Dead Men Tell (1941)

Dead Men Tell is a 1941 20th Century-Fox Charlie Chan mystery starring my favourite screen Chan, Sidney Toler.

Dead Men Tell has a contemporary setting but the opening scenes take place on a sailing ship that looks like it’s right out of a pirate movie. And the ship is about to take part in a treasure. With a treasure map. And the captain’s cabin is filled with pirate memorabilia. OK, this movie has grabbed my attention right away.

Most of the action in fact takes place aboard this sailing ship. An eccentric old lady, Miss Nodbury (Ethel Griffies), has a map showing the location of treasure buried by notorious pirate Blackhook. He was one of her ancestors, which explains her obsession with pirates.

She has organised an expedition. She has torn the map into half a dozen pieces. Each member of the expedition has one piece. Miss Nodbury is a very suspicious old bird. She trusts nobody.

Of course you know that someone will commit murder to get hold of that map. The murder occurs, by one of those amazing detective story coincidences, while Charlie Chan and Number Two Son Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) are aboard.

Number Two Son has witnessed something important but he doesn’t recognise its significance and Charlie is always inclined to be sceptical when Number Two Son claims to have uncovered vital evidence.

There is indeed a murder. And it won’t be the last.

There are plenty of shady characters about - treasure hunts don’t end to attract reliable responsible citizens. The treasure hunters are not necessarily quite the people they claim to be.

And something happened in the past that could have a bearing on the current situation.

And that notorious pirate Blackhook will exert a certain influence on events.

I like Sidney Toler as Chan because he gives the character a very slight edge. Charlie’s a really nice guy but he is a cop. You don’t become a high-ranking police detective without a certain toughness.

Number Two Son is of course basically a comic relief character but Victor Sen Yung can be genuinely amusing and he’s not excessively irritating. And the character does get to do a few relatively important things. The supporting cast is solid.

Being a B-movie made by a major studio Dead Men Tell is a polished professional production. A B-movie shooting schedule didn’t allow for anything too fancy but it’s clear that director Harry Lachman and DP Charles G. Clarke are at least making an effort to create some atmosphere and to add a bit of visual interest. Although it never leaves port the sailing ship provides an excellent setting.

Dead Men Tell is a fine entry in the Fox Chan cycle. That cycle was drawing to a close by this time (although Charlie and Sidney Toler would find a new home at Monogram) but the quality remained high. Dead Men Tell is highly recommended.

This movie is included in Fox’s Charlie Chan Collection Volume 5 DVD boxed set. The transfer is very nice indeed.

I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Sidney Toler Chan movies - Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940), Charlie Chan in Panama (1940), Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) and Murder Over New York (1940). They’re all excellent B-movies.

Murder Over New York (1940)

Murder Over New York is a 1940 entry in 20th Century-Fox’s incredibly prolific Charlie Chan B-movie cycle.

I watched this one immediately after watching Charlie Chan at the Opera (made four years earlier). I wanted to watch a Warner Oland and a Sidney Toler Chan movie back-to-back. I’ve always had a preference for Sidney Toler in the role and watching these two movies confirmed my view that Sidney Toler was a much better Charlie Chan. He’s just slightly harder-edged. Chan after all is not a gentleman amateur detective. He’s a cop. I can buy Sidney Toler’s Chan as a policeman in a way that I can never quite buy Warner Oland’s version. And Warner Oland tries a bit too hard to make Chan too likeable.

Murder Over New York involves spies and sabotage but those elements are really just there to give the movie a topical flavour, and to justify some aviation action. The plot is mostly just a standard murder mystery tale.

Inspector Drake of Scotland Yard is now working for British Military Intelligence. He and Charlie are old friends. Drake is investigating a sabotage ring, and more precisely he is investigating the sabotage of a new bomber prototype. 

When Drake is murdered Chan naturally is determined to be involved in the case. Number Two Son is also determined to be involved, whether Charlie likes it or not.

There will be more murders, and the murder methods involve poisons and poison gases.

There’s an array of possible suspects but the prime suspect is nowhere to be found. He’s a notorious spy named Paul Narvo and Drake was on his trail but even Narvo’s ex-wife has no idea where he is.

