. There is a real air of paranoia permeating the picture. Wherever Charlie turns he runs into a foreign spy and even the helpful Berlin policemen (who are most definitely not portrayed as Nazis) seem to know more than they are telling. There is definitely a sinister undercurrent beneath the standard good-humoured antics of Charlie and his hilariously overenthusiastic number-one son Lee (Keye Luke).
The story begins with the dramatic theft of a device which allows planes in the air to be radio-controlled by men on the ground. "Would be great blessing if all war fought with machinery instead of human beings," comments Charlie.
Since the theft took place during the device's testing in Hawaii, the case falls under the purview of Charlie Chan who immediately finds the thief albeit dead in his hotel room. He correctly deduces that the device has changed hands and that the real villain must have left Honolulu in a haste.
Soon enough, Charlie zeroes in on three possible suspects all of whom are on board a ship bound for Berlin. Also on the ship is Lee, an amateur detective and swimmer on the US Olympic team.
The script, written by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan, and Paul Burger, moves at a furious pace from one set piece to the next, changing locations with every reel. The final showdown happens in Berlin but not before Charlie follows clues from Honolulu to the ship to the Olympics themselves.
This is an astoundingly dynamic Charlie Chan film never letting up its considerable tension or running out of steam. There are enemies lurking in every shadow and Charlie has to keep on his toes to outwit them time after time. This is one of those spy yarns where even twists have twists within them. It's a very well-constructed and conceived script with a taut plot, a memorable batch of suspects, and lots of picturesque locations.
Also characteristically excellent is the interplay between Oland and Luke whose humorous screwball patter is only bolstered by evident chemistry and warmth.
The supporting cast is first-rate as well. Katherine DeMille makes for a wonderful femme fatale, enigmatic and sexy. Pauline Moore is charismatic as the ingenue. Meanwhile, C. Henry Gordon, always a welcome presence in a Chan flick, is wonderfully mysterious as the sinister Arthur Hughes who spends the entire film skulking about like Nosferatu.
My favourite performance comes courtesy of Morgan Wallace. He plays the silky spymaster who almost outplays Charlie at his own game - politeness which hides a devious mind.
"Charlie Chan at the Olympics" is now best remembered for its setting and archival glimpses at the games and the Hindenbur which is Charlie's preferred method of travel to Germany. However, this film is far from a museum piece. It's a clever, funny, endlessly entertaining spy yarn full of humour, excitement, and charm. The script is twisty and H. Bruce Humberstone's direction is pacy and slick. This is indeed a top-tier Chan.
8.5/10 - DirectorEugene FordeStarsWarner OlandKeye LukeJoan MarshReturning from European exile where she avoided testifying against her criminal associates, a former singer with a tell-all diary is murdered to ensure her silence.09-04-2023
Despite its title, "Charlie Chan on Broadway" does not see the great Chinese detective investigate the world of spotlights and songs. This is not his great return to the theatrical stage. Instead, the Broadway of this film is that of nightclubs and gangsters, sultry dames and journalistic hounds. The film tries to emulate the quick-talking, double-crossing, screwball mysteries about sharp newspapermen and their scoops. It is mostly successful in that the dialogue is terrific as is the supporting cast but Charlie Chan and his number one son Lee feel a little too much like fish out of water.
The screenplay, credited to five separate writers including Chan stalwarts Robert Ellis and Helen Logan seems to be aware of this. A very funny running joke sees Lee (Keye Luke) acting as an interpreter translating the sing-songy New York patter to a baffled Charlie and unravelling Charlie's aphorisms to the bemused New Yorkers.
The fast-moving plot begins, as many Chan films seem to, on a ship where a femme fatale wonderfully named Billie Bronson (Louise Henry) realizes her life is in danger. She's a former gangster's moll who hightailed it out of New York some years ago. Now, she's coming back hoping to sell her tell-all diary to the press.
Of course, someone gets to her before she reaches her scoop-hungry editor but the killer gets away empty-handed. Wise to the danger, Billie took the precaution of hiding her diary in the luggage of a fellow passenger - none other than Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) himself.
I found the first half of the film in which the complicated plot and its many characters are slowly revealed very entertaining indeed. There is something undeniably electric about 1930s New York and all the mooks and wiseguys hanging around in it that just makes for good cinema.
The dialogue is very good as well full of clever double talk and funny gags. Most of it is delivered with charm and skill by Joan Marsh and Donald Woods as a pair of competing journalists after the same story.
The high point of the film, however, is without a doubt Harold Huber, a very energetic and funny actor who holds the distinction of playing four different goofy cops in four different Charlie Chan films. Here, in his first appearance in the series, he shines as the fast-talking Inspector Nelson. I especially like how, despite being a comic relief character, Nelson is never played as a fool. Unlike similar characters in the previous films, Nelson is shown as being quite capable in his job and deserving of respect from Charlie. The two work alongside each other very well and the film ends with them as firm friends.
The second half of the film in which Charlie finally begins his investigation is significantly less interesting. I would not say that the story of "Charlie Chan on Broadway" is bad but merely that it's so straightforward, familiar, and conventional that it never really grabbed me.
The film is also full of missed opportunities. For instance, far too much of it is set in hotel rooms and offices instead of having Charlie and Lee truly trawl through the seedy 1930s New York. It should be noted, however, that director Eugene Forde doesn't do a great job of making the studio sets come alive. Unlike his immediate predecessor H. Bruce Humberstone, Forde's direction is rather flat and workmanlike. He uses the same kind of camerawork and lighting in the nightclub scenes as he does in the hotel room scenes making both feel like soundstages.
Another missed opportunity lies in the fact that there's little for Keye Luke to do. After an entertaining but brief sequence in which he tries to get into a nightclub without a date, he is relegated to being little more than a glorified extra. The presence of Toshia Mori who played his love interest in "Charlie Chan at the Circus" made me think that a similar subplot would occur here but she only appears in the film for a single scene.
Later on, an intriguing possibility is raised when the police arrest Lee under the suspicion of murder. Had this plot been followed, the rest of the story could have developed into a true rarity for the series - a story in which Charlie Chan has to work against the police to prove his son innocent. Sadly, the notion is dispelled almost immediately.
Speaking of Charlie, he too is relegated to the background for a lot of this film. There is an awful lot going on here with the rival journalists, the cops, and the gangsters all looking for the same MacGuffin. Meanwhile, our hero seems to spend most of the film merely observing the action instead of participating in it. True, he gets his moment to shine while delivering his terrific final summation but can this film truly be called "Charlie Chan on Broadway" if Charlie spends all of it silently sitting in a hotel room? The lack of Oland is not as severe as it would be in the next film but his subtle, anchoring performance is definitely missing from some of the film's more scatterbrained moments.
Coming on the heels of some of the very best Charlie Chan films ever made, "Charlie Chan on Broadway" is a bit of a disappointment. It's far from a bad film but it is a bit too conventional and unremarkable for its own good. As the most typical of all Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, it is still bound to provide a lot of entertainment value but I doubt it would stick in a lot of people's memories.
6/10 - DirectorEugene FordeStarsWarner OlandKeye LukeVirginia FieldAlthough Charlie and Lee are in Monaco for an art exhibit, they become caught up in a feud between rival financiers which involves the Chans in a web of blackmail and murder."Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" is only significant for being Warner Oland's final movie. This wonderful, subtle yet unquestionably commanding actor died in 1938. Otherwise, Oland's 16th outing as the great Chinese detective is an absolute dud, an astoundingly boring picture which tries very hard to overcompensate for its star's failing health.
Warner Oland had been a notorious alcoholic for many years and by 1937 his condition had worsened noticeably. The previous two Charlie Chan films both tried to reduce Oland's screentime through some clever use of the supporting cast and comic relief characters. However, by the time "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" rolled around, there was simply no hiding the fact that Oland was just out of it.
In more ways than one, as well, since Oland is barely in this film. Most of the actual investigating is handled by either the number one son Lee (Keye Luke) or the Monte Carlo chief of police Jules Joubert (Harold Huber). When Oland actually does make an appearance, he is always accompanied by either Luke or Huber who get most of the dialogue.
Oland's presence barely registers on screen. His delivery is unusually flat, his timing is completely off, and he lacks that tactful sharpness he had in the previous films. He even seems to be physically weaker than before as he spends a lot of his scenes sitting down or leaning on tables, chairs, or other actors. He also appears to be about as interested in the plot as I was, but more about that a bit later.
In order to compensate for Oland's mental absence, the writers Charles Belden and Jerome Cady, beef up the supporting characters of Lee and Joubert. A similar undertaking was evident even in the previous film but "Charlie Chan on Broadway" was bolstered by the presence of Joan Marsh and Donald Woods, a very likeable character played by Harold Huber, and some interesting locations. No such luck here!
Keye Luke is a wonderfully talented actor, possessed of terrific comedic timing and a knack for physical comedy. However, without Charlie Chan there to act as the straight man, Lee Chan's usual schtick simply falls flat. He has a lot more screen time here than in most of the previous films but Belden and Cady don't give him anything new to do. He merely repeats gags from previous films including being mistaken for a murderer, getting chased by angry porters, and falling about a lot.
The charm and appeal of the Lee Chan character are not his klutziness or his stupidity. It is the warmth and affection he shares with his father. The scenes between Oland and Luke were the emotional glue which held the previous film together. Here, however, it can hardly be said that they share scenes. It feels more like Luke carrying the scenes while Oland sits back and occasionally delivers a line.
Also prominently featured in the film is Harold Huber who was so wonderful in "Charlie Chan on Broadway". There, he played a fast-talking, wiseguy New York cop, a very funny character who despite being the film's comic relief was never played as a fool.
Here, he plays another fast-talking cop, this time a cocky French chief of police eager to show off the efficiency of the Monte Carlo police but constantly finding himself embarrassed by his blundering underlings. While such a character could be humorous, Belden and Cady's script again fails in delivering original and funny jokes. Instead, they have Huber blubber and bluster his way through reams of jibberish while shouting at the top of his voice. As you might guess, this becomes tiring very quickly.
The plot, revolving around the theft of 200,000 USD worth of bonds is far too thin and underdeveloped to satisfactorily fill out a 75-minute movie. To say that little happens over the course of "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" would be to oversell this film's excitement levels. This is one boring movie, lacking in both mystery and intrigue! It plods along through scenes which move at the speed of molasses. Watch as a secretary counts out the bonds one by one... Watch as Charlie and Joubert shake hands very, very, very slowly... Watch as a taxi driver struggles to start his car time and time again...
Belden and Cady do stumble upon one funny gag which revolves around the fact that Charlie Chan can't speak French and Lee thinks that he can. This is a genuinely funny joke and Oland and Luke play the comedy well. Unfortunately, the writers then proceed to hammer the joke to death by repeating it every five or so minutes. Watch as Charlie and Lee try to get into a casino... Watch as Charlie and Lee try to alert a policeman to a dead body... Watch as Charlie and Lee try to order breakfast...
Not all of the film's faults can be laid at the writers' door, however. I would go amiss without mentioning the listless direction from Eugene Forde. Forde, who was always one of the duller Chan directors, here outdoes himself. The film's pace is leaden, the visuals flat and uninteresting, and the performances absolutely theatrical.
True, even a much better director would struggle to make much out of a script this dull but I'm sure that H. Bruce Humberstone could have at least made a film that moved quickly and was pleasing to look at. Forde's direction makes the Monte Carlo casino floor look like a high school mess hall.
"Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" is without a doubt the worst of the Oland Chan films. It is a slow, unengaging slog that wastes two of the series' funniest actors (Luke and Huber) and suffers from the lack of the central anchoring presence of Warner Oland who sleepwalks through his scenes.
I must confess that as the obvious plot slowly unfolded and Huber continued to shout and Luke continued to fall about, I became sleepy myself. Looking into Oland's expressionless eyes, I sympathized with the man's need for a drink. After all, this is a 75-minute movie that feels like an eternity.
3/10 - DirectorH. Bruce HumberstoneStarsSidney TolerPhyllis BrooksVictor Sen YungWhile Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freighter in the harbor.Warner Oland's unexpected disappearance from the set of "Charlie Chan at Ringside" and subsequent death threw doubt on the future of Charlie Chan. After 16 successful and beloved films in the series, 20th Century Fox had a major decision on their hands. Should they try to recast such an iconic role or should they allow the series to die with its leading man? Both choices had their pros and cons. The recasting seemed the more obvious choice to make, at first. Why let a cash cow die before every last penny has been drained from her? But would the audiences accept a new Charlie? Furthermore, would the audience accept a new Charlie without his number one son Lee? Keye Luke had become as much a staple of the series as Warner Oland was. Unfortunately, Luke had decided not to continue in the role without his on-screen father whom he had such warm chemistry with.
So, if 20th Century Fox decided to keep going with Charlie Chan it would have to be from a clean slate. Such a major decision was not to be taken lightly which explains the relatively long hiatus between "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" and "Charlie Chan in Honolulu". In between, the abandoned "Charlie Chan at Ringside" was retooled into the awkward "Mr Moto's Gamble" and Charlie got a new imitator in the form of Mr Wong who was played by Boris Karloff in a series of decently entertaining B-movies from Monogram Pictures.
The decision was finally reached and "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" finally reached the silver screen in December 1938 with a new star - Sidney Toler. Toler is the Charlie Chan I'm most familiar with. I grew up watching his films and have a certain fondness for their more fast-paced, gimmicky nature. Toler was a very different Chan than Warner Oland. He was more irascible, tougher, less polite and deferential. The debate about who was the better Charlie will probably rage for as long as the Chan films have fans. For me, I think they're both terrific in their own way. Oland was the warmer, wiser Chan for the cosy 1930s and Toler was the perfect tough, sharp cookie for the noirish 1940s.
But Sidney Toler is not entirely comfortable in the part here yet. He is clearly still defining his take on Charlie Chan and his characterization frequently flip-flops between his authentic attempts to make the character his own and a kind of Warner Oland imitation he is not particularly good at. The script is clearly written with Oland in mind and is full of his familiar quips ("contradiction, please"), his warm, gentle humour, and his politeness all of which would be remoulded if not entirely removed over the course of the next few films.
"Charlie Chan in Honolulu", however, is a careful movie. It does everything it can to ease the audience into the new, unfamiliar cast and to try to work even if Sidney Toler doesn't. A kind of lack of confidence in the new Charlie can be felt throughout. For one, he does not begin his investigation until the second third of the film!
The first 20 minutes are spent with his number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) who, like his brother before him, is desperate to be a detective. When he answers a phone call meant for his father, he decides to pretend to be the famous Chinese detective and take on a murder investigation on his own.
Victor Sen Yung's performance here is notably broader than Keye Luke's ever was. He is much more of an obvious comedic character - a cartoon almost. Sen Yung engages in plenty of face-pulling, running around, and comedic bits. Still, even though he is nowhere near as believable and engaging as Luke's Lee Chan was, I quite like Jimmy. He has that same endearing enthusiasm and actually proves to be a lot more useful in the investigation than you think he'll be.
The case revolves around a murder on a cargo ship docked in Honolulu and is a real thin, uninvolving mystery. The screenplay is written by Charles Belden, probably my least favourite Chan scribe whose scripts are always overloaded with grating, unfunny comedy and feature bland, forgettable mysteries. "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" is no exception.
The film spends far too much time trying very hard to be funny. Besides Victor Sen Yung and his bumbling antics, we also get a painfully cringeworthy comic relief character in the form of Al (Eddie Collins), a blundering sailor and his pet lion Oscar. I can't swear to it, but it feels like Collins gets more screen time than Toler here and his act is so broad, vaudevillian, and uniquely terrible that his very presence almost sinks the movie.
A running gag in the film involves Al and Jimmy running around the ship being terrified of everything from corpses to creaking doors. This "g-g-gosh" act gets tiring quickly and goes nowhere very, very slowly.
The film is only 67 minutes long but is such an unengaging and uninteresting affair that it feels a fair bit longer. Not only is the mystery completely bland but so are the suspects who are played by some of the stiffest actors in all of Chandom. The sole good performance comes from George Zucco who gives a very over-the-top but entertaining turn as the kooky Dr Cardigan who travels around with a human brain in a box kept alive by some Frankensteinesque instruments.
"Charlie Chan in Honolulu" is a distinctly middling Chan film thanks largely due to Charles Belden's typically weak and unfunny script. Thankfully, it's his last in the series. Less happily, it is also the last film directed by the always-reliable H. Bruce Humberstone. Humberstone's tight direction is one of the few genuinely good things about this film and it's sad to see him go on such a clunker. Also first-rate is Charles G. Clarke's shadowy, atmospheric cinematography. I wish it were put to use in a better, more mysterious film.
