Mary Whitman from Honolulu arrives in Reno for the usual purpose: to get a divorce... She's being taken care of very nicely of hotel owner Mrs. Russell and her social hostess Vivian Wells - but then exactly what everybody tried to avoid happens: haughty young blonde Jeanne Bentley comes over to her table and teases her with the greatest pleasure about the fact that SHE's going to marry Mary's husband. Mrs. Russell orders Jeanne to leave the hotel in the morning - but during the night, she's found stabbed in her room; and Mary bending over her body...
Mary's husband Curtis, an old friend of Charlie Chan's (and still not very happy about the divorce), begs him to come over to Reno and help to prove Mary's innocence; because she's quite obviously NOT the only one who hated Jeanne. There's Wally Burke, whom she had rejected and on top of it all humiliated in public, there's mysterious Dr. Ainsley, who seems to share a dark secret from the past not only with Jeanne, but also with Mrs. Russell - and finally, in a ghost town near the city, Charlie digs up Jeanne's ex-husband George! So we've got once again a quite complicated plot with abundant suspects, revelations from the past, and lots of research and deduction work to do for Charlie... But for those with sharp eyes and mind, it IS solvable even before the master sleuth announces the murderer's name!
A classic example for a really intricate, but absolutely logical murder mystery, excellently played, suspenseful, but also brightened up with some VERY nice humor, provided chiefly by Jimmy Chan and Jeanne's Chinese maid Choy Wong, who team up to solve the crime their way (and thus making it even more complicated, of course...), the slow-witted Wild West Sheriff (Slim Summerville), and the eloquent cab driver (Eddie Collins, just as comical as in the previous "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" as the animal warden) - this movie certainly has got something for everybody!!
Mary's husband Curtis, an old friend of Charlie Chan's (and still not very happy about the divorce), begs him to come over to Reno and help to prove Mary's innocence; because she's quite obviously NOT the only one who hated Jeanne. There's Wally Burke, whom she had rejected and on top of it all humiliated in public, there's mysterious Dr. Ainsley, who seems to share a dark secret from the past not only with Jeanne, but also with Mrs. Russell - and finally, in a ghost town near the city, Charlie digs up Jeanne's ex-husband George! So we've got once again a quite complicated plot with abundant suspects, revelations from the past, and lots of research and deduction work to do for Charlie... But for those with sharp eyes and mind, it IS solvable even before the master sleuth announces the murderer's name!
A classic example for a really intricate, but absolutely logical murder mystery, excellently played, suspenseful, but also brightened up with some VERY nice humor, provided chiefly by Jimmy Chan and Jeanne's Chinese maid Choy Wong, who team up to solve the crime their way (and thus making it even more complicated, of course...), the slow-witted Wild West Sheriff (Slim Summerville), and the eloquent cab driver (Eddie Collins, just as comical as in the previous "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" as the animal warden) - this movie certainly has got something for everybody!!