There’s some gee-whizz technical stuff, with detailed explanations of the equipment used to send photographic images over long distances and there’s a secret chemical laboratory that plays a part in the story. There’s another high-tech element but I can’t mention it without revealing a major spoiler.

There’s a tense climax aboard the second new bomber prototype, with Charlie (as so often) setting a trap for the killer.

At least it’s supposed to be a bomber prototype but it’s clearly a civil aircraft, in fact I’m fairly sure it’s a Lockheed 12 airliner. I guess they figured that the audience at the time wouldn’t notice or care. And really it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we get suspense and terror in the air and that’s always fun.

The plot is quite serviceable with the usual red herrings.

There’s some humour but it’s not too intrusive.

The supporting cast is solid. Look out for Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges in a bit part as a phoney Hindu fakir. I enjoyed Charlie’s gentle affectionate mockery of Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung). And as I mentioned earlier I really enjoy Sidney Toler as Chan.

Director Harry Lachman does a good job and keeps things moving along.

Mostly this movie follows the established formula but it’s entertaining and it’s highly recommended.

This movie is included in Fox’s Charlie Chan volume 5 DVD boxed set. The transfer is very good.

Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)

Charlie Chan at the Opera is a 1936 entry in 20th Century-Fox’s Charlie Chan B-movie series. At this point Chan was still being played by Warner Oland. The big selling point for this one was having Boris Karloff (a huge star in 1936) heading the guest cast.

Charlie Chan is supposed to be a Honolulu cop but in the many Chan movies he spends almost no time in Hawaii. He investigates cases in a wide variety of exotic locales (all created in the studio of course) and for a while in the mid-30s his cases had extremely interesting settings (circuses, race tracks, etc). In this film it’s murder at the opera, in San Francisco.

Personally I just adore murder mysterious in theatrical or similar settings (such as film studios). Murder in an opera house - that’s right up my alley.

We start with a maniac (you won’t be surprised to know he’s played by Karloff) escaping from a lunatic asylum. He’s suffering from amnesia and nobody has ever figured out his identity. He spends most of his time singing and he’s obviously a trained singer, and obviously operatically trained.

Charlie Chan’s assistance is requested when a threat is made on the life of a famed soprano, Lilli Rochelle (Margaret Irving).

No murder has yet been committed but it soon becomes clear that there are romantic triangles and professional jealousies in the opera company that could very easily lead to murder.

Of course they do lead to murder. Two murders in fact.

Several suspicious characters have been hanging around the opera house and one of them is suspected of being the escaped maniac. Naturally the police make the perfectly logical assumption that the maniac is the murderer, and the evidence points that way.

Chan’s son Lee (Keye Luke) goes undercover as an extra in the latest opera production. As usual he does dig up some clues, and as usual he fails to draw the right conclusions.

The plot is pretty solid with several plausible suspects, all with convincing motives. Charlie eventually comes up with a risky plan to bring the murderer into the open.

Warner Oland is his usual self but it’s no surprise that Karloff totally and effortlessly steals the picture. This role allows Karloff to play to his strengths as an actor, particularly his ability to switch seamlessly from being kindly and sympathetic to being menacing and obsessed. It’s actually a pretty decent somewhat ambiguous role.

The opera house setting is used skilfully and director H. Bruce Humberstone does a competent job.

This movie does have some very slight hints of horror, with horror icon Karloff playing a madman. And the opera house setting gives it a slight Phantom of the Opera vibe.

So this is a Charlie Chan movie with a subtly different flavour. It’s a B-movie with no pretensions to being anything more than that but it’s pretty enjoyable. The Chan movies varied widely in quality but this one is quite satisfying. Karloff’s presence bumps this one up into the highly recommended category.

Charlie Chan at the Opera is included in Fox’s Charlie Chan volume 2 DVD boxed set and it gets a very nice transfer with a few extras thrown in.

I’ve reviewed lots of other Charlie Chan movies including Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936), Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935), Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) and Charlie Chan in Reno (1939).

Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)

Charlie Chan at the Circus came out in 1936 and was the eleventh of the 20th Century-Fox Charlie Chan movies featuring Warner Oland. The Chan movies were really on a roll at this time.