On a final positive note, I'd like to say that I quite enjoyed the scenes of Charlie with his large family. There is an endearing subplot involving Charlie becoming a grandfather for the first time and we get to spend more time with the Chan clan than we have since "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case". These funny, warm family scenes are far better than anything that happens on board the murder ship.
This is a shaky start to Sidney Toler's era but rest assured that things will get better. Like most pilots, things will only get better from here on in.
5/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsSidney TolerRicardo CortezPhyllis BrooksMary Whitman, an old friend of Charlie's in Reno for a divorce, finds herself accused of murdering the woman her husband planned to marry after the decree became final.Following a rather shaky start to his tenure as Charlie Chan, Sidney Toler's second film in the series "Charlie Chan in Reno" is far more confident and effective. It has the kind of verve and joy that made the Warner Oland films such a delight to watch but it also hints at a more dynamic, modern sensibility that would go on to mark the Toler era. After all, as one of the characters says to the woman whose husband she's planning to marry - "This is 1939 and we're modern!"
Sidney Toler is also clearly more comfortable as Charlie Chan, a role he is steadily making his own. The writing is swiftly catching up to his more stern, tough take on the character and the Chan we see here is miles away from Warner Oland's warmer, more deferential portrayal. In "Charlie Chan in Reno", the Chinese detective is a far more austere figure, especially in the face of stupidity. At times, Chan's remarks are openly sarcastic whereas Oland would always hide his acerbic wit under a veneer of politeness and confounding Confucian doubletalk. Here's one surprisingly frank moment of sarcasm: a goofy policeman remarks that he has spent so much at the crime scene that he could search it with his eyes closed. "Thank you," replies Chan, "This time then, I'll search it with my eyes open."
The biggest difference between "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" and "Charlie Chan in Reno" is how much better the latter is at integrating comedy with its thriller plot. In the worst Chan films, the comedy scenes tend to feel like they have been spliced in from a different film. Here, however, they are perfectly balanced so that the comedic characters make significant contributions to the ongoing plot while being funny in a way that doesn't jar with the overall tone of the film.
The comic relief is provided by Slim Summerville, one of the very best comics ever to appear in a Chan film. He plays Reno's comically grave sheriff "Tombstone" Fletcher. I like how Tombstone and Chan immediately get off on the wrong foot and never become friendly. Instead of bending over backwards trying to be a loveable second fiddle, Summerville gamely takes up the role of a buffoonish foe, engaging in some terrifically witty banter with Chan and opposing him at every turn. While some of his more physical gags are a bit too cartoonish, I felt that Summerville was a worthy addition to the film playing a character who contributed a lot to making "Charlie Chan in Reno" tonally dynamic rather than a one-note experience.
Also very good is Victor Sen Yung as Charlie's number two son Jimmy who is still as eager as ever to be a detective. The writers wisely write him in such a way that as goofy as he is he's actually of use to his father in the investigation. Not only does he do all of Charlie's legwork but his knowledge of chemistry supplies an invaluable clue to the identity of the murderer. That way, he's not mere comic relief.
The antics Jimmy gets involved in are also much, much better than the ones from "Charlie Chan in Honolulu". The way he is introduced in the film, after having been mugged of all of his clothes, is a comedic highpoint of the entire series. The whole sequence starting with a very peppy Jimmy driving down a Nevada highway and ending with him standing in a police line-up in his underwear is perfectly pitched and played by Victor Sen Yung. It's a real delight to watch!
The film was written by Frances Hyland, Albert Ray, and Robert E. Kent whose script has some terrific dialogue and a few colourful, entertaining characters. A stumbling block, however, comes from the film's mystery adapted from a story by Philip Wylie. Revolving around a murder of a serial adultress in a Reno hotel, it's just not all that interesting. The suspects are not clearly delineated, the motive is banal, and the setting of an upmarket hotel is neither exotic nor atmospheric enough.
Thankfully, Norman Foster's direction is absolutely superb. Best known for his work on the Mr Moto films, Foster delivers a slick, stylish, pacy film which merrily zips along through its lean 71-minute runtime. Even though most of the film is set in the rather drab-looking hotel, the few scenes set in other locations give Foster and his cinematographer Virgil Miller an excellent chance to show off. A brief but intriguing sequence set in a Wild West ghost town is as evocative and authentic as anything from the Moto films. I wish the whole film was set there.
It can be said that Sidney Toler's era of Charlie Chan films begins here! "Charlie Chan in Reno" is a confident, fast-paced, entertaining, witty film which heralds a new take on the old character. Even though the mystery is far from being the best in the series, the investigation is a whole lot of fun. I especially enjoy the rapport between Toler and Yung whose relationship is a whole lot more antagonistic than that of Oland and Luke but no less warm and amusing.
8/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsSidney TolerCesar RomeroPauline MooreCharlie's investigation of a phony psychic during the 1939 World Exposition on San Francisco's Treasure Island leads him to expose a suicide as murder.Despite its title "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" does not see the famous Chinese detective battling pirates in order to find Captain Flint's buried gold. As enticing as that proposition may sound, the title is a baffling misdirection in a film full of sleights of hand. Instead, Charlie Chan once again takes on the supernatural which, this time, comes back with a vengeance.
In his previous encounters with superstition such as "The Black Camel" and "Charlie Chan's Secret", the truth behind the magic was quickly revealed leaving the audience in little doubt as to the existence of "other realms". However, in "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island", the possibility of the supernatural is dangled before us throughout the picture. Even after the clever, complex crime is revealed in the film's dazzlingly theatrical finale, the involvement of supernatural forces is still not entirely resolved.
The titular Treasure Island refers to a man-made island off the coast of San Francisco which is a minor location in this film (only a single scene takes place there). The story, instead, leads Charlie Chan all over the city from a police station to a psychic's mysterious house and finally to a theatre. But the film begins in the air as Charlie (Sidney Toler) and his number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) find one of their fellow passengers on board an aeroplane dead. The unfortunate fellow was a mystery writer named Paul Essex (Louis Jean Heydt) who died of unnatural causes clutching a note in his hand which reads: "Sign of Scorpio indicates disaster if Zodiac obligations ignored".
The note's ominous tone leads Charlie to the house of Dr Zodiac (Gerald Mohr), a theatrical psychic whose business practices were being investigated by the dead writer. In one of the film's best scenes, Zodiac gives a demonstration of his powers to Charlie. Set in a room surrounded by black drapes, the scene as shot by DP Virgil Miller has a real feeling of a stage show. As Zodiac's magic-simulating mechanisms whirl around Charlie, we get to see a master showman at work. It is a wonderfully entertaining and over-the-top scene which sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Another superb set-piece follows closely. Set on the titular island, Charlie attends another psychic demonstration this time by a young woman named Eve Cairo (Pauline Moore) who claims to be a mind-reader. During her show, the young woman suddenly becomes terrified, as she begins picking up powerful, hateful thoughts of someone in the audience. "I hear death among us," she shrieks, "There's evil here! Someone here is thinking murder!". This wonderfully atmospheric scene, suspensefully staged by director Norman Foster, is more than eerily reminiscent of Dario Argento's sizzling opening to "Deep Red".
It is a real testament to Foster how skillfully he glides between melodrama, farce, and genuine scares. Like every Charlie Chan film, there's plenty of comedy in "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island", most of it thanks to the overenthusiastic antics of Jimmy Chan, wannabe detective. But the comedy never undermines the spooky goings-on. Foster's command of tone and pacing is second to no other director in the Chan series. While even the best of the previous Chans occasionally struggled with mood whiplash, "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" has no such problems. It is a seamless exercise in directorial dexterity.
The film also features a first-rate guest cast. Cesar Romero, one of the most charismatic and entertaining stars of the 1940s, gets a terrific role playing Dr Zodiac's rival, magician Rhadini. The final, extended set piece is set during a show-off between the oily Rhadini and the theatrical Zodiac. It is an absolute pleasure to watch Romero take command of the stage.
Also excellent are Pauline Moore as the haunted mind reader, June Gale as a jealous knife thrower, and Gerald Mohr as the sinister, melodramatic Dr Zodiac hidden behind a giant beard, theatrical make-up, and a vaguely oriental garb.
The film was written by John Larkin, a newcomer to the series, who spins a terrific mystery full of twists and misdirections. The story takes many elements which have been seen in Charlie Chan films before - phoney psychics, blackmail, a theatrical finale - and gives them a fresh coat by painting them in spooky, horror tones.
It is the execution, however, which makes this simply the finest Charlie Chan film so far. Especially Norman Foster's dynamic, pacey, and most importantly atmospheric direction. The film zips along through its lean 74-minute runtime providing more mystery and more chills than any Charlie Chan film so far. The story is solid, the cast is first-rate, and the film works on just about every level.
9.5/10 - DirectorHerbert I. LeedsStarsSidney TolerLynn BariRichard ClarkeWhile in Paris for a reunion on the eve of World War II, Charlie finds that the murder of a hated businessman leads him to a conspiracy to smuggle arms to Germany.Charlie Chan films depend so much on their settings. Whether it's the exotic desert camp in "Charlie Chan in Egypt", the spooky sewers of "Charlie Chan in Paris", or the gothic theatre from "Charlie Chan at the Opera", the location where the mystery is solved contributes to the film its atmosphere and its tone. Frequently as well the portrayal of the day-to-day activities and colourful characters who congregate there are far more interesting than the murder being solved. Such is the case with "Charlie Chan at the Circus" and "Charlie Chan at the Race Track".
Few Charlie Chan films have as evocative a setting as "City in Darkness". Set in 1938 at a time when, as the film's urgent newsreel prologue puts it, the crisis over Czechoslovakia threatens to plunge all of Europe into war, the film takes place in Paris during the first of the city's many blackouts. The threat of German aeroplanes bringing death and destruction looms heavily over the characters as they send their loved ones to a war that hasn't even started yet. Meanwhile, the alleys and sewers of Paris are enveloped in darkness as German spies plot behind the thick curtains meant to keep the light hidden.
What a fantastic setting for a thriller! Unfortunately, "City in Darkness" is nowhere near as good as its premise would suggest. It is not a terrible movie like "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" nor is it as uneven as "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" but it is a dreadfully dull picture which plods along through a routine, unengaging plot in as inoffensive and unexciting manner possible.
For one, the setting is barely used. The film, as many of the lesser Chans do, takes place primarily in drawing rooms and offices making nothing of the darkness promised in its excellent title. The nervous expectation of war is present and looms heavily over the characters but writers Robert Ellis and Helen Logan use it only for bombastic patriotism. Parents sending their children to war are proud and poetically inclined instead of being worried, sad, desperate... I did like the bittersweet note on which the film ends, however. If only the rest of the film had the same sense of uncertainty and anxiety.
But "City in Darkness" proceeds for the most part like one of those cheap Monogram films. It's heavy on dialogue and cringeworthy attempts at comedy and low on action and character development. Not much happens as Charlie (Sidney Toler) and his sidekick, the hapless French policeman Marcel (Harold Huber) trudge from one location to the next in pursuit of a murderer. The victim was a rich man named Petroff (Douglas Dumbrille) and he was found killed in his house which seemed to have been visited by an inordinate amount of people that night. Who is the killer? Honestly, who cares?
There's very little sense of danger in this picture. Most Chan films feature at least one other murder but the death of Petroff didn't seem to put a series of dangerous events in motion. Instead, all the suspects are hellbent on evading the police and potentially getting out of Paris alive. Maybe the Wehrmacht should have been the real villains of the film. Some German spies are present but very briefly and their schemes revolve around forged passports and ammunition boxes instead of killing anyone.
Most of the film then consists of dialogue scenes in which Charlie and Marcel question potential suspects in a surprisingly relaxed manner. These scenes are punctuated with unfunny bits of business in which the goofy French cop Marcel takes the place of Charlie Chan's number two son who is conspicuous by his absence. The usually reliable Harold Huber is dreadfully misused in "City of Darkness". Here he (over)plays a kind of Inspector Clouseau prototype complete with a propensity towards slapstick and a cod French accent (which his godfather, the chief of Parisienne police does not have!). Huber's over-the-top antics overpower the picture. Since the story is so thin and the characters so underwritten and uninteresting, his constant comedic interruptions become the film's only moments which stand out in any way. Unfortunately, he's not funny, merely annoying and the running gags (read: same punchline over and over again) become extremely tiresome almost immediately.
Other than its setting, there's nothing at all that is interesting or that works in "City in Darkness". It's a remarkably bland film, slow-moving and lacking both an interesting plot and memorable characters. When the killer was finally unmasked, I didn't care in the least.
When it comes to wartime Chans, "Charlie Chan at the Olympics" was a whole lot more entertaining and "Charlie Chan in Panama", which came next, was a whole lot more potent. "City in Darkness" is the flop of the lot despite its promising setting.
3.5/10 - DirectorNorman FosterStarsSidney TolerJean RogersLionel AtwillInspector Chan investigates a group of travelers, one of whom is a saboteur.In "Charlie Chan in Panama", the eponymous great Chinese detective (Sidney Toler) has given up detecting mysterious killers in swanky drawing rooms and joined the war effort. At the beginning of the film, we find him in Panama, "the city of spies", posing as a lowly hat salesman. His true mission, however, is to catch Reiner - an elusive and extremely crafty Nazi spy who has evaded capture for years and is now the greatest threat to the safety of the American Navy.
If you think this sounds like a plot of a Mr Moto film you're right. It does. "Charlie Chan in Panama", directed by Moto's favourite director Norman Foster, is the most Motoesque of all the Chans with its subterfuge, spies, secret passages, and concealed bombs. Intrigue has replaced mystery, action has supplanted interrogation, and the intelligent gentleman killer of yore has mutated into a gun-wielding sociopath ready to kill anyone at a moment's notice to protect their identity.
Charlie Chan is a little ill-at-ease in this action-packed spy yarn especially when he's accompanied by his klutzy number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung). Indeed, it is downright impossible to imagine the serene, analytical Warner Oland getting up to all the hijinks this script would require him to. Thankfully, Sidney Toler's Chan is a far more sprightly and brash figure and it's a little less jarring to see him hold a group of suspects at gunpoint.
Even though this dynamic, fast-paced actioner doesn't seamlessly fit into the Charlie Chan series, "Charlie Chan in Panama" is still a terrific thriller. As directed by Norman Foster it is slick, energetic, and possessed of an exoticness that characterised all of Foster's films. Even though the supposed exteriors of Panama are clearly flimsy sets, the film still suggests a peculiarly authentic atmosphere of its setting lulling you into the belief that you are really watching a story set in the sultry, dangerous land of Panama. This illusion is helped by Foster's keen eye for detail. Notice, for example, this terrific background gag: a door in a club bears a sign which reads "Hosteses Only - Keep Out". Underneath it, written in chalk, someone has added the words "and this means the Navy!"
The screenplay by John Larkin and Lester Ziffren is full of adventure and intrigue. Suspects keep falling like flies, guns are surreptitiously aimed at Charlie through ajar doors, and explosives are hidden behind hidden doors of Egyptian tombs. The film plods a bit in the middle due to a lack of notable set pieces which made "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" such a fun experience but this is all made up for with a genuinely rousing climax. Set in a power plant, the finale is pure Hitchcock and sees Charlie Chan deliver his summation as a bomb ticks away in the background. It's terrific stuff!
The supporting cast is suitably colourful and includes a sinister Viennese doctor carrying around a cage full of rats marked "bubonic plague", a mysterious Czech parlour singer, and a sleazy Spanish club owner. Comic relief is provided by a blustering Panama chief of police (Chris-Pin Martin) and a wide-eyed schoolteacher on a trip around the world (Mary Nash). They get a bit too much with their over-the-top performances but ultimately they're a very small part of a movie that works like a well-oiled machine.
Speaking of comic relief, Jimmy Chan is back and I'm happy to have him. Victor Sen Yung's performance is very good indeed here and he's only helped by better-than-usual dialogue. There is some terrifically funny interplay between Charlie and Jimmy here. My favourite bit of dialogue comes after Charlie has rescued Jimmy from a Panama prison. Jimmy, enthused to be working on another case with his pop, says that Charlie will be "proud of him yet". "Hasten pride by removing odour of jail," replies Charlie with that biting cynicism that Toler did so well. To quote a Chanism - "Man without relatives is man without troubles".
Maybe Larkin and Ziffren's script would have been better suited for a Mr Moto adventure but "Charlie Chan in Panama" is a fun, slickly made, and engaging spy yarn. Norman Foster's characteristically dynamic direction, a colourful supporting cast, and a magnificent finale end up making it a most memorable Chan film.