Charlie decides to take the whole family (including the thirteen children) to the circus. A man named Kinney, part-owner of the circus, asks for Charlie’s help in relation to death threats against him. It seems Kinney was right to be concerned since that very evening he is found dead in the business wagon. Kinney had alienated just about everybody so the number of possible suspects is embarrassingly large.

It’s almost a locked-room murder. Fans of locked-room mysteries will be disappointed that that aspect of the mystery is quickly cleared up. There is however no need for despair - there are still plenty of puzzles that need solving. And it’s still a cool murder method - the murder weapon was the circus’s ape Caesar.

Charlie gets roped into the investigation and he has Number One Son Lee (played by Keye Luke) to help him. While he’s always a step behind his father Lee does enough to suggest that maybe one day he could have the makings of a real detective. Of course he would be able to do more detecting if he weren’t so distracted by the charms of a lady contortionist (who is less than pleased by his attentions).

Charlie knows he’s on to something when an attempt is made on his own life, with a deadly cobra as the instrument of his intended destruction. All the killings and attempted killings make good use of the circus background.

As the investigation proceeds it becomes apparent that most of the potential suspects have unexpected but very convincing motives.

This is a film in which we see more of Chan’s home life than usual since we get to see  all thirteen Chan children as well as Mrs Chan. And while Lee Chan as usual provides comic relief he’s certainly not a bumbling nitwit. He displays some good observational skills and his ideas are sound even if he makes a few basic errors in putting them into practice.

Chan also gets some invaluable assistance from the circus’s two midget dancers, Colonel Tim and Lady Tiny, and what’s pleasing is that their performances are not overdone. In fact all of the supporting players give fairly restrained performances which is just as it should be - there’s more than enough here to keep viewers interested and too much hamminess in the acting would have been an unnecessary distraction.

Warner Oland and Keye Luke are both in fine form.

The circus setting is used to maximum advantage, actually driving the plot rather than just providing a colourful backdrop. Not everybody loves circus movies but I do and circuses and murder always seem to me to a winning combination.

And we get not just lots of circus atmosphere but we also have the added bonus of a guy in a gorilla suit (always a worthwhile asset in any B-movie).

A lot of the outdoor scenes were shot at a real circus and some of the extras are actual circus performers.

Director Harry Lachman went on to direct several of the Sidney Toler Chan movies as well as the very decent 1942 horror flick Dr Renault’s Secret for Fox. He gives this movie plenty of energy. The screenplay by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan provides a solid plot and we get a lot of Chanisms - Charlie’s little homilies which I’m sure he knows are nothing but platitudes but that’s the whole point. Charlie wants the villains to think he’s a harmless windbag.

Not everybody likes the ending to this movie but I think it wraps things up pretty neatly in a very B-movie way.

This movie is included in the Charlie Chan Collection, Volume 2 DVD boxed set. Fox have come up with a pretty good transfer for this movie. They spent a lot of money restoring the Chan movies (and the Mr Moto movies) and it was money very well spent.

There are a few extras including the Charlie Chan at the Movies featurette (which is quite good).

Charlie Chan at the Circus is a very fine entry in 20th Century-Fox’s Charlie Chan cycle. Highly recommended.

Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)

By the time Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum went into production at 20th Century-Fox in 1940 Sidney Toler had well and truly settled into the rôle of Charlie Chan. This was his sixth Chan film.

It starts with a dramatic courtroom scene. A hoodlum is sentenced to death, on Charlie’s evidence, vows revenge and shoots his way out of the courtroom after seizing a deputy’s gun.

Steve McBirney (Marc Lawrence) is the hoodlum in question and he doesn’t do what the police expect him to do. He doesn’t try to leave the city. Instead he takes refuge in the wax museum of Dr Cream (C. Henry Gordon). Dr Cream had another profession before opening his wax museum - he was a plastic surgeon and apparently a very good one. He also apparently did quite a few surgery jobs for members of the underworld, giving them new faces. Now McBirney wants Dr Cream to give him a new face as well.

While the police hunt unsuccessfully for McBirney Charlie accepts a challenge to a radio debate over a celebrated crime that had been a sensation a few years earlier. That crime was solved, but Charlie was never happy about it. He had a strong suspicion an innocent man may have been convicted. He also thinks there may be a connection with Steve McBirney. The fact that Dr Cream is involved with the broadcast makes this seem even more likely.

That old case was particularly convoluted. Two partners in crime who were also partners with a third man (an honest man) in a perfectly legitimate business. There was jealousy and murder, and a revenge killing, but Chan has doubts about pretty much the entirety of the established story.

The radio broadcast leads to more murder. Charlie is lucky not to have been the victim. The murder method at first seems ingenious but it turns out that actually a totally different but also ingenious method was employed. The murderer had to be one of the small number of people in the wax museum at the time of the broadcast. There’s no shortage of suspicious characters amongst them and that’s not counting the ones who were hiding and weren’t discovered until after the murder.

As you would expect from a movie with a wax museum theme this entry in the Chan cycle has a bit of a gothic tinge to it. The wax museum is not just an ordinary wax museum. It is a museum of crime, devoted entirely to gruesome and brutal murders. And of course whenever the action switches to the wax museum there seems to be a thunderstorm raging (which adds a slight Old Dark House feel).

This is a movie that is visually fairly impressive by B-movie standards. The wax museum is genuinely creepy, the sets are very good, there are some fun props (such as the mechanical chess player automaton). Director Lynn Shores keeps things lively and interesting.

The acting by the supporting cast is reasonable B-movie standard. C. Henry Gordon is subtly sinister as Dr Cream. Joan Valerie is very good as his beautiful but slightly exotic and slightly disturbing assistant Lily Latimer. Marguerite Chapman is OK as the Feisty Girl Reporter who is there because a B-movie should have a Feisty Girl Reporter. Michael Visaroff quite correctly hams it up as the forensic psychiatrist (and probably charlatan) Dr Otto Von Brom.

Sidney Toler as always plays Chan with a charming twinkle in his eye. As usual Victor Sen Young provides comic relief as Chan’s son Jimmy, an enthusiastic but not always effective amateur detective. By the standards of comic relief characters he’s not too bad since unlike most comic relief characters he’s not entirely a fool or a halfwit. He has intelligence but he lacks judgment and experience.

This movie is part of the Charlie Chan vol 5 boxed set which is very light on extras but on the other hand it does include no less than seven movies. Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum gets a very satisfactory transfer.

Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum has a decent mystery, it has some mild thrills, it has effective atmosphere. The comic relief is kept to a minimum and is non-irritating. It’s best not to think too much about the plot, but that’s OK because this is the kind of movie that exists in a universe in which the villains come up with insanely complicated criminal plots that would never work in real life. But this is not real life and it’s not meant to be. The world of Charlie Chan movies is in most respects preferable to real life anyway.

Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum is a satisfying little B-picture. Highly recommended.

Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)

Charlie Chan’s Secret, filmed in August-September 1935 and released in January 1936, was the tenth of 20th Century-Fox’s Chan movies starring Warner Oland.

The story begins in Hawaiian waters with the sinking of the S.S. Nestor. It was believed that Alan Colby was aboard the ship. Colby had been the heir to a fortune. Seven years earlier he disappeared. He then suddenly made contact with his family, boarded the ill-fated ship and was presumed to be lost at sea.

During the time that Alan Colby had been missing his father Bernard Colby had died. Alan was the sole heir but since he was presumed dead the fortune passed to Bernard Colby’s sister Mrs Lowell. The Lowell family has been living in style on this fortune. Alan Colby’s reappearance will certainly not be welcome to the Lowells. It will also not be welcome to Professor Bowen whose psychic researches have been very generously funded by Mrs Lowell. Alan Colby is known to be an extreme sceptic when it comes to psychic phenomena and he is certain to pull the plug on these researches.

If Alan Colby is still among the living the question is whether he can stay alive. Charlie Chan has reason to believe that several attempts have already been made on the life of Colby (or on the man who claims to be Colby).

It is Mrs Lowell who has called in Charlie Chan. Charlie flies from Honolulu to the mainland to take up his investigation. It soon becomes clear that the list of people who would like Alan Colby out of the way is even longer than was first thought.

Charlie does not necessarily disbelieve entirely in the possibility of communication with the spirit world but he certainly approaches the topic with a good deal of scepticism. Especially when the psychic phenomena seem to be rather too convenient for certain people.