8.5/10 - DirectorEugene FordeStarsSidney TolerMarjorie WeaverLionel AtwillCharlie tries to discover the identity of a strangler who strikes multiple times on a cruise ship bound from Honolulu to California.After the fairly unusual spy adventure that was "Charlie Chan in Panama", "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise" represents a pleasant if not necessarily welcome return to the formula which was more readily associated with Warner Oland's films than Sidney Toler's. There are no German spies, wartime plots, or supernatural forces at work in what amounts to a gently entertaining and old-fashioned murder mystery.
It seems that the desire to go back to the roots of the series was so strong that the makers of "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise" went back to the Earl Derr Biggers novels making this the first adaptation of one of the books since 1934's "Charlie Chan's Courage".
The book being adapted here is "Charlie Chan Carries On" which had previously been filmed as the very first of the Oland Chans. The story remains the same and sees Charlie (Sidney Toler) board a ship bound for San Francisco in order to arrest a dangerous strangler hiding in a group of tourists on a trip around the world.
Written by Robertson White and Lester Ziffren, "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise" is a much smarter adaptation of the Biggers novel in which Charlie doesn't even appear until two-thirds in. Here, he is involved right from the start after his old friend Inspector Duff (C. Montague Shaw) is killed by the strangler in Charlie's own office.
White and Ziffren further streamline the novel's story by confining the action to the ship. I regret the loss of all the exotic locations from the original novel and the 1931 film but then again the Chan films had become a much smaller affair since then. Instead, the ship setting offers a neat atmosphere of claustrophobia and tension. Truth be told, it isn't used nearly as much as it should be (the supposedly scared and anxious tourists still find the time to engage in a race on wooden horses) but the plot still retains some of the urgency of the original novel.
The supporting cast is comprised of a nicely colourful bunch of characters which is one of the better innovations of the Toler films. The Oland films often featured bland and faceless suspects and his adaptation of "Charlie Chan Carries On" was no exception (at least based on the surviving screenplay). I especially enjoyed the well-dosed comedic performances of Cora Witherspoon as a neurotic millionairess and James Burke as Wilkie, the house detective. The cast also includes a few welcome familiar faces such as Lionel Atwill and Leo G. Carroll.
Unfortunately, this finely constructed script landed in the hands of Eugene Ford, probably the worst of all the Fox Chan directors. Ford, who also helmed the abysmal "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo", was a bland and workmanlike director who fails to imbue the film with any atmosphere or style. His shots are bland and flat and his pacing nowhere near as dynamic as that imposed by Norman Foster in the best Toler films.
Still, even with these downsides, "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise" is a fun, cosy, and pleasantly old-fashioned Chan film which reminds us of the reasons why we love the series in the first place: its familiarity and its warmth.
7/10 - DirectorLynn ShoresStarsSidney TolerVictor Sen YungC. Henry GordonAn escaped convicted murderer hides out at a New York wax museum where he hopes to get plastic surgery, which will help him revenge himself on Charlie Chan.Charlie Chan cannot resist a challenge. In fact, if this film had been made in the early days of the Oland series, I'm sure it would have been called "Charlie Chan's Challenge".
The challenger is one Dr Otto von Brom (Michael Visaroff), a criminologist or as Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) puts it: "a detective who uses a microscope instead of common sense" (this wisecrack provokes one of Charlie's best lines in the whole series: "Allow parent to make Confucian sayings").
Anyway, back to the plot. Charlie believes that Dr von Brom's testimony sent an innocent man to the electric chair many years ago and is not shy about saying so. Dr von Brom is understandably upset about these claims and challenges him to a live radio debate.
What Charlie doesn't know, however, is that the radio debate is a trap! The broadcast is to be held in Dr Cream's Wax Museum of Crime which is actually a secret hideout for gangsters on the lam. One such gangster named Steve McBirney (Marc Lawrence) has escaped from prison and is recovering from plastic surgery there after which he plans to flee the country. Before leaving, however, he itches to get his revenge on the famous Chinese detective.
The radio broadcast begins on a dark and stormy evening. Everything is in place for McBirney's dastardly plot to unfold. The lights go out but once they turn back on it is Dr von Brom who is dead.
John Larkin's screenplay for "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" is easily the most complex and intricate of the whole series. Not only is Charlie investigating the present-day murder of Dr von Brom but he's also tasked with finding the true killer in a cold case and with capturing an escaped convict.
Larkin populates the wax museum with all kinds of suspects all of whom have ulterior motives for being there. There's a beautiful young journalist out for a scoop (Marguerite Chapman), the museum's owner who is actually a plastic surgeon for the mob (C. Henry Gordon), a spaced-out woman in black who is actually the widow of the man Dr von Brom sent to his death (Hilda Vaughan) etc. etc.
Larkin keeps piling on various complications, mysterious visitors, farcical misunderstandings, and further murders stretching the lean 63-minute runtime to its limits. Sure, the climax, once it arrives, is something of a limp noodle after all the excitement that preceded it but the fact that the film even has a logical conclusion is a testament to Larkin's skills as a craftsman of mysteries.
"Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" is the sole directorial credit in the series for Lynn Shores. What a shame! Perhaps Shores is not as technically adept as Chan's best directors H. Bruce Humberstone and Norman Foster but he gives them a run for their money on atmosphere alone. The setting of a spooky wax museum on a rainy night gives this film a horror movie feel and Shores has a lot of fun with the various macabre exhibits. He also makes some quite interesting shot compositions playing with depths of field and making sure that something is always going on in the backgrounds of shots. His collaboration with the director of photography Virgil Miller makes this film visually on par with "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island".
Unlike that film, however, the horror atmosphere here is neatly undercut by intrusions of high comedy. The film has a lot of moments of pure farce unseen in this quantity since "Charlie Chan at the Circus". The wax museum is full of nooks, crannies, and other hiding places which the film uses to great comedic effects. We get people hiding in sphinxes, an iron maiden being shut on an unsuspecting Jimmy Chan, a police inspector scaring everyone present by sneaking in through the window, and even two secret passages.
If that's not enough confusion, the wax museum also has a figure of Charlie Chan himself which Jimmy keeps mistaking for the real deal. Even though this gag is fairly obvious, it leads to some very well-executed laughs including what is probably the best ending of any of the Chan films. Victor Sen Yung shines in this one for sure.
Another actor who shines here is C. Henry Gordon, a veritable veteran of the Chan series in his last feature film role before an untimely death. His fifth appearance in the series is also his best as he finally gets a role large enough to show off. He's terrific as the skulking Dr Cream.
"Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" is without a doubt a high point of the whole series. It's a funny, spooky, mysterious movie that is just about as much fun as a Charlie Chan film can be. The script is twisty and eventful, the direction stylish and atmospheric, and the supporting cast is clearly having a blast chewing up the excellent scenery.
9/10 - DirectorHarry LachmanStarsSidney TolerMarjorie WeaverRobert LoweryWhen Charlie's old friend from Scotland Yard is murdered when they attend a police convention in New York, Chan picks up the case he was working on.After the inventive and unusual "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum", "Murder Over New York" is a startling disappointment. Unlike its predecessor, it bears all the hallmarks of a film series in decline. From its cheap production values to its cast of familiar faces, it is as unambitious and "safe" as a movie can be.
Much like "Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise", the plot has been lifted wholesale from the Earl Derr Biggers novel "Behind That Curtain" or more accurately it is pretty much a scene-by-scene remake of that novel's adaptation "Charlie Chan's Chance". But whereas that film, the third in the series, was a dynamic and wholly entertaining picture, "Murder Over New York" is a real slog to get through.
The set-up is identical and begins with the murder of Charlie's old friend Inspector Drake (Frederick Worlock) who was on the trail of a dangerous criminal named Paul Narvo. Despite the fraudulent title, Drake isn't murdered over New York but rather in the swanky art deco apartment where he was attending a party. One of the guests must be Narvo but which one?
The investigation in "Charlie Chan's Chance" took the great Chinese detective all over New York. He hunted the killer and his sinister manservant from Manhattan to Chinatown by way of a low-rent club and even the Hudson River. Accommodating this film's significantly lower budget, screenwriter Lester Ziffren has streamlined the plot into non-existence. Like all the worst Chan films, the entirety of the film takes place in drab offices and drawing rooms and scene after scene is nothing but exposition.
After a relatively interesting beginning, the middle part of "Murder Over New York" is an almost unprecedented bore. Whereas previous failures like "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" and "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" annoyed us with over-the-top comic relief, this one merely drowns us in inane dialogue and contrivances. Ziffren's script bears more than a resemblance to the dull Monogram B-pictures of the period - a portent of things to come for the Charlie Chan series.
On a side note, "Murder Over New York" is an excellent example of how different the on-screen relationship between Sidney Toler's Chan and Victor Sen Yung's Jimmy is from the relationship between Warner Oland's Chan and Keye Luke's Lee. Chan and Lee's relationship was warm and supportive. Even when Lee made an ass of himself (which was quite often), Charlie would endeavour to correct him gently. The two relied on each other and, especially in some of the later films, it could be said that Lee was Chan's right-hand man.
Chan's relationship with his number two son Jimmy, on the other hand, is entirely different. Lee is a nuisance to Chan and Charlie is not afraid to point it out. There is little warmth between them and their chemistry more resembles that of a straight man and a buffoon than a father and son. Right away, Charlie introduces Jimmy as his favourite offspring, he then adds, however, that "without his assistance, many cases would have been solved much sooner". Only a few scenes later, Charlie lands another zinger on his honourable son saying that he is a "very promising detective - promise very much, produce very little".
OK, "Murder Over New York" does have a few memorable jokes and boasts a terrific supporting performance from Melville Cooper but neither of those attributes is enough to lift it out of the lurch its boring script lands it in. By the time the conclusion (aped from "Charlie Chan in Panama") rolls around, I was completely disinterested in the identity of the killer.
Harry Lachman, whose direction of "Charlie Chan at the Circus" was one of my favourites, sorely disappoints in this, his return to the series. True, not much could have been done with such a lacklustre script but Lachman's direction is less than workmanlike. Displaying little to no invention, Lachman fails to imbue the film with any atmosphere or style leaving the film looking as dull as it plays.
4.5/10 - DirectorHarry LachmanStarsSidney TolerSheila RyanRobert WeldonA treasure map in four pieces, the ghost of a hanged pirate, a talking parrot, and a ship full of red herrings complicate Charlie's search for a murderer on board a docked ship.After a disappointing exhibition in "Murder Over New York", Harry Lachman makes an impressive comeback with a vengeance in "Dead Men Tell" one of the most atmospheric and overall best-looking of all the Chan films.
Set on a beautifully designed wooden ship docked in a fogbound harbour, this film is simply drenched in a ghostly mood. Lachman's dynamic, fluid camerawork and Charles G. Clarke's shadowy, chiaroscuro photography make this convoluted ghost story a real joy to watch.
Paradoxically, "Dead Men Tell" is also one of the funniest entries in the series. In that and a lot of other aspects, it is very similar to "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum", another film which did a great job of balancing a horror-movie atmosphere with a lot of joyful, goofy comedy.
The plot begins with the unusual murder on board the ship of Miss Patience Nodbury (Ethel Griffies), a kooky old lady frightened to death by what appears to be the ghost of her ancestor - the infamous pirate Black Hook. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler), however, who is on board looking for his wayward number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) who has abruptly decided that a sailor's life's for him, suspects a human hand is involved. His suspicions are confirmed when it is revealed that the old woman was planning a treasure quest and that the map has been stolen from her cabin.
The rest of the film takes place on the creaky ship haunted by the peg-legged ghost of Black Hook. Much like "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" which was also written by John Larkin, the screenplay becomes increasingly more complex with the introduction of a whole slew of colourful suspects all of whom have ulterior motives for being on board. This is one crazy group of treasure seekers including an incognito movie star, a misanthropic captain with a parrot on his shoulder, and a neurotic who travels with his psychiatrist!
The supporting cast is quite good although, for my taste, Lachman directs them to go a tad too broad. I especially enjoyed the performance of Ethel Griffies as the doomed Miss Nodbury. Her brief performance is absolutely captivating and it is a real shame that she leaves the picture so early. The sole weak link in an otherwise solid cast is Robert Weldon who must be the worst actor in the entire Chandom and who unsurprisingly never starred in another film again. His performance is atrociously amateurish!
"Dead Men Tell" is a delightful mystery, however, full of atmosphere and comedy. The latter is not quite as successful as that in "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" but the story here is stronger which, I suppose, evens things out. Victor Sen Yung gets a lot of screentime here and he's absolutely terrific as the film's comic relief even if I did find that a little of the running gag of him falling into the sea goes quite a long way. I also want to note that the final gag would have been a lot funnier and a lot less obvious had the butt of it been Charlie Chan instead of Jimmy.
8.5/10 - DirectorHarry LachmanStarsSidney TolerMary Beth HughesCobina WrightOn the trail of a singer who killed the man she loved in Honolulu, Charlie finds her stabbed to death when he ultimately catches up to her in Rio.The final seven Charlie Chan films produced by 20th Century Fox (between 1940 and 1942) seem like they belong to two different film series going on at once. The first is a series of clever, original, and highly dynamic thrillers written by John Larkin and the other a series of lower-rent, more sedate remakes of previous Charlie Chan films written by Lester Ziffren.
"Charlie Chan in Rio" is the last of the latter series. It is the remake of "The Black Camel", the second-ever Charlie Chan film, which was itself based on an Earl Derr Biggers novel. The plot revolving around the murder of a starlet in the middle of a house party has been relocated from Honolulu to Rio but has otherwise stayed exactly the same.
In keeping with the reduced budgets of these later Chan films, Lester Ziffren has streamlined the plot which now takes place entirely inside the house of the murdered singer Lola Dean (Jacqueline Dalya).
The sole exception is the energetic and highly promising opening sequence nimbly directed by Harry Lachman and beautifully shot by Joseph MacDonald which is set in a Rio nightclub. It opens with a charming musical number which goes a long way in establishing some much-needed local colour.
As Lola Dean performs her song (the best musical number in all of the Chan films) we are introduced to our suspects and our detectives. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) has come all the way from Honolulu on an unhappy errand - to arrest Ms Dean for a murder committed years ago. Aiding him in this endeavour are his eager son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and the local chief of police Souto (Harold Huber).
Souto is Harold Huber's fourth and final appearance in the series. Huber is a likeable actor who was unfortunately saddled with goofy, loudmouth comic relief characters in "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" and "City in Darkness". Here, he plays a much more low-key character, a clever and reliable policeman, giving his best performance in the series since "Charlie Chan on Broadway".
Before the detectives can arrest Ms Dean, however, she is found stabbed at her home. The suspects, conveniently gathered for a party, include her fiancee, her two bickering female friends, their significant others, and even a psychic! Meanwhile, Jimmy Chan finds himself a girlfriend in the form of Ms Dean's Chinese maid Lily (Iris Wong).
"Charlie Chan in Rio" is a typical example of these later Ziffrin-written Chan films. It's a dialogue-heavy carbon copy of an older movie set predominantly in a single location. Thankfully, it's one of the better examples and its marginal success is thanks to a good cast and a decent mystery. I especially liked Mary Beth Hughes as a wisecracking drunk who vows to kill Lola Dean but someone beats her to the punch.
Also in the cast is Hamilton MacFadden who directed the original adaptation of "The Black Camel". His presence is a probably unintentional but welcome nod to the earlier film. Another nice nod (which may or may not be unintentional) is given by Charlie Chan himself but to reveal it here would be to spoil the film and that would be no fun at all.
As stodgy and tired as "Charlie Chan in Rio" occasionally feels, it still manages to be an entertaining and wholly watchable entry in what is now clearly a dying series. Director Harry Lachman does an admirable job of keeping the energy up and making the film look stylish despite its obviously minuscule budget.
6/10 - DirectorHarry LachmanStarsSidney TolerArleen WhelanRichard DerrCharlie Chan investigates apparent poisonings at a mystery mansion in the Mojave Desert.Charlie Chan, the indefatigable Chinese detective who, over the course of 27 films defied death at the hands of various murderers, smugglers, spies, and circus animals, was finally killed off by downsizing. For the time being, at least. In 1942, as America entered the War, 20th Century Fox, Charlie Chan's home for the past 11 years, closed down its B-movie production unit thus ending the long-running and beloved film series. Such a move was not unforeseeable seeing how the last few Chans had to contend with significant budget cuts and worsening scripts but the end of Charlie Chan's Fox era is still a sad moment in film history for all the Chanthologists out there. What followed after 1942 was a series of low-budget and frequently low-rate Monogram Chans but more on that later.