From the late 19th century up to around the early 1950s there was an extraordinary craze for psychic phenomena, spiritualism and associated occult beliefs. Such notions still had some slight degree of scientific respectability at that time, or at least they had not yet been definitively proven to be bogus. They also provided wonderful material for movies. Séances figure in countless movies of this period and it was inevitable that sooner or later they would make an appearance in the Charlie Chan films.

The psychic stuff is nicely combined with an ideal setting. The Colby House is honeycombed with secret passageways, and it has other hidden secrets as well.

The mystery plot is solid enough, the solution has a few amusing and clever touches and Charlie’s plan to catch the criminal is suitably bold and ingenious. One unusual element is the uneasy relationship between Inspector Morton and Chan - Chan usually gets along well with the local police when he has to work with them. Also unusual is Charlie’s readiness to draw his gun, and to use it.

The ending works well. It’s a clichéd gathering of the suspects scene but it’s not just grandstanding. Charlie knows he not only doesn’t have enough evidence to get a conviction, he also doesn’t have enough evidence to use as leverage to get a confession. So his setting up of the killer is necessary. And it’s staged with considerable style.

Quite a few actors played Charlie Chan onscreen but the two great interpreters of the rôle were unquestionably Warner Oland and Sidney Toler. Whether you prefer Oland or Toler is really a matter of personal taste. They were both terrific. Oland had perhaps a touch more warmth while Toler added a slightly but interesting edge to his performances.

The supporting performances are quite adequate by B-movie standards with Henrietta Crosman as the elderly Mrs Lowell being the standout. Herbert Mundin as her butler Baxter provides the obligatory comic relief. He isn’t funny but at least he isn’t excessively annoying. That’s not to say he isn’t annoying, it’s just that the annoyance levels are within acceptable limits for a 1930s B-feature.

Gordon Wiles had a brief and fairly obscure career as a director. He does a fairly stylish job here. He was better known as a fairly acclaimed art director which may explain why this movie is visually very impressive (with some surprisingly effective and rather cool sets). This was unfortunately his only Chan film.

20th Century-Fox really did a splendid job with the DVD releases of the Charlie Chan movies. The transfers are excellent and they came up with some pretty interesting extras. Charlie Chan’s Secret is one of five movies in the third of the DVD sets.

The numerous extras for this disc include an audio commentary and a featurette, Charlie Chan and The Rise of the Modern Detective.

Charlie Chan’s Secret is a very good entry, in fact one of the very best, in the Chan cycle. It has a strong plot, some mildly spooky atmosphere and a great deal of energy. This one is very highly recommended for B-movie fans.

Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)

Charlie Chan in Panama is a 1940 entry in 20th Century-Fox’s prolific Charlie Chan B-movie series. It stars Sidney Toler as Chan.

This is a spy mystery rather than a straight murder mystery although of course there will be murder as well.

Charlie Chan is working undercover in Panama City (although why he should be involved in counter-espionage work is never explained). The city is full of spies and the US fleet is about to pass through the Canal. Those spies are certain to try to sabotage the fleet!

A US government agent is murdered just as he is about to give Charlie vital information. The agent had just flown in and the circumstances make it almost certain that the killer was a passenger on that sea-plane.

The passengers include stuffy Englishman Cliveden Compton (Lionel Atwill), a prim middle-aged schoolteacher who is terribly excited by the wickedness of Panama City, smooth-talking cabaret proprietor Manolo (Jack La Rue), a mysterious Egyptian, a pretty young Czech refugee named Kathi Lenesch (Jean Rogers), a rather nondescript clean-cut American guy and a stereotypically teutonic professor from Vienna.

Everyone in Panama City is in the grip of spy fever. And anyone expressing even the mildest interest in the comings and goings of the American fleet can find himself very quickly arrested as a spy - and this includes not just Charlie Chan but his exasperating offspring Jimmy Chan as well!

What the authorities do know is that a notorious German spy is at work in the city. He’s not actually identified as German (that would have been a bit naughty since the US wasn’t at war with Germany in 1940) but he has a very German name and the audience presumably would have had no doubts as to his nationality. The problem is that no-one knows what this spy looks like. Being a spy he is undoubtedly incredibly cunning and a master of disguise!