Thankfully, the Charlie Chan series ended on a relative high point with "Castle in the Desert", an atmospheric and very enjoyable film which is not quite on the level of the best Sidney Toler films but is head-and-shoulders above the disappointing Lester Ziffren-scripted rip-offs that preceded it.
The film gets its tantalizing title from its main location - a European-style castle built in the middle of the Mojave Desert by a reclusive historian named quite wittily Paul Manderley (Douglass Dumbrille). Surrounded by miles of sand, the castle provides him with the peace he needs to write - a peace which will soon be disturbed by murder!
Thankfully, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is at hand having been invited to the castle by a mysterious letter signed but not sent by Mrs Manderley (Lenita Lane) whose maiden name is Lucretia Borgia. Yes, she's a descendent of the notorious poisoner which doesn't help her when a slew of uninvited guests fall victim to her ancestors' preferred method of murder.
After the castle's only car is sabotaged, the film hints towards Agatha Christie's seminal "And Then There Were None" but the plot is actually a lot more similar to John Dickson Carr's "The Burning Court" which also revolved around a series of poisonings and a woman who was the descendant of a famous female killer.
The film never reaches the heights of either of those novels but it has atmosphere to spare. The sets, reused from the Basil Rathbone version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles, are lush and gothic and director Harry Lachman along with cinematographer Virgil Miller make them look appropriately shadowy and threatening. Lachman's style is a tad overbearing here with lots of Dutch angles and frankly weird framing but it works in establishing the thick atmosphere of Manderley Castle.
What doesn't work as well is the film's somewhat sluggish pace thanks largely due to John Larkin's shapeless script which meanders from incident to incident without a lot of narrative propulsion or agency on behalf of Charlie Chan. The great detective and his number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) are strung along through this picture doing disappointingly little investigating. Charlie's deductions seem to be based more on guesswork than clues and the killer is given away before the murder even takes place through some dialogue which is, I suppose, meant to be ominous and clever but is actually quite obvious.
What Larkin does do well is profile the suspects and give them witty dialogue even if the film is lighter on humour than Larkin's previous efforts. The actual mystery, even if it hadn't been spoiled early on, is fairly lightweight and the script lacks the rousing set pieces that made "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" and "Charlie Chan in Panama" so exciting or the comedic interludes that made "Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum" and "Dead Men Tell" so much fun.
Still, "Castle in the Desert" is a good Chan picture mostly thanks to some great sets and terrific performances from Douglass Dumbrille, Henry Daniell, and Ethel Griffies as the local psychic Madame Saturnia. If the Fox series of Charlie Chan films had to end I'm glad it ended with a film as good and as enjoyable as this.
8/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandArthur LoftCharlie Chan is an agent of the U.S. government assigned to investigate the mysterious death of an inventor.Two years after the closing of Fox's B-movie production unit and their final Charlie Chan film "Castle in the Desert", the great Chinese detective returned to the silver screen thanks to Sidney Toler who bought the rights to the character and the infamous "poverty row" studio Monogram. Some years back, Monogram tried to create their very own Oriental detective series starring Boris Karloff as Mr Wong so getting Charlie, the original you might say, must have been quite the coup for them.
Unfortunately, "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" was a poor first outing for the series. It's a creaky, stilted murder mystery which has such a severe lack of energy that I genuinely checked to see whether my player wasn't malfunctioning and playing the film in slow motion.
Betraying the cheapness of the production, the entire film is confined to a single location - the stereotypical mansion - and the action is photographed in long, unbroken wide shots which make this 1944 film look and feel like one of those early talkies from more than a decade before.
Phil Rosen's direction is more than workmanlike. His sole aim in this film seems to be nothing more than to make sure everyone that all the actors say their lines, hit their marks, and are in focus. He exhibits no directorial flair here, no style, and very little genuine effort. The film lacks any kind of atmosphere or suspense plodding along with all the finesse of an amateur play.
But it's the listlessness of the whole thing that makes "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" such a slog to sit through. I know these films were made on tight schedules but all the actors behave as if they've just come back from a long shift at the coal mine.
Even the normally reliable Sidney Toler turns in a bad performance, easily his worst to date. Even though he was the one who worked tirelessly to get Charlie Chan back on screen he looks like a man who doesn't want to be there. His delivery is flat and belaboured and he exhibits none of the charm or the sharpness from his previous films. His performance was so unengaged that it reminded me of the last two Warner Oland Chans which that great actor performed in a drunken stupor.
Unusually, the best thing about "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" is the script by George Callahan. Sure, it's no masterpiece of mystery but it presents a rather diverting take on the manor house mystery plot and has some snappy, witty dialogue which works well even though the bored-seeming actors seem to be doing their best to mangle it. "Suspicion like rain fall upon the just and unjust," says Charlie delivering one of his Confucian sayings, "You protect yourself with umbrella of innocence, but at moment I'm afraid your umbrella have big leak."
The plot revolves around the mysterious death of a rocket scientist and the theft of the super secret plans he was working on for the war effort. Charlie Chan who is now, for some reason, working for the US government investigates. I suppose the Honolulu Police couldn't afford his travel expenses anymore.
He is aided by a trio of comedic performers most notably Mantan Moreland, the famous black comedian, who starred as Birmingham Brown in most of these Monogram Chan films. He does play an unfortunate stereotype - a cowardly chauffeur who would rather drink than work - but Moreland is a competent, fast comedian who manages to make the most of the material he is given. If there has to be a racist comic relief character in the film I'm glad he's played by Moreland rather than, say, Stepin Fetchit whose schtick I find more tedious than amusing.
Also present are Charlie's offsprings who are by now a staple of the series. Unfortunately, the energetic Victor Sen Yung turned down the offer to reprise his part as Jimmy so we're now saddled with not one but two replacements: Charlie's number three son Tommy (Benson Fong) and his daughter Iris (Marianne Quon). The duo take on all the characteristics of Jimmy and Lee but none of the charm or wit. They are fully Americanized overeager wannabe detectives who get in the way of Charlie's investigation by way of quirky slapstick. I found both of them, however, to be rather awkward performers. Fong especially is wooden on-screen looking, most of the time, like a self-conscious amateur about to break into nervous laughter.
Unlike Jimmy and Lee, they're poorly integrated into the plot and serve no purpose other than padding. Speaking of padding, the film is absolutely chock full of it for some reason. One scene that stands out the most is a frankly hilarious montage in which rousing Bernard Hermann-esque music plays as Charlie leisurely strolls out of his office, hails a taxi, has a conversation with the driver, slowly gets in, and drives off. I haven't seen such obvious padding since the last time I watched one of those soapy 80s miniseries.
"Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" was blessed with a decent story - I particularly liked Callahan's inventive methods of murder - but little else. Monogram films are always cheap but they aren't always this slow, monotonous, dull, and listless. The lack of energy is so overbearing and oppressive that I had to take a break after about 30 minutes. The performances and Phil Rosen's shabby direction made my eyelids get heavy. By the time we saw Charlie slowly walk down the same greyscale corridor for the dozenth time I could practically hear the Monty Python chorus chant "Get on with it"!
I know Monogram had a magical way to squeeze three movies out of the budget of one but it's quite a trick to make one movie feel as long as three.
4/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerJoan WoodburyMantan MorelandCharlie Chan investigates the locked-room murder of a chess expert."The Chinese Cat" is a stark improvement over the creaky, deadly dull "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service". In fact, it is something of an inversion of that film's problems. Whereas Charlie's first Monogram adventure was a terrible, flat production of an interesting script, here we have a convoluted and not all-that-challenging mystery being turned into a surprisingly entertaining and dynamic little B-movie.
The story begins intriguingly enough with the murder of a chess expert in his locked study but here the film commits its first blunder by revealing that the killer came in through a secret passage. The passage leads to the room of the chess expert's wife who is arrested for murder. After a thorough investigation, however, she is cleared in the eyes of the law if not in the eyes of the public.
A non-fiction book on the murder which posits that no one except the wife could be the murderer brings Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) into the story. He is hired by the daughter of the family to clear her mother's name. A further incentive to solve the crime comes from the book's author - a cocky criminologist by the name of Recknick (Ian Keith) - who bets Charlie 20,000 dollars that the wife did it.
The second blunder of the script by George Callahan is that it immediately reveals to us that the wife isn't the killer. The chess expert was murdered by a group of criminals all of whom we meet before the first act is through. Instead of a good old-fashioned mystery in which Charlie investigates a house full of suspects, what follows is a rather haphazardly structured series of chases and fights in which Charlie, his number three son Tommy (Benson Fong), and Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) hunt and are being hunted by the gang of criminals.
The supporting characters are painfully underwritten and almost indistinguishable. In the film's final fight, I couldn't figure out whether Charlie was being threatened by the leader of the crime organization, the police detective, or if they are the same person. Ultimately, however, it doesn't really matter. This is not that kind of a thriller.
The fun of "The Chinese Cat" comes from its lively and dynamic nature, a real contrast from the stilted and stagy previous instalment. Phil Rosen's direction is still workmanlike and dull but he has remembered to inject the film with a lot of energy. Meanwhile, Callahan has come up with a series of amusing set pieces to throw our trio of heroes in. I particularly liked the bit in which they are driving in a taxi when Birmingham notices that there seem to be two meters running. But Charlie and the audience immediately realize what kind of a device the sinister ticking is coming from.
Sidney Toler is back in form here as a more prickly Chan than before. His Charlie has always been tougher than Warner Oland's but here he is positively devastating. He has no problem talking down an arrogant businessman with some sarcastic remarks. He barely blinks at the idea of being tortured to death telling his potential killer that if he touches him again he will not even open his lips. It is, however, to his son that he is the most cutting. I think Tommy takes more barbs in this film alone than Jimmy and Lee did in all the previous Chan films together. A particularly brutal one is Charlie's remark that Tommy is a "weak limb to which no family tree may point with pride".
Maybe I found some of Charlie's barbs to his son mean-spirited if Benson Fong truly wasn't the weakest part of the film. Fong's acting has not improved from "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" and he is still a decidedly poor replacement for Victor Sen Yung having neither his comedic timing nor Keye Luke's warmth. He is also once again poorly integrated into the plot serving no role in the film besides being Charlie's whipping boy.
A much better comedic performance comes from Mantan Moreland, a supremely gifted comedian who raises well above the racially stereotypical material he is given. His smart, sharp, exceedingly deft performance as the cowardly Birmingham Brown is the highlight of "The Chinese Cat". It is a real shame that so many great performers of colour from the 1930s and the 1940s have been forgotten simply because the roles they played have been deemed racist.
"The Chinese Cat" is a good Monogram picture that never-the-less displays many of their flaws. Its script is weak and messy and the supporting cast is not on the level of the star performances but its dynamic, entertaining, and lively production makes it one of the better poverty row Chans.
5.5/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandFrances ChanCharlie searches for a murderer amidst numerous ghosts conjured up by a strange variety of spiritualists and occultists.One of these Monogram Chans will eventually manage to combine both a good execution and an interesting script. Unfortunately, despite a promising opening and some memorable sequences, "Black Magic" ain't it!
The film actually has a decent plot which begins with the murder of a psychic during a seance. A disembodied voice is heard insistently asking what happened in London on the night of October 5th, 1935, then the lights cut out and a shot is heard. When the lights come back on, the man is dead but there's no bullet in his body and there's no gun in the room.
This opening scene is decently shot by DP Arthur Martinelli and exhibits the kind of atmosphere that has eluded director Phil Rosen thus far. Sadly, the plot then stagnates for the next hour or so as the mystery remains unsolved and the clues are few and far between.
Most of the film's runtime is spent on Charlie and his sidekicks snooping around the psychic's house being scared by fake ghosts and skeletons. The pacing is non-existent and there's little sense of narrative progression. Every twenty minutes or so something does happen - there's a murder or someone shoots at Charlie and misses - but none of it really amounts to a coherent story.
By the time Charlie delivers his summation and reveals the killer's identity it truly could have been any of the suspects. There are no clues pointing to their identity nor are they fleshed out in any significant way. Hell, beyond one scene in which Charlie explains who each of them is, we don't see most of them between the seance and the ending.
George Callahan has written another messy screenplay which cannot decide if it wants to be "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" or "The Ghost Breakers". Callahan's previous two scripts at least featured some sharp dialogue and funny scenes but laughs are noticeably few in "Black Magic" though not for a lack of trying.
Mantan Moreland is back again as Birmingham Brown. Moreland, a talented comedic performer, is given some really poor material here. Birmingham Brown was a craftier, smarter character in the previous two films but here he's reduced to a bumbling fool who spends the whole picture trying to learn how to disappear.
Charlie's second sidekick is Frances Chan, played by Frances Chan who reprises her role as the oldest Chan daughter which she originated way back in "Charlie Chan's Greatest Case" from 1933. The idea of having a female Chan assist Pop instead of one of his sons is an interesting one but, unfortunately, despite being a charming girl, Frances Chan was not blessed with much acting talent.
Together Moreland and Frances Chan have no chemistry or comedic rapport. Their timing is way off and most of their extended comic relief sequences fall flat.
The film is a lot better when it actually focuses on the mystery at hand. The film's best sequence and one of the most memorable of the whole series is a murder committed by hypnotizing the victim into walking off a building. It's such a suspenseful, atmospheric, and interesting sequence that you wonder why the rest of the film is such a dud.
Another great sequence sees Charlie himself become a victim of hypnosis. The opportunity is wasted, however, when he shakes it off way too early for the sequence to ratchet up any real suspense.
"Black Magic" is an amiable enough film. It's certainly not as outright bad as "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" but it is too unfocused, narratively inert, and curiously dull to live up to the promise of its intriguing opening. Most of the blame can be laid on George Callahan's shambolic script but Phil Rosen's uninspired direction should not escape scorn nor Alexander Laszlo's erratic score which often feels like it was selected at random from some stock music library.
5/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandEdwin LukeEccentric scientist Harper lives in a spooky mansion with all the trimmings: hidden lab, secret panels, inscrutable butler, and greedy relatives with unusual talents. When Harper seems to be murdered, Charlie Chan (with the uninvited help of No. 4 son) tries to answer such questions as Where's the body? How can a dead man walk? And how can a secret murder be done in full view of detectives and witnesses?Just four films in, Monogram Pictures has started to cannibalise itself with "The Jade Mask" effectively a reworking of "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service". Once again written by George Callahan, the script here is not quite as sharp or as clever but the production is much improved offering us a tantalizing glimpse at what "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" could have been like had it not been made on horse tranquilizers.
The story is confined to the spooky mansion of Professor Harper (Frank Reicher), a mad scientist who has wired his gothic house with all kinds of electronic contraptions and safety features to protect his "top secret work". Sadly, no manner of security could have saved him from the devious murder plot being hatched against him. Indeed, one dark night, the old man vanishes and Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is assigned the job of finding out what happened to him and how it was accomplished.
The house set is not a particularly rich one but DP Harry Neumann and director Phil Rosen make the absolute most of it. This is easily the most atmospheric of the Monogram Chans so far thanks to its shadowy rooms, bizarre contraptions, and Professor Harper's collection of ventriloquist dummies and jade masks which line the walls of the mansion.
The story itself is fine. The first act establishes a whole lot of intrigue including a policeman who arrives uninvited, a number of mysterious figures stalking the mansion, and a dangerous experiment being conducted in the professor's laboratory. Unfortunately, the second act settles into the familiar formula of Charlie and his sidekicks wandering around the mansion bumping into non-existent ghosts and (more often than not) each other. The conclusion, when it arrives, is handled so quickly and off-handedly that you'd think the film was building towards something completely different.
Charlie is once again assisted by Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) who isn't given a whole lot to do here before the tremendously funny gag which closes the picture. Also, there is another new offspring of the Chan family - son number four Eddie Chan, played by Keye Luke's brother Edwin Luke who, unfortunately, has inherited none of his brother's charm or on-screen ease. Eddie, however, is an interesting character and, ironically enough, the first of the Chan sons not to be an imitation of Keye Luke's Lee. Instead, he is a pompous bookworm who is quite adept at solving scientific puzzles but hopeless at anything involving the human element. Strangely, despite the film revolving around the murder of a scientist, Eddie's scientific knowledge is only alluded to and never actually put to the test.
"The Jade Mask" is cheaper-looking than the previous two Monogram films and it exhibits that same sluggish pacing that has plagued all of Phil Rosen's directorial efforts in the series. Yet, its decent plotting, some witty dialogue, and the effectively realized spooky atmosphere make it one of the very best Monogram Chans.
5.5/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandBen CarterCharlie discovers a scheme for the theft of government radar plans while investigating several murders.If you ever needed proof that Monogram Pictures was woefully behind the times even in the 1940s, just look at "The Scarlet Clue". Despite being released in May 1945, a month after the fall of Berlin, the film still revolves around a ring of German-named spies trying to steal America's experimental radar technology.
Never mind though. For a viewer watching these films in the comfort of their own home, close to 80 years after their release, such timing issues are no distraction. Indeed, "The Scarlet Clue" is one of the finest films Monogram ever made - a surprisingly dynamic and quick-witted comic thriller which uses its unusual setting to its full potential and gives its three stars ample room to show off their talents.
The plot begins when a foreign spy Charlie (Sidney Toler) has been trailing is mysteriously murdered on a foggy dockside. A car seen speeding away from the crime scene leads Charlie, Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland), and a returning Tommy Chan (Benson Fong) to a radio station which proves to be a nest of spies.
"The Scarlet Clue" is obviously a Phil Rosen/George Callahan production seeing how most of the runtime is taken up with Charlie and his assistants running around the radio station bumping into weird and comical characters. What sets it apart from the previous Monogram Chans, however, is just how funny and interesting those encounters are.
Take for example the cameo by Ben Carter, another popular black comedian of the time. Birmingham Brown and he engage in some tremendously funny double talk much to the confusion of Tommy Chan. This scene alone is funnier than anything seen in Monogram Chans before and the punchline in which Tommy finally gets the better of these two wisecrackers is the real icing on the cake.
The film is also remarkably lively for one directed by Phil Rosen. It evokes nicely the bustle and tension of a radio station even with its tiny number of extras and limited, bare sets.
That is not to say that the mystery is lacking. This is the best George Callahan script so far and the first which actually takes the trouble of constructing a fair-play mystery. He has also come up with several memorable and suspenseful set pieces such as a terrific murder scene in which the floor literally opens up and swallows a man. I also really enjoyed the way in which one of the spies communicates with his boss. Namely, through the medium of ticker tape! James Bond, eat your heart out.
Even Benson Fong, whose performances so far haven't impressed me, comes out of this film looking good. Maybe the even worse replacements they brought on for the previous two films made me warm up to old Tommy, but he seems to have developed some charisma and even a bit of a personality here. His comic timing with Birmingham Brown has markedly improved and the scenes with just the two of them are some of the film's funniest.
In true Monogram tradition, the film is encumbered with a noticeably low budget, a repetitive structure, and some iffy supporting performances but "The Scarlet Clue" is about as good as their films get. It's a lively, entertaining Charlie Chan film, not on the level of the Fox efforts but a whole lot closer than one could ever have imagined Monogram coming.
6.5/10 - DirectorPhil KarlsonStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandBenson FongSomeone is attempting to steal radium stored in a bank. Death by cobra venom connects a number of murders. Charlie investigates."The Shanghai Cobra" is the first of the Monogram Chans not to be directed by Phil Rosen. The duties have instead been handed over to Phil Karlson and the improvement is marked. Thanks entirely to Karlson's evocative, stylish direction, "The Shanghai Cobra" is a pacy, engaging, atmospheric thriller which manages to rise above the confines of "poverty row" and approach the giddy heights of Fox's B-movies.
Just look at the wonderful opening sequence which resembles nothing we've seen in a Charlie Chan film before. Set on a neon-lit street during a rainstorm, the shadowy atmosphere and Dutch angles made me think I was watching an Edgar G. Ulmer film noir instead of a Charlie Chan quickie. After five Phil Rosen-directed films I'd forgotten that a camera can move let alone that there is a variety of shots beyond close-ups and long shots.
"The Shanghai Cobra" continues to resemble a film noir all the way through. Karlson introduces some techniques here which are quite common for that genre but which have never been seen in a Charlie Chan film before. One such technique is the use of flashbacks to tell the story of the time Charlie (Sidney Toler) went to Shanghai to apprehend a killer. Underlined with Charlie's narration, the sequence is comprised of brief, intercut shots superimposed over Sidney Toler's face.
Anyway, Charlie failed and the killer got away and now, some seven years later, he appears to be back. He has already killed three times by poisoning his unsuspecting victims with cobra venom. Before long, Charlie realizes that all three of the victims worked at a bank which also holds a government stash of plutonium (the 1940s were a hell of a decade)!
What ensues is a fast-paced, noir-style thriller in which Charlie and his two sidekicks Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and number three son Tommy (Benson Fong) have to outwit a gang of thieves led by the dangerous Killer of Shanghai.
I have to admit that the story written by George Callahan and George Wallace Sayre didn't appeal to me all that much. I'm not a huge fan of these cops-and-robbers plots. I watch Charlie Chan for cosy Agatha Christie-style puzzles, not shootouts and chases through sewer canals.
Still, even I have to admit that objectively, "The Shanghai Cobra" is the finest script for any of the Monogram Chans so far. It's a clean, focused, pacy story without any of the padding and comic relief running around that are George Callahan's speciality. When comedy scenes do pop up here, such as the very funny scene in which Tommy and Birmingham con their way into the villains' lair, they move the plot along and are handled in an economical fashion rather than rambling along for minutes at a time.
It helps, I suppose, that the plot isn't really a mystery at all so there's no need to set up complicated clues and impossibilities which were never Callahan's speciality anyway. No, this is a more straightforward actioner full of cloak-and-dagger cliches such as hidden poisoned needles, tunnels which lead into a bank vault, and bad guys whose identity is hidden by plastic surgery.
But it's the direction that makes "The Shanghai Cobra" an exceptional Monogram Chan - not the writing. Scene after scene, I was surprised by how lean and stylish Phil Karlson made this movie. Together with the director of photography Vincent Farrar, he even manages to make Monogram's cheap sets look spacious and convincing through some clever use of shadows and camera movements. I especially liked the long single shot which follows Birmingham and Tommy as they climb up and down the two levels of the sewer system which in Karlson's hands seem endless and labyrinthine.
"The Shanghai Cobra" is thus proof positive that in the hands of a talented, imaginative director even a Monogram picture can end up looking polished and stylish. Even George Callahan seems to be on top of his game delivering a lean and focused script with some rather clever solutions such as the jukebox remotely manned by an operator in a control room communicating to the customers through a TV set. All of these elements combined are the reason why "The Shanghai Cobra" is not only one of the best Monogram Chans but also one of the best Monogram films in general.
6.5/10 - DirectorPhil RosenStarsSidney TolerFortunio BonanovaBenson FongChan is faced with suspects in a stolen atomic bomb formula case, that are being killed with bullets that are not fired from a gun.Coming on the heels of Phil Karlson's untypically stylish "The Shanghai Cobra", Phil Rosen's final Charlie Chan entry "The Red Dragon" feels even shabbier and clunkier. This is an astonishingly dull entry in the Charlie Chan series, even more sluggish and formulaic than is usual for a Monogram Picture. It is only 64 minutes long but a lot of it feels interminable especially since pretty much every single scene is an uninspired rehash of something that has already been done before in the series.
Phil Rosen, whose work has never been particularly lively or inventive, directs this film with a leaden hand. His approach here is not so much workmanlike as utterly uninterested. Scenes go on forever without any rhythm or internal logic. He stages these endless dialogues in unbroken long shots that make the film feel like an amateur play. He never attempts to establish any kind of a pace in the film which rambles on aimlessly without any kind of a discernable structure or shape.
Constrained by Rosen's ambitionlessness, cinematographer Vincent Farrar lights the whole film in bland high keys making its Mexico setting look even more like a theatre set.
George Callahan's screenplay is a strictly paint-by-numbers job. I would not be surprised to find out he merely cut scenes from his previous scripts and pasted them onto a blank page wholesale in order to create this one. We get repeats of familiar situations such as villainous foreign spies trying to steal a world-changing invention, Charlie being invited onto the case by an old friend who promptly winds up dead, and another one of Charlie's old friends assisting him in the inquiry (a part which is almost an exact repeat of Harold Huber's role in "Charlie Chan in Rio"). We even get a rerun of Charlie's son falling hopelessly in love with an Asian maid, a chestnut which was old back when it happened to Victor Sen Yung in "Charlie Chan in Reno".
Now, granted, you don't come to a Charlie Chan film expecting hugely original plots but the way George Callahan rehashes these old cliches without even bothering to dust them off and update them even slightly is frankly insulting. It's rare to see both the film's director and its writer exhibit such an unabashed and open lack of interest in the material and the final film feels like it was compiled by George Callahan's overworked secretary and directed by Phil Rosen's propped-up corpse.
Luckily for Mantan Moreland, he decided to miss this one so he's replaced by Willie Best who plays his nephew Chattanooga Brown. Like an unloved younger child, Best is handed down some of Moreland's tattered, old material from previous Chan films which he then proceeds to parrot without any energy or charisma. At his best, Moreland is able to take predictable, old material and jazz it up with his larger-than-life personality and precise comic timing. Best merely hits his marks and says his lines. But can you blame him when the entire film has a distinct air of "that'll do" about it?
Not a single scene in "The Red Dragon" really works. Take for example one which sounds like it could be fun - Charlie Chan dancing the rumba - and look at how Phil Rosen utterly destroys any of its potential. He shoots the whole thing in dull wide angles only once cutting into a close-up which shows for a few whole seconds Sidney Toler with his mouth agape waiting for someone to yell "action".
Compare then Fortunio Bonanova's performance as Inspector Cavero to Harold Huber's performance as Chief Souto in "Charlie Chan in Rio". Both of them play the exact same character - the welcoming foreign policeman who assists Charlie in his investigation. Both of them have the same kind of inane dialogue to say but Huber injects it with genuine charm and personality while Bonanova is content to say his lines and fade into the background collecting what I presume was a pretty small cheque.
"The Red Dragon" is a tough sit comparable only to the equally listless and ambitionless "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo". At least in this film Sidney Toler and Benson Fong introduce a little energy and charisma into what is otherwise a really low-effort production.
3/10 - DirectorPhil KarlsonStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandBen CarterA public defender enlists Charlie to exonerate one of his clients, an ex-con falsely accused of bank robbery and murder, scheduled for execution in nine days.Thank god for Phil Karlson. I had begun to have second thoughts about my devotion to the Charlie Chan series after the atrorciorous "The Red Dragon" but the wonderfully atmospheric opening sequence of "Dark Alibi" reinstated my faith in the great Chinese detective's cinematic adventures. The inventive and dynamic opening shot which begins with a close-up of a welding spark and pulls out to reveal a group of bank robbers cutting open a vault alone is far more cinematic than anything Phil Rosen ever committed to film.
Despite the men's quiet concentration, the bank robbery goes awry and a guard is killed. Luckily for the cops, five clear, beautiful fingerprints are discovered next to the corpse and before the night is out an ex-con named Harley (Edward Earle) has been locked up. All's fine except that his fiercely single-minded daughter June (Teala Loring) doesn't believe her father is guilty and sweet talks Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) into reopening the case.
Charlie very quickly figures out that the fingerprint evidence was forged and narrows the suspect list down to an oddball group of people living in the same hotel as the Harleys. The plot of "Dark Alibi" thus is not particularly intricate as can be evidenced by an overwhelming amount of padding even by Monogram standards.
Almost the entire second act is made up of comedy routines as Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and Tommy Chan (Benson Fong) wander around the prison where Harley is held getting themselves into all kinds of farcical trouble. Also brought in to help pad out the film out to 60 minutes is Ben Carter repeating his and Mantan Moreland's hilarious double talk act which made them a hit on stage.
Thankfully, the comedy is pretty funny and Karlson keeps the picture moving at a brisk pace. Unlike Phil Rosen who would have probably let his actors flop about in endless wide shots like fish on dry land, Karlson's direction is as economical and precise as it is visually dynamic. He knows how to tightly construct a suspense sequence and exactly how long he can let his talented comic performers riff before their schtick begins to wear thin.
What does wear quite thin is the actual plot which is easily the least interesting part of the film. This is George Callahan's eighth and final entry in the Charlie Chan series and he's clearly out of ideas. The mystery here is so uninspired and lacking in complications or twists that I was able to call out the murderer before the first act was through.
"Dark Alibi" is a movie of goodbyes. Not only is it Callahan's last Chan it is also Karlson's. His departure from the series is highly unfortunate since he is a better director than even many of the Fox helmers were but it is understandable that he went on to better things.
This is also the final Chan film for Benson Fong who started out as a stiff, wooden actor but steadily grew into a likeable and decent comic performer through his on-screen partnership with Mantan Moreland. His chemistry with Sidney Toler was still lacking in this, their final outing together, but I'm guessing that the producers realized that as well. This is why, in the last few entries, they paired him up with Moreland whose comic timing is so good that Fong couldn't help but become better. "Dark Alibi" is the perfect example of what a good double act they made.
Overall, "Dark Alibi" is not worth watching for its thin plot but for its comic routines and Phil Karlson's excellent, atmospheric, pacy direction which makes this Monogram picture look like a Fox production.
6/10 - DirectorTerry O. MorseStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandVictor Sen YungCharlie investigates murders connected with insurance fraud. This one is set in San Francisco's Chinatown.With the old hack team of Phil Rosen and George Callahan gone, I had hoped that the standard of these Monogram Charlie Chan films would improve. "Shadows Over Chinatown" is the result of that wish being made on a monkey's paw because while being definitely a slicker and more stylish production than any Rosen/Callahan effort, it's a curiously dull and listless affair that failed to engage me in its complicated plot mechanics.
The film begins well enough with a fun and atmospheric sequence which sees Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) on a bus to San Francisco. The bus breaks down and the weary travellers have to wait by the side of the road for repairs to be made. As they wait, a sinister stranger shoots at our favourite Chinese detective. Thankfully, the bullet hits his pocket watch.
Why is someone trying to murder Charlie? Who knows. I certainly don't even though I just sat through the whole film. Never mind, though, because the bus is repaired and as it rattles on towards San Francisco Charlie is roped into helping an old lady whose missing daughter might be the victim of a serial killer stalking the big city.
The idea of Charlie Chan hunting after a serial killer is scarcely new (he did so all the way back in "Charlie Chan Carries On") but the brutality of this particular murderer is quite new to the series. Not content with merely strangling or stabbing his victims, he cuts off their limbs and their heads leaving nothing but the torso for the police to find.
This creepy and potentially atmospheric avenue is left entirely unexplored, however. Even though Raymond Schrock's screenplay makes a big deal of the torso killer, his presence is never really felt or seen in the actual film. Director Terry Morse proves himself more than capable of creating a spooky atmosphere in the opening sequence only to then let the rest of the film be as flat as a regular Phil Rosen production.
Indeed, "Shadows Over Chinatown" ends up being a rather boring Charlie Chan film despite some good work from everyone involved. How did this happen? Well, for one, the screenplay is altogether too messy and disorganized to be followed succinctly. A great many subplots, characters, and victims are thrown into the mix without really allowing the time for any of them to be properly developed.
Secondly, Terry Morse's direction, while slick and stylish, is notably lacking in energy. The film limps along for 64 minutes without ever being suspenseful or exciting. Missing are the fun vignettes or set pieces that brightened up even the worst of the Monogram Chans.
Thirdly and most noticeably, there is a palpable lack of comedy in "Shadows Over Chinatown" despite the presence of the excellent Mantan Moreland and the welcome return of Victor Sen Yung in the role of number two son Jimmy. He was last seen in "Castle in the Desert" and here makes his Monogram debut replacing Benson Fong. The screenplay, sadly, gives them very little to do. There's some notably unfunny double talk which Moreland and Yung deliver without any chemistry or spark. To be fair, Moreland does get two funny bits of business one involving a telephone call and the other a carnival mirror but they only make up about two minutes of a 64-minute feature.
Now, when I say that "Shadows Over Chinatown" is slicker and more stylish than the previous Monogram films, I am talking about the film's production values. Set all around San Francisco, the film has a variety of sets and locations which, while they may have that distinctive Monogram bare-wall cheapness, are a welcome change from the usual one-location house style.
The result is a distinctly mid-tier Monogram Chan. One which looks good and has a few interesting moments but which, for the most part, limps along amiably without offending or engaging the audience. It's a rather flat affair and one wishes it were a little worse so that you could at least get mad at it. As it is, however, I was just uninterested.
5/10 - DirectorTerry O. MorseStarsSidney TolerGloria WarrenVictor Sen YungA treasury agent on the trail of counterfeit money confides to fellow ocean liner passenger Charlie Chan that there have been two attempts on his life."Dangerous Money", the penultimate Sidney Toler Charlie Chan, is probably one of the most "standard" Chan films in existence. Not one thing about it is particularly notable as being either good or bad. Both as a whole and as a sum of its parts it's distinctly average.