The only way Charlie can trap the spy is to set a trap for him, but he will have to use himself and all the other suspects as live bait.

The identity of the master spy seems obvious right from the start but to their credit screenwriters John Francis Larkin and Lester Ziffren do manage to spring a surprise on us in the last reel.

This movie is pure wartime propaganda. The fact that the United States wasn’t actually at war at the time didn’t diminish Hollywood’s war fever in the slightest. The propaganda gets a bit heavy-handed at times. On the other hand the spy paranoia does add some interest and some glamour to the story, and some danger - the enemy agents have plans involving not just bombs but bubonic plague.

Sidney Toler is in fine form. The support cast is pretty good, with Lionel Atwill being enigmatic and possibly sinister and Jean Rogers making a fairly effective European Woman of Mystery while being rather sweet and helpless as well. Victor Sen Young’s comic relief is bearable.

This is one of no less than seven movies in Fox’s Charlie Chan volume 5 boxed set. Charlie Chan in Panama gets an excellent transfer. Unlike some of the earlier Chan releases this one does not have very much at all in the way of extras - just a trailer and an image gallery. But when you’re getting seven movies in one set it’s a bit churlish to complain about the paucity of extras.

Charlie Chan in Panama is a solid enough entry in the Chan cycle, with a touch of exotic glamour (naturally all done in the studio or the backlot) and some excitement. Recommended.

Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)

Sidney Toler had settled very comfortably into the role of Charlie Chan by the time Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise appeared in 1940 (one of no less than four Chan movies released that year by 20th Century-Fox). And, as the title suggests, it really does involve murder on the high seas.

The action starts in Hawaii when Lieutenant Chan of the Honolulu Police Department gets a visit from an old friend, Inspector Duff of Scotland Yard. A world cruise organised by Dr Suderman (Lionel Atwill) has been marred by murder. In fact more than one of the wealthy participants in the cruise has been murdered, slain by a brutal strangler. Charlie is of course happy to offer his help but he takes a much more personal interest in the case when Inspector Duff becomes the strangler’s latest victim.

Charlie joins the cruise and it becomes a race against time. The cruise will end in San Francisco so Charlie will need to discover the identity of the killer before the ship reaches that port. He expected to be working alone but he soon finds he has a not entirely welcome assistant - Number Two Son Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) has stowed away on the cruise liner.

The shipboard setting serves the tried and tested purpose of confining suspicions to a small group of suspects. Among the cruise passengers there’s no shortage of rather suspicious characters.

Sidney Toler is in splendid form. Victor Sen Yung as usual provides the comic relief, and does so fairly competently and with causing under annoyance. In this movie he actually gets to do a few vaguely useful things as well.

The cast is impressive. Lionel Atwill overacts less than usual this time but he’s still as enjoyable as ever to watch. Leo G. Carroll manages to look potentially sinister as one of the cruise passengers, an archaeologist whose field of study is China. Robert Lowery is a young lawyer with a plausible motive while Marjorie Weaver as his intended bride Paula Drake has a strong motive as well. They make a good romantic couple who might perhaps dabble in murder. And then there’s Ross, played with verve by Don Beddoe, whose languid manner might well conceal murderous impulses.

This film was rather unusual in being based (according to the credits anyway) on an actual Charlie Chan story by Earl Derr Biggers, Charlie Chan Carries On, although I have no idea how faithful the adaptation is. The script is however pretty solid with the necessary plot twists being handled skillfully. 

Eugene Forde helmed a number of Chan movies as well as plenty of other similar mystery B-features so he knows what he’s doing and he gets on with the job with his usual competence.

Fox have provided an excellent transfer for this movie, although the disc is rather light on extras. There are no less than seven films in their Charlie Chan Collection Volume 5 boxed set making it a very desirable purchase for B-movie buffs. 

Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise ticks the right boxes for this type of B-movie - it has the charismatic great detective, just enough comic relief to add seasoning without overwhelming the dish, a pretty well-constructed plot and a fine supporting cast. A shipboard setting is always a bonus for a mystery film. Highly recommended.

Behind That Curtain (1929)

Behind That Curtain was I believe the first of the Fox Charlie Chan movies (although there had been a couple of earlier Chan movies from other companies). Released in 1929, this is also the earliest surviving Chan film.

Eve