The plot sees Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) once again searching for a killer on a ship. Much like country houses for Poirot, ships are a murder magnet when Chan's around. The dead man is Scott Pearson (Tristram Coffin), a treasury agent who was on the trail of some "hot money" - counterfeit bills being passed around Samoa. None of this really matters, of course, since "Dangerous Money" plays out like a bog-standard closed-circle mystery. Suspects are introduced one by one, interrogated by Chan, some more murders happen, and, in the end, the culprit is revealed.
I am honestly quite relieved that "Dangerous Money" doesn't go for any gangster movie trappings for which the Monogram Chans have a peculiar proclivity. As written by Miriam Kissinger, "Dangerous Money" feels more like a 1930s Charlie Chan mystery with its "decent, upstanding" suspects and lavish settings. No San Francisco dive bars in this one.
The film is once again directed by Terry Morse whose competent direction gives this Monogram Picture a feel of a Fox production. Even though he never quite manages to convince us that the cheap sets are a real ocean liner, he imbues them with a nice gloomy atmosphere, especially in the murder scenes which are presaged by the appearance of a gaunt, skeletal face peering from the darkness.
Like the previous film, "Shadows Over Chinatown", there is a notable reduction in comedy scenes which is not such a bad thing considering the absence of Mantan Moreland. He is again replaced by the much less funny and much more stereotypical Willie Best playing Chattanooga Brown. Best is given better material here than his previous outing, the truly abysmal "The Red Dragon", but the character he plays is so overdrawn, so cartoonish, and borderline offensive that you can't help but wish Moreland would pop around the corner and give Best a kick up the arse.
Victor Sen Yung is once again wasted with limited screentime and subpar writing. There are, admittedly, more laughs here than in "Shadows Over Chinatown" because Yung and Best feel more comfortable with each other than Yung and Moreland were in that film but all of these gags pale in comparison with even the worst of Yung's Fox antics. He is such a charismatic, funny, likeable screen presence that it's always disspiriting to see his talents put to waste.
"Dangerous Money" is a very forgettable instalment even for the Monogram Chans but inoffensively so. It trudges along amiably in a way that makes it a pleasant enough watch. I was never bored, none of it jumped out at me as cringeworthily bad, and the plot had a neat twist which I genuinely didn't see coming. A lot of it is familiar but this Chanthologist didn't mind seeing a few old hits played once more especially seeing how Sidney Toler's lengthy tenure in the role is sadly coming to an end.
5.5/10 - DirectorHoward BrethertonStarsSidney TolerMantan MorelandVictor Sen YungWhen a troupe of showgirls with their impresario and press agent vacation at a Malibu Beach resort, two of them are garroted. Charlie takes on the case assisted by Number Two Son Jimmy and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown.And here it is. The 22nd and final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, the longest-serving Chan of them all and the person responsible for extending Charlie's cinematic life by bringing the series to Monogram Pictures in 1944. For those reasons, Toler's legacy in the Chandom is secure even though it's generally agreed that he was not as good in the part as Warner Oland. While I agree that Toler was a lesser actor than the great and commanding Swedish thespian, I found him to be an excellent replacement who brought a little more edge and a sarcastic sense of humour to the part.
"The Trap" is also Toler's final film. He was already in the final stages of intestinal cancer during filming but insisted on keeping the series going for as long as possible. "If I quit the picture," he told his co-star Mantan Moreland, "I'll put all these people, including you, out of work." Not to mention that he would effectively be ending the film series he fought so hard to continue after Fox cancelled it in 1942.
Despite what you might read from other reviewers, I doubt that anyone could tell Toler was sick just by looking at him in this film. His performance remains largely unaffected even though he is curiously absent from large swaths of the film. Still, he is quite good in the scenes that he appears in including what I would argue is his best scene in all the Monogram Pictures. In it, he is recreating the murder, a garrotting, with his son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) just as his chauffer Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) walks into the room. Seeing Jimmy lying on the floor with his father standing over him holding a rope he says "Good gracious alive, Mr Chan! I knew it was gonna happen sometime!". Toler then proceeds to deliver a superb demonstration of how the crime was committed and why it couldn't have been done the way everyone thinks it was. It's a superb demonstration not only of Charlie Chan's deductive powers but also of Toler's innate ability to be a commanding and charismatic presence.
As for the film itself, it is a perfectly fine if a little sluggish late entry into the Monogram Chan series. The last three of the Toler Chans in particular have felt a little like they were made on an assembly line. They're slick, undemanding products with strictly routine stories, familiar plot elements recycled from previous pictures, and very little or no ambitiousness to actually make any aspect of their production stand out. As directed by Howard Breterthon, "The Trap" is made with an elegant workmanlike approach which ensures that the film moves along nicely without any hitches at an unhurried and even pace but without any real atmosphere to speak of or very much suspense at all.
The screenplay by Miriam Kissinger is a similarly unambitious effort - a recycle of the well-worn manor house mystery this time relocated to a Malibu beach house where a troupe of showgirls is residing while on tour. Of course, one of them turns up dead and the others are suspects with secret lives, double identities, and illicit lovers.
As an enjoyer of this particular mystery genre trope, I found myself pleasantly entertained by "The Trap" even though its central mystery is hardly challenging and nothing at all that happens in it is in the least bit surprising.
Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung are once again shortchanged even though the few scenes they do get are a whole lot funnier than the ones in the previous two films. They seem to have found a surer footing in their double act and are building up a nice camaraderie and chemistry. We also get more interaction between Yung and Oland in this film which is always nice. They have a much better rapport than Oland ever managed to develop with Benson Fong.
"The Trap" is an amiable and watchable Monogram Chan which really only ever runs into trouble in its Chanless stretches. As mentioned above, Oland was quite sick during the making of the film and the producers made sure that his schedule would be lighter than usual. Unfortunately for the film, that means that he is absent for at least half the runtime. This is not such a problem in the film's first act which does a good (though perhaps more thorough than necessary) job of establishing the suspects and their relationships but it does severely limit the film's subsequent two acts. Whenever Toler disappears from the screen, the film begins to noticeably spin its wheels as if unable to progress the plot any further without Chan there to push it along.
Instead of using these empty stretches to give more screentime to Yung and Moreland, Miriam Kissinger instead writes in an endless series of inane scenes of the showgirls arguing, getting hysterical over nothing, and screaming at the slightest shadow on the wall.
Still, I found myself enjoying "The Trap" more than not even though I'm sure I'll forget all about it by the morning. It is tempting to say that Sidney Toler deserved a better final film but let's not forget that it was he who pushed for the continuation of the Charlie Chan series and who brought the films to Monogram Pictures. I doubt he would have been happy had his final Chan film been the admittedly far superior "Castle in the Desert". "The Trap" is far from his best work but at least it represents exactly what he wanted to do - make more Charlie Chan films and keep all of his co-workers employed.
5.5/10 - DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsRoland WintersWarren DouglasMantan MorelandSoon after a Chinese princess comes to the US to buy planes for her people, she is murdered by a poison dart fired by an air rifle.Following the death of Sidney Toler, producer James S. Burkett seems to have decided to reboot the Charlie Chan series. Together with writer W. Scott Darling, he significantly retools some of the series mainstays and turns the formerly globetrotting Chinese detective into a figure far more similar to Boris Karloff's Mr Wong, a film series Darling also wrote for.
For one, Charlie has now permanently relocated from Honolulu to San Francisco where he lives in a mansion with Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland), now serving as his butler, and his number two son (Victor Sen Yung) mysteriously renamed Tommy. The distinctly European-style mansion is a strangely impersonal space for Chan. For instance, the paintings on his walls are of some European generals instead of Chan's own honourable ancestors.
The biggest change to the series is, of course, the casting of Roland Winters as Charlie Chan and the question on everyone's lips is surely how good of a replacement is he? Well, Winters is definitely a fine actor. Unfortunately, Winters is woefully unconvincing as a Chinese man. The poor makeup makes him look more like a victim of a particularly vicious bumblebee and his accent varies between German and French depending on the scene.
The austere and rigid Winters would have perhaps made a terrific Poirot. Indeed, his Chan shares more traits with the famous Belgian detective than with either Warner Oland or Sidney Toler's performances. He is, not unusually at all, most similar to Boris Karloff's Wong. A reserved and a tad chilly figure who is at his best when he is playing mind games with his suspects. Winters' best scenes are the ones in which he gently gauds the suspects into confessing their misdeeds. There is a marvellously suspenseful and deliciously acted scene in which he interrogates a bank manager who is unsure whether the polite Mr Chan is truly suggesting he could be the killer or if he is only being sarcastic.
Be that as it may, "The Chinese Ring" is a strong first showing for Roland Winter's Charlie. It's actually a scene-for-scene remake of "Mr Wong in Chinatown" which was also written by W. Scott Darling, a writer who is definitely not shy when it comes to recycling his own work.
Thankfully, "The Chinese Ring" is much better than the listless and boring "Mr Wong in Chinatown". In fact, it's altogether one of the better Monogram Pictures with noticeably higher production values, a better-supporting cast, and some stylish direction which lends it an air of elegance usually missing from poverty row films.
Director William Beaudine does a stellar job keeping the film moving at a brisk, engaging pace even though his direction cannot be accused of being particularly atmospheric. Even the scenes set at the supposedly foggy dock at night are overlit and flat.
On the other hand, I'm not all that fond of the double act of Warren Douglas and Louise Currie as Police Sgt. Davidson and his nosey journalist girlfriend Peggy. These characters are taken wholesale from "Mr Wong in Chinatown" where they were series regulars played with more panache and chemistry by Grant Withers and Marjorie Reynolds. In a Charlie Chan film, however, they feel distinctly out of place especially since Douglas and Currie are neither funny nor all that charming.
As for the Charlie Chan series regulars, Mantan Moreland gets a pretty good part here with some genuinely funny comic routines and a larger part in the plot than usual. Victor Sen Yung, however, is completely shortchanged and basically relegated to an extra in a mere handful of scenes.
But then "The Chinese Ring" is not a very funny movie anyway. It is, however, entertaining and a very good introduction for Roland Winters. Even though his Chan is not immediately as likeable as Oland's or Toler's were, Winters gives a strong, commanding performance which makes me look forward to seeing how his portrayal develops over the coming five films.
6/10 - DirectorDerwin AbrahamsStarsRoland WintersVirginia DaleMantan MorelandAfter the partners in the LaFontaine Chemical Co. sign a legal agreement leaving their share to the surviving partner(s), two of them are murdered.The second Roland Winters Charlie Chan film is yet another slick, well-produced (for Monogram, at least) recycling of a Mr Wong movie. The plot revolving around the locked-room murder of a well-respected scientist has been lifted wholesale from "Mr Wong, Detective" without even bothering to credit the original writer Houston Branch. To be fair, W. Scott Darling (who is credited as the author of an "original screenplay") has significantly reworked Branch's script - unfortunately, he's done so for the worse.
"Docks of New Orleans" is a singularly uninvolving Charlie Chan mystery, charmless and unusually stiff. Its slow-as-molasses pace and overly complicated story make it feel at least double its 64-minute runtime.
Now, "Mr Wong, Detective" was no masterpiece either. In fact, compared to "Docks of New Orleans" it had much poorer production values and some truly questionable performances. However, it did have a much more straightforward and interesting plot which hinged on a cleverly crafted locked room mystery.
Stupidly, W. Scott Darling dispenses with the locked room aspects of Houston Branch's original. He has Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) figure out the mechanics behind the scientist's murder within the first third of the film leaving the rest of the story to limp aimlessly through a series of bizarre double-crosses and false identities which play out like a Mr Moto movie written on hallucinogens.
By the end of "Docks of New Orleans", I truly had no idea who all the players truly were. Furthermore, the film has at least three climactic scenes in which Charlie exposes a member of the cast as one of the bad guys. I think that by the time the credits roll, everyone except for the recurring characters ends up behind bars or dead! More egregiously, every time Charlie exposes one of the villains, he goes through the whole plot step-by-step like a substitute teacher who was not properly briefed on what the class has already been taught.
The film was directed by Derwin Abrahams whose direction is technically savvy but rather dull. There are no interesting shots in "Docks of New Orleans", no real sense of atmosphere or tension, and his sense of pacing is completely off.
Roland Winters' sophomore outing as Charlie Chan paints him in a terrible light. As I mentioned in my review of his debut film, Winters would be much better suited in the part of Hercule Poirot with his austere, brash performance. Indeed, his distinctly European features and supercilious attitude make him awfully unconvincing as a Chinese man delivering lines in supposedly broken English. Throughout the film, I had this clawing sense that I was watching an actor in an ill-fitting costume constantly teetering on the edge of the kind of racial mockery the Charlie Chan films have successfully avoided so far.
In fairness, W. Scott Darling's screenplay does Winters no favours by giving him some absolutely terrible dialogue including the endless exposition monologues, the stiff, unfunny putdowns of his son, and some inexplicably stupid faux-Confucian sayings which sound more like something Peter Sellers would say in "Murder by Death" than pearls of wisdom. Darling also makes some truly abysmal attempts at humour such as the scene in which Charlie Chan admires a copy of the Mona Lisa by saying "What a nice portrait". What absolute drivel!
Winters is, however, very good at playing coy and indeed his best scene (only good scene, I should say) is the one in which he deviously convinces a gun-toting bad guy that he is breathing in poison gas. It's a preposterous and fairly silly moment but Winters sells it with absolute conviction and some good humour. Instead of making him talk that fake Confucian drivel why not write him as a sharper, tougher character? He doesn't have the warmth of Warner Oland or the sarcastic sense of humour that Sidney Toler brought to the part but he could be very good as a cooler, more devious Charlie Chan.
The film also comes alive in the very few scenes featuring Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung. They're still not a comfortable double act but they are given some funny material to play with such as Moreland's trademark indefinite talk bit or the hilarious scene in which the two play a violin-piano duet!
But "Docks of New Orleans" is still resolutely low-grade Chan. The slickness of production and a few decent moments make it more watchable than "The Red Dragon" or even "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" but this is still one to be avoided by everyone except for truly dedicated Chanthologists.
4/10 - DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsRoland WintersMantan MorelandTim RyanCharlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites."You don't seem to be surprised, Charlie," exclaims Lt. Ruark (Tim Ryan) after a particularly startling. It's a line that made me wonder whether I've ever seen Roland Winter's Charlie Chan seem surprised by anything or even have any kind of a reaction beyond bemused awkwardness. "Surprised detective," replies Charlie, "might just as well clutch iron ball and dive in lake." Touche, Mr Winters, touche.
OK, maybe I'm being too tough on Roland Winters whose performance in "The Shanghai Chest" is probably his best so far. Actually, it would be more accurate to say it's his most consistent since it doesn't have any particular highs of his previous two films but also no especially hair-raising moments either. In other words, it's a pretty flatline turn from Winters who seems to have found a comfortable spot somewhere between austere superciliousness and bemused stiffness and decided to spend the entirety of the film there.
Thankfully director William Beaudine and writers Sam Newman and Scott Darling have conspired to create a very entertaining movie around him and "The Shanghai Chest" is easily the most entertaining Winters installment so far.
It is also the first Winters Chan not to be cribbed from a Mr Wong movie which is pretty exciting even though the plot cannot be described as entirely original since it owes a huge debt of gratitude to Agatha Christie's "The ABC Murders".
The story revolves around a series of murders of the people responsible for getting a murderer convicted. These include Judge Armstrong, District Attorney Bronson, Defense Attorney Cartwright... Well, you get the picture. A fingerprint is discovered at each of the crime scenes - a fingerprint belonging to the man they sentenced to death.
It's a pretty engaging story and director Beaudine gives the film an appropriately gothic air. There is a terrific scene in which Charlie, Lt Rourke, and Charlie's two hapless assistants dig up the murderer's grave to see if he's in there. The shadowy graveyard set looks like something straight out of a Universal horror film and William A. Sickner's photography does a great job of selling the atmosphere.
Speaking of Charlie's two assistants - "The Shanghai Chest" has some of the best comic writing the series has had since "Dark Alibi". Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung are simply terrific in this movie and some of my favourite moments include the aforementioned graveyard scene, some terrific business involving a horror movie called "An Axe to the Head", and a genuinely hilarious moment in which their heroic attempt to apprehend a burglar is immediately followed by a hard cut to them being locked up in a jail cell. There is even a very funny brief scene in which Moreland shares some quips with Willie Best!
Now, "The Shanghai Chest" is a long way away from a perfect Charlie Chan film. The biggest problem as I see it is just how shapeless and meandering the screenplay gets in the second half. Suspects are introduced and then dropped, murder victims entirely forgotten, and new avenues of inquiry are constantly brought up. There is no sense of structure or pacing in this movie which often feels like a series of scenes haphazardly put together.
But it's hard to deny that the scenes are good and that the movie is never boring. Besides giving the film a stylishness the previous entry sorely lacked, director William Beaudine keeps the proceedings moving at an agreeable pace. These Roland Winters films definitely look better than the previous Monogram Chans which almost makes me forget just how cheap they truly were.
There is an unfortunate undercurrent, however, of tiredness creeping into the series. At 33, Victor Sen Yung is too old to still be playing the naive baby-faced number-two son. The plots are getting repetitive and recycled. Meanwhile, Roland Winters who is a fine actor but a poor Charlie Chan is something of a charisma vacuum, lacking that warmth and commanding presence that Warner Oland and Sidney Toler used to keep the series together even when their films weren't the best. No matter the plots, we kept coming back for Charlie Chan which is not really something that could be said for the Winters films.
6/10 - DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsRoland WintersWanda McKayMantan MorelandChan discovers a conspiracy when a low paying gold mine seemingly starts to become profitable, and attempts are made on the owner's life.In "The Golden Eye", Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) goes up against a rogue MI6 agent he thought had died many years ago... Oh, wait... Wrong "GoldenEye". But in the words of Birmingham Brown: "That's Mr Chan all over! When you think it is - it ain't. And when you think it ain't - that's just when it is!"
No, sadly this "The Golden Eye" refers to the Golden Eye Mine in Arizona which has mysteriously started producing more gold than it ever has before. This draws the attention of Charlie's good friend Lt Mike Ruark (Tim Ryan) who checks in to the nearby dude ranch posing as a drunk. Why? Who knows but it gives Tim Ryan ample opportunity to stumble around and do pratfalls.
It's not long until Charlie Chan himself ventures out to the dude ranch with his two overeager assistants. Posing as a jade merchant, he is there by invitation from the mine's owner Manning (Forrest Taylor) who has been the target of a series of murder attempts.
After three back-to-back films set in bland San Francisco offices and art deco apartments, "The Golden Eye" is a welcome change of scenery and director William Beaudine makes the most of the film's western setting. There are plenty of cowboys, gunslingers, and tobacco-chewing locals in the cast and the film's best, most atmospheric scenes are the ones in which Charlie Chan, Tommy (Victor Sen Yung), and Birmingham (Mantan Moreland) wander around the titular mines.
Speaking of Moreland and Sen Yung, they are criminally underused here but the few scenes they do get are an absolute comedic gold mine. I just love their overeagerness when they hear they're going to a dude ranch. The extended scene in which they dress up as cowboys and then struggle to close a suitcase might just be the funniest the two have ever shared.
Roland Winters himself seems to be getting a little more comfortable in the role and even though he is still woefully unconvincing as a Chinese man, some of the rougher edges of his performance have been ironed out. He is, unfortunately, still something of a charisma vacuum and his monotone, halting delivery does the inane dialogue no service.
It has been an uneven few movies since Winters has taken over the part. "The Golden Eye" is a diverting enough mystery but it is never particularly exciting or even all that interesting. The problem, as with all of W. Scott Darling's screenplays, is the film's total lack of structure. There's never any sense of narrative progression or urgency. Instead, the plot feels like a series of coincidences and disparate scenes which Charlie just happens to witness. Topping it all off is definitely the most lacklustre conclusion of the entire franchise. In the film's final minute, Charlie simply turns around and says "that person is the killer". Everyone laughs and the film ends. If you blink, you'll miss the climax!
In a way, "The Golden Eye" is the perfect Charlie Chan to catch on TV. It's so listless and random that even if you get up, make a cup of coffee, and come back, you'll still be able to make as much sense of it if you were paying attention the whole way through. It feels like it was assembled from a variety of set pieces which were found lying around in W. Scott Darling's drawers and were then glued together with the barest semblance of a plot.
So, instead of Charlie Chan going James Bond, "The Golden Eye" is much closer to a Charlie Chan and Hopalong Cassidy crossover. It has the same kind of good-natured, easy-going atmosphere which is pleasant enough to watch but never engrossing enough to truly enjoy.
5/10 - DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsRoland WintersKeye LukeMantan MorelandCharlie Chan and his two eldest sons, investigate a murderous gang who is forcing an archaeologist to search for a treasure in Mexico.Eleven years after the dismal "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" and his brief re-emergence in the awful "Mr Moto's Gamble", Keye Luke is finally back in the role of number one son Lee! This alone should be enough to recommend "The Feathered Serpent" because Luke's warm yet hilarious performance as the over-eager Americanized son of the great Chinese detective remains one of the highest points of the franchise.
And yet, perhaps the return is long overdue. At 44 years old, Keye Luke is bizarrely the same age as Roland Winters, the actor playing his honourable father. He is also too old to play Lee as the gleefully silly butt of jokes he was in the old Warner Oland films. This leads to a strange performance from Luke who seems to be playing a character closer to Charlie than the Lee we knew and loved. In this film, he plays the part very straight, very serious, and, dare I say it, very bland. Lee Chan has grown up and become something of a bore.
Also in the film, curiously, is Victor Sen Yung playing the number two son Tommy. Now, we have had two Chan offsprings in a single film before, but this is the first (and only) time we've had "the original Chan offsprings", Luke and Sen Yung, together on screen. Unfortunately, they don't really interact all that much. Tommy is, as he usually is in these Monogram films, partnered up with Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) for most of the film while Lee assumes the role of Charlie Chan's right-hand man.
With three such excellent comedic performers in a single film, you'd expect "The Feathered Serpent" to be a laugh riot but again it disappoints. This is the most egregiously unfunny of all the Roland Winters Chans. Writer Oliver Drake clearly has no ear for witty dialogue. Instead, he saddles Tommy with a horribly annoying running gag which sees him singing La Cucaracha terribly every time he shows up on screen. What a sad final outing for a great character. Victor Sen Yung's Tommy (or Jimmy as he was known before the Monogram films) maybe didn't have the intelligence or the warmth of Keye Luke's Lee but he was every bit as funny and loveable and his on-screen relationship with Sidney Toler was one of the reasons those films were worth seeing.
Poor Birmingham, meanwhile, doesn't fare any better. He is given some of the worst dialogue he's ever had including a cringe-inducing joke about hieroglyphics being different than low-eroglyphics. Meanwhile, Lee is spared from being funny and is merely allowed to fade into the background.
The plot, cribbed from a western I've never seen called "Riders of the Whistling Skull", doesn't feel like a Charlie Chan story at all. It sees the great Chinese detective and his band of associates look for an ancient Aztec temple full of gold. Competing against them is a group of bandits which has kidnapped one of Charlie's millions of good and dear friends - Professor Farnsworth, the only man who can decipher the hieroglyphs or something like that...
There is very little mystery in "The Feathered Serpent" which plays out much more like an adventure film or indeed a western. The bad guy is conclusively revealed halfway through the film and the rest of it is a barrage of mind-numbing scenes in which Charlie and co. stalk through the jungles of Mexico looking at rocks and occasionally dodging to avoid a flying dagger. How exciting!
Not even the usually reliable director William Beaudine can make much of Drake's dull, protracted screenplay. Sure, he gives a good college try at giving the film an atmosphere of adventure and the scenes set in the jungle and the Aztec temple are adequately convincing but what he never succeeds at is injecting any sense of suspense or excitement into the proceedings.
"The Feathered Serpent" is thus a real plodding dullard which inexcusably wastes the talents of Keye Luke and Victor Sen Yung. Meanwhile, Roland Winters' performance as Charlie Chan seems to be getting more and more tired. His delivery is more robotic and flatter than ever, his make-up is more unconvincing than ever, and I keep wishing someone would hand him a tissue because the way he squints throughout makes him look like he's about to sneeze.
3.5/10 - DirectorLesley SelanderStarsRoland WintersKeye LukeMantan MorelandOn a plane trip, Charlie Chan and the passengers are drugged, and when they wake up a quarter million dollars is missing.Well, here we are! Even though "The Sky Dragon" is not the last screen outing for Charlie Chan, it is the final film produced by Monogram after 5 years and 17 films and, more significally, the final Chan film of the original cinematic franchise going back 18 years to the now sadly lost "Charlie Chan Carries On". That alone makes "The Sky Dragon", a fairly conventional Monogram Charlie Chan mystery, significant.
Since the ending of the Charlie Chan series was unexpected and not prepared for, don't expect any grand finale or even any kind of a send-off. We don't even get the traditional final joke here as the film instead ends on a more heartfelt note. No, "The Sky Dragon" is very much business as usual through-and-through and is, somewhat disappointingly, only an OK entry in this long-running series. In truth, it is one of the better Roland Winters Chans but it's hard not to wish that the series ended on a stronger, more memorable note.
One thing I will commend "The Sky Dragon" on is that it is the first attempt to create a traditional and original mystery for Charlie Chan to solve since 1946's "The Trap". This is not a plot borrowed from a Mr Moto film nor is it a thinly veiled western.
The plot begins intriguingly enough on an aeroplane when all the passengers and the crew are drugged. When the passengers come to they discover a dead body on board and a quarter of a million dollars belonging to an insurance company stolen from a locked briefcase. Thankfully, among the passengers are Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) and his number one son Lee (Keye Luke) who get to work before the plane even lands.
This is Keye Luke's first and only appearance as the only Chan son since "Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo" seeing how the previous film featured him and Victor Sen Yung together. Afforded more screentime, Keye Luke gives a much stronger showing here as the more mature and competent Lee Chan than we're used to. Charlie hasn't had a competent sidekick in ages and this new dynamic between him and one of his sons is a refreshing change. Over the course of the film, Lee pilots a plane, successfully scares off a few gun-toting bad guys, and even cottons on a few clues before Charlie does. In the words of the uncharacteristically Charlie: "Increasing wisdom of number one son give much pleasure to humble father".
An unfortunate side-effect to Lee Chan's newfound competence is that it rather leaves Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) on the sidelines. Mantan Moreland, a superb comedian, is at his best when he has someone to play off of the way he did with Benson Fong and Victor Sen Yung. In "The Sky Dragon", however, Lee Chan spends most of the runtime at his father's side. Sure, Birmingham Brown is given a few passably funny scenes with a love interest (Louise Franklin) but this is without a doubt the film in which he has the least screen time and no real impact on the plot.
Roland Winters, in his last Charlie Chan film, is still not at ease with playing the great Chinese detective. He is woefully unconvincing as an Asian man and his stilted, robotic delivery reminds me more of a Mondasian Cyberman than a wise detective. Still, this is one of his stronger turns as he is allowed to be more theatrical and commanding than usual - taking centre stage in a few interview scenes and even getting his own little coup de theatre in the form of the extended final gathering of suspects.
But we always go back to the screenplay and "The Sky Dragon" does not have the strongest one yet. Oliver Drake shows some flare in setting up the mystery but ends up getting too tangled up in its unravelling for his own good. These later Chans have all been too complicated for their runtimes and "The Sky Dragon" is no exception.
After an intriguing and exciting 15-minute opening on the aeroplane, the rest of the film is a wholly conventional and somewhat plodding mystery in which Charlie and Lee go from one suspect to the next encountering a truly hilarious amount of gun-toting bad guys along the way. There are at least three scenes in "The Sky Dragon" in which a person pulls a gun on Charlie only for Lee to emerge from a closet and begin fighting them at which point usually a fourth person will enter the room also waving a gun to resolve the conflict.
There are, truth be told, a few fun scenes along the way and a greater amount of variety of locations than usual for a Monogram film. We get the titular plane, a nightclub, a star dressing room, and the few obligatory dull apartments. I particularly liked the chase scene through the back alleys of San Francisco which ends on a rather well-executed and unexpected comedic beat. Nice work from director Lesley Selander.
All told, "The Sky Dragon" is a mediocre but entertaining entry into the Charlie Chan series which would probably blend in with all the other mediocre but entertaining entries were it not for the fact it was the last. The shame is that in "The Sky Dragon" we get some enticing heralds of what might have been including an intriguing new take on Lee Chan, a more assured than usual performance from Roland Winters, and a return to the series' mystery roots after a few unsuccessful stabs at western adventures. Unfortunately, we'll never know what the future might have had in store for Charlie Chan.
5.5/10 - StarsJ. Carrol NaishJames HongRupert DaviesChinese-American detective Charlie Chan is called in to help solve baffling cases, aided by his #1 son. The first five episodes were filmed in the US, then production switched to the UK for the rest of the series.After television slowly but surely made the B-movie obsolete, it was the obvious place for the former heroes of the cinema to migrate to. Hence, we ended up getting a whole slew of TV shows in the 50s and 60s centred on the former protagonists of B-movie series. There was "Perry Mason", "The Saint", "Batman", "Hopalong Cassidy", and eventually our old friend Charlie Chan.
"The New Adventures of Charlie Chan" is not the brightest spot in the annals of Chanthology not only because of its low ratings but also due to its tortured production history which saw not only the series swap production companies after only 5 episodes but also the rather ignominious firing of co-star James Hong. Over the years, it has accrued something of a negative reputation among Chantologists with even the usually even-handed Ken Hanke dismissing it in his excellent Chan book. Mostly, however, it has been forgotten and it remains one of the few ITC series not available on DVD.
Having now seen a selection of the episodes, I have to say that the show is not all that bad. It's no lost TV masterpiece nor does it measure up with the best ITC efforts of the time but it has a certain charm and a consistent quality which is certain to amuse if not really excite.
At 25 minutes a pop, the episodes are brisk mystery romps which never outstay their welcome. Unfortunately, the short runtimes also mean that there is no time to develop complex plots or any characterizations beyond the most basic stereotypes. This leads to a curious situation - none of the episodes are ever boring or listless but they're also never particularly engaging. I never got involved in figuring out whodunnit because the painfully simplistic plots and lack of character development meant that there was no point in even trying.
Having said that, the premises of the stories aren't at all bad and there is a welcome variety to them which even the Monogram films lacked. Across the 39 episodes, Charlie tackled all kinds of cases including insurance fraud, regular old-fashioned murders, voodoo killings, Nazi treasure hunts, and even found a rare copy of a first edition William Shakespeare Folio. As mentioned above, after the first five episodes which were produced by the US Vision Productions, the show moved into the hands of UK's ITC. The latter 34 episodes are much, much better than the first five since the European-based production gave the show a more international feel allowing Charlie to travel to all kinds of locations including London, Paris, Venice, the Scottish Highlands, etc. etc.
The quality of the actual writing, however, is quite variable across the show. None of it is ever bad but it never quite reaches further than adequate either. I feel the show is at its best when it focuses more on the suspects than the mechanics of the plot such as in one of the series' best episodes "No Holiday for Murder". Also quite good are the more comedic episodes such as "Death at High Tide" which feature the kind of verbal sparring and Chan-quips that made even the worst films in the series bearable.
Charlie Chan is played by J. Carrol Naish, an actor very familiar with playing all kinds of ethnicities. Contrary to popular belief, he makes a very good Chan. Sure, he doesn't have the warmth of Warner Oland nor Sidney Toler's sense of humour but he does bring a kind of elegance and subtle command to the part which means that he never has to resort to cheap theatrics to assume control of the scene.
While Naish's performance is encumbered by a hideous makeup job, he is quite believable as a wise and clever man and there are many scenes in which he intentionally fades into the background allowing his mind to work. Naish is a very good actor indeed and even when he doesn't have any lines you can always see the cogs in his brain moving.
For most of the episodes, Naish was paired up with James Hong as the overenthusiastic number-one son Barry Chan. I've never seen the prolific Hong play a part as energetic and openly goofy as Barry but he is a surprisingly good comic performer. He doesn't have the physical prowess of Keye Luke or Victor Sen Yung but he is absolutely terrific at verbal sparring with his on-screen father. Their off-screen relationship may have been fractious but the chemistry between Hong and Naish is terrific. The running gag of Charlie teasing Barry about his love for eating in "Death at High Tide" is as good as any running gag in the movies.
Another recurring character is Inspector Duff played by Rupert Davies who seems to be rehearsing for his upcoming role as Chief Inspector Maigret. The hat and the brusk demeanor are all there and he is certainly a welcome addition to the 9 episodes he appears in.
"The New Adventures of Charlie Chan" is no great discovery but it should provide a lot of pleasure for the folk who enjoy the 1950s ITC shows like "Colonel March of the Scotland Yard", "Interpol Calling", and "The Four Just Man". This show has the same kind of feel - like a B movie transported to the small screen. Every episode is 25 minutes of undemanding, straightforward entertainment and even though it is never terribly memorable it never seems to fail to amuse.
As for the regular Chanthologist? Well, I can understand why certain people don't like this show. It doesn't have the production values or the warmth of the Fox movies nor does it have the outlandish plots and broad comedy of the Monogram films. Its pleasures are distinctly televisual and if that's not your thing then you won't find much to enjoy in "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan".
The production team had the right idea with the international settings of the episodes and the pairing of Charlie with Barry, but the stories are crying out for more complexity and a longer runtime and I think J. Carroll Naish's take on the role was strong enough that he could have carried a more expensive, longer series.
5.5/10 - StarsKeye LukeCynthia AdlerGene AndruscoCharlie Chan investigates mysteries with "help" from his ten children and pet dog.Another in a long line of Hanna-Barbera's "Scooby-Doo" rip-offs, "The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan" is without a doubt the most bizarre incarnation of Charlie Chan. I have no idea where Joseph Barbera and William Hanna got the notion that Charlie Chan and his gaggle of children would be the ideal replacement for the Mystery Incorporated gang but I'm not sure it really works. Besides the name recognition, which must have been minimal with 1972 children anyway, there is no real reason why these 10 kids and their detective father have to be the Chan Clan. You could easily rename them to the Wong Clan or the Hong Clan and no one would be any the wiser. I certainly don't think of Earl Derr Biggers when I watch an episode of "The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan".
The real protagonists of this series are indeed Charlie's 10 children made up of 6 boys and 4 girls ranging in ages from 6 to 18. In this alternate continuity, the kids are all members of a rock band called The Chan Clan and in every episode we're treated to one of their performances. Yippee! With their legendary detective father in tow, they travel the world in their Chan Van which can transform into any kind of vehicle at the press of a button performing in various venues and solving mysteries.
So far - so good. The premise sounds fun and indeed there is a neat variety of locations and plots including a kidnapping at the World Series, art theft on an ocean liner, the disappearance of the fat lady at a circus, and (of course!) a mummy in Egypt.
The results, however, are far less charming than they sound. For one, the animation is astonishingly cheap even by Hanna-Barbera standards. After watching the first episode of "The Chan Clan" I put on a Scooby-Doo episode for comparison's sake just to see whether my nostalgia-glasses made me imagine they were better than they actually were. But no! "The Chan Clan" is several notches below the Scooby-Doo standard and the animation only gets worse and worse as the series goes on. By the final few episodes, we get recycled running animations placed on top of half-painted backgrounds, ropes which don't even connect to the edge of the screen, and whole scenes where no one moves at all. In "The Great Illusion Caper", there's barely any movement. Halfway through that episode, I had to check to see whether the animation was really that poor or if my player had broken!
Another problem with this show is that there are just too many characters. There's Charlie, the 10 kids, and the kids' amazing dog whose bark can imitate any sound. The characters are very poorly profiled and even after having seen the episodes, I still can't identify which Chan kid is which. Their personalities are instantly forgettable and most of them barely get a line per episode.
The plots are extremely simplistic and follow the same repetitive structure: The Chan Clan arrives to a location, there's a crime, The Chan Clan runs around the location getting into all kinds of slapstick situations before Charlie shows up out of nowhere and divines the solution. The thing is there's absolutely no sleuthing in "The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan". Every episode is a collection of barely sensible sight gags and pratfalls without any of the menacing villains, mysteries, or the clues that make "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You" such a great show which I still happily watch to this very day.
As for Charlie Chan himself - he's barely in this show. The format of the series is such that he appears in the first 5 minutes, then disappears for the following 13, and then re-appears to unmask the villain in the final 2 minutes.
This is a huge shame since Charlie is played by none other than fan favourite Keye Luke who is also the first Chinese actor to play Charlie Chan. What a missed opportunity! I can't really comment on Keye Luke's performance as Charlie since he's given so few lines and no personality to speak of. I'll only say that I'm not a fan of the way his character was drawn. He has the same dopey look in every single scene which makes him look less like a great detective and more like a stoner dude trying to follow directions.
The budget clearly vanished as quickly as priceless jewels do in the vicinity of the Chan Clan. The first three episodes are actually quite dynamic and fun. Especially good is "Will the Real Charlie Chan Please Stand Up" which is on par with some of the mid-tier episodes of Scooby-Doo. After that, the show takes a serious plunge in quality and every subsequent episode looks cheaper and cheaper as the plots become simpler and more derivative and the jokes less and less funny.
"The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan" is one of the worst Hanna-Barbera cartoons I've ever seen. What does this mean, however? Well, for kids who stumble upon this show - it's an inoffensive bit of fluff. Watchable but not memorable. However, for the life of me, I can't think of a reason for anyone to seek this out. By now, there are so many great incarnations of Scooby-Doo that this rip-off is obsolete. If, however, like me, you're a completionist Chanthologist - well, there's very little Charlie Chan in this show and, truth be told, this has as much to do with Charlie Chan as does "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?". In either case, I think this one is best avoided.
4/10 - DirectorDaryl DukeLeslie H. MartinsonStarsRoss MartinRichard HaydnLouise SorelCharlie Chan investigates a murder case aboard the yacht of a wealthy Greek shipping tycoon.The third (and last to date) attempt at finding Charlie Chan a home on television came in the 1970s with "The Return of Charlie Chan", a failed Universal pilot starring Ross Martin in the role of the great Chinese detective. I guess Charlie was a candidate to join the now legendary NBC Mystery Movie and rotate on the wheel with Peter Falk's Columbo, Dennis Weaver's McCloud, and Rock Hudson's McMillan. In hindsight, it's not at all surprising that "The Return of Charlie Chan" never made it on the wheel since the polite, humble Chinese detective is a strange fit for that rough All-American company. Eventually, a more sensible fourth detective for the wheel was found in the form of Richard Boone's wild-west lawman Hec Ramsey and "The Return of Charlie Chan" collected dust on the Universal shelf until it was finally, ignominiously released for a single US airing in 1979.
Taking into account the awful reputation this TV movie has and its relative obscurity, it's really not such a terrible piece of television. Considering the kind of long-forgotten garbage NBC would eventually put on the wheel including Tony Curtis' "McCoy", something called "Farraday & Company", and the horrendously boring "The Snoop Sisters", "The Return of Charlie Chan" feels almost like a missed opportunity. It's certainly not on the level of "Columbo" or even the best episodes of "McCloud" and "McMillan and Wife" but with its classical mystery plot and a surprisingly strong guest cast, "The Return of Charlie Chan" is on par if not better than most of the 70s Movies of the Week.
It must be said that Ross Martin is an awfully strange choice to play Charlie Chan and I think that this key piece of miscasting contributed to the pilot not being picked up. In the 1920s and the 1930s, the mere idea of an Asian good guy protagonist was progressive and casting a white man to play him was nothing surprising. In fact, I doubt that any production company at the time would cast an Asian lead. However, by 1971 such a casting was becoming outdated. True, there were still no shows (and barely any American-produced movies) with Asian leads but the old trick of yellowface and eye makeup was becoming jarringly distracting and increasingly scoffed at.
But even if we discard his ethnicity, Ross Martin is not a good choice to play Charlie. The former star of "The Wild Wild West" was a theatrical, stylish man much better suited to playing suave playboys like the one he played in "Suitable for Framing", the iconic episode of "Columbo", than humble, subtle detectives.
Having all this in mind, Ross Martin does a halfway decent job of playing the character. He seems less uncomfortable in his skin than Roland Winters, that's for sure. But, he never feels like Charlie Chan. He is far too modern, too suave, and altogether too all-American. He is more like one of Charlie's kids than the old man himself. Watching him here I'm sure that Ross Martin could have carried a detective show all of his own but Charlie Chan was not a character he was suited to playing.
Thankfully, the guest cast assembled around him is typically strong for a 1970s Universal production. For one, there's Leslie Nielsen playing the short-tempered Greek tycoon Alexander Hadrachi who hires Charlie to find out who is trying to kill him.
I actually found Nielsen's portrayal of a Greek far more culturally insensitive and goofy than Ross Martin's portrayal of a Chinese person. Every other line from Hadrachi's mouth is a quotation from Homer delivered in a thick accent wavering between Russian and Dutch. The giant false nose he is forced to wear doesn't help, especially since it's a different colour to the rest of his face and the huge eyebrows are no better.
Still, Nielsen is a good enough actor to deliver a terrific performance despite all the fake Greekness. Also excellent is the band of suspects including such familiar faces as the always terrific Richard Haydn, Louise Sorel, Peter Donat, and Edward Greenhalgh.
Charlie, meanwhile, is assisted by two of his children, son Peter (Rocky Gunn) and daughter Doreen (Virginia Ann Lee). The Chan Clan in this film is a vast missed opportunity since they're given very little to do besides standing in the background. They have no little comical vignettes, no witty lines, and no defining characteristics. They seem only to have been included to honour the format of the movies.
Indeed, Gene Kearney's screenplay is the major stumbling block of "The Return of Charlie Chan" running into many of the same issues that would plague the 2-hour episodes of other Universal shows. It is far too long, padded, lumbering, and frankly dull. The mystery is so ludicrously complicated as to fill out the 90-minute runtime that I had the devil of a time following Charlie's 15-minute explanation of who did what to whom. It doesn't help that the plot is not really all that interesting as most of it ends up consisting of characters sneaking menacingly around Hadrachi's enormous yacht.
There are also far too many suspects to keep track of especially since all of these jet-setters look alike with their perfectly-pressed tuxedos and combovers. Like the Chan Clan, none of them have well-developed characters and are very poorly defined their sole distinguishing characteristic being their jobs on board the yacht.
It is a shame that the script is so dull since director Daryl Duke does a really fantastic job of creating tension and atmosphere. There is a wonderfully evocative undercurrent of dread throughout the whole movie which is elegantly and surprisingly emotionally resolved in the terrific climax which was so well executed that I decided to award the movie an additional star. It's a really tremendously moving scene. Helping Duke in building the movie's atmosphere are Robert Prince's weirdly creepy score and Richard C. Glouner's gritty photography which adds a touch of grime to what otherwise could have looked like a really fanciful story.
Overall, "The Return of Charlie Chan" is a decent, well-produced pilot with a good cast which is hampered by a dull screenplay but lifted by some evocative direction. I've certainly seen worse pilots for shows that turned out to be very good indeed. The big problem, however, is the casting of Ross Martin who while a good actor is not a very good Charlie Chan at all. As much as I wish that a 1970s Charlie Chan show was picked up, I don't think it would have been very good (or more accurately, very Channy) with him in the lead.
5.5/10 - DirectorClive DonnerStarsPeter UstinovLee GrantAngie DickinsonDetective Charlie Chan helps SFPD solve the many bizarre murders. His clumsy grandson Lee, who's getting married, "helps" him. Is the Dragon Queen behind this?"Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" is the death throe of a 50-year old movie franchise. After this abomination I entirely understand why no one has attempted to revive Charlie Chan for the past five decades. Forget the racism of yellowface, this horrendous wannabe comedy is the franchise's true crime and deadly sin.
I believe that the least funny thing in the world is desperation and "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" is so desperate to be funny it ends up becoming gratingly annoying like a 5-year-old cousin at a family wedding trying to tell a joke he heard from his uncle over and over and over again. This so-called comedy keeps throwing gags at us with the ferocity of "Airplane" but each one lands with a clang way off the mark. I only laughed once over the course of this excruciating 95-minute experience. Only a single joke worked out of probably a few hundred and I can't even be sure if I laughed because the joke was funny or because I too was becoming desperate.
The worst kind of a bad movie is the kind that wastes prodigious talent. "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" completely wastes its talented cast, beautiful production design by Joel Schiller, and some nice work from cinematographer Paul Lohmann. It's a movie that truly could have been the revival Charlie Chan deserved but it is instead a cinematic train wreck which reminded me the most of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", probably the worst movie I've ever seen and which somehow managed to make Peter Cook and Dudley Moore unfunny.
How do you describe a film like "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen"? It has no sensible plot, no structure, not even any tonal consistency. It is a cinematic equivalent to one of those Arabic markets you see in movies where tradesmen swarm you, shouting in your face, trying desperately to peddle their low-quality goods.
Here we have a movie, supposedly written by David Axelrod and Stan Burns, which seems to just be throwing out ideas and gags to see if any of them stick. They don't! Over the course of the film there is an astounding amount of chases, inane running gags, pratfalls, slapstick fistfights (one of them between a grown man and a small Chinese girl), movie references, and farcical misunderstandings all accompanied by the cartoonish sound effects that directors only ever put in their movies when they realize that the material itself cannot raise a laugh.
This litany of broad jokes is haphazardly connected by a story revolving around the vengeance of the titular Dragon Queen (Angie Dickinson), a murderess Charlie Chan (Peter Ustinov) put behind bars some years ago and who is now back trying to... do something. Truth be told, I have no idea who this Dragon Queen woman is. Her character is never explained in the film. Is she meant to be Chinese? If not, why does stereotypical Chinese music play every time she appears and why is she dressed in Chinese garb? What is her job? Why is she out of prison if she was convicted of murder? What is her plan?
Also in the movie is a serial killer lazily nicknamed "The Bizarre Killer" who seems to be killing people at random just to spight Charlie Chan. These murders include a water-logged elevator full of corpses, a strung-up corpse full of acupuncture needles, and a saxophonist who hits such a sweet riff that he sets himself on fire and dies.
There's a whole host of grotesque characters none of whom really serve any discernable purpose. The film cuts to them from time to time for a cheap joke only to then go back to the mayhem and chaos caused by the Dragon Queen. These include a neurotic maid (Rachel Roberts), a widow who cannot bring herself to say the word "dead" (Lee Grant), a ditzy bride (Michelle Pfeiffer), a shouting police chief (Brian Keith), and a wheelchair-bound butler who seems to hate his employers for no reason at all (Roddy McDowall). These characters are only loosely connected to the plot and the film forgets about them for long stretches of time.
Charlie Chan, meanwhile, is played by Peter Ustinov. Of course, an Asian actor would have been preferable but if it had to be a white man then Peter Ustinov would seem to be an ideal choice. Unfortunately, he is terrible in the role. I mean, truly awful. He essentially plays the part by combining his Poirot personality with the mannerisms he employed when playing another crude Asian stereotype in "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing". It just doesn't work. Charlie Chan in this film comes across as a profoundly unlikeable personality - arrogant, uninterested in the well-being of others, crass, and most of all bored-looking. Ustinov seems to be sleepwalking through the film without injecting any energy or his trademark wit into the role. His makeup makes him seem ill and the walk he is putting on makes him appear constipated. Maybe that's why every other sound from his mouth is some kind of a groan which I suppose was meant to make him sound more Asian...
Despite the film's title, however, Charlie Chan is not the film's protagonist. For most of the film Charlie is just a background character looking on disapprovingly as the film's actual lead, his wannabe detective grandson Lee (Richard Hatch), makes a mockery of the case.
Lee, supposedly half-Chinese, half-Jewish, is one of those gee-whiz enthusiastic comedy protagonists who were popular in the 1980s but now are just plain annoying. As played by Richard Hatch, Lee is a charisma vacuum, a real berk mugging his way through a series of horribly written jokes. The longest-running gag in the film is Lee idolizing his grandpa Charlie while Charlie seems to utterly despise him. I can't say I blame the old man - the kid's a drag.
The film was directed by Clive Donner who failed to impose any kind of control, pace, or tone to this film. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, completely failing to connect with the other actors in the piece, and looking for all intents and purposes like a fish on dry land. At 95 minutes, the film seems to drag interminably and the more frantic and in-your-face the comedy got, the more frustrated I became.
It's interesting that the two undisputed worst Charlie Chan films are the earliest surviving one ("Behind That Curtain") and this last one. At least "Behind That Curtain" had a certain creaky charm. "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen", meanwhile, is obnoxious, boring, unfunny, messy, and, for the first time, truly offensive. There's nothing worse than a bad comedy and this is one of the worst I've ever seen.
And so the Charlie Chan franchise ends not with a bang but with a trainwreck. Will Charlie Chan ever be seen again on our screens? Who knows. One thing is certain, however, and that is that if he does come back he won't be played by a white man and his character will probably be retuned to fit our more enlightened sensibilities. I hope that he does come back because much like Poirot, he is the kind of detective I miss in these days of gritty, grimy thrillers. I miss the gentlemanly inspectors who would use their brains rather than their guns and who would deceive their suspects with good manners rather than beat them up with their fists. I also miss well-crafted whodunnits set in sprawling mansions with clues hidden behind sofas and daggers sticking out of the lord of the manor's back.
While we wait for Charlie's comeback here's that one joke in this film that made me laugh. It finally happened at the 81-minute mark in the scene in which Charlie exposes a chauffeur as the prince of a Mozambique tribe, displaying an enviable amount of knowledge of tribal insignia and customs. "My dear, sir," asks the prince, "how do you know so much about Mozambique?" "I subscribe to National Geographic," replies Charlie Chan with a bow.
1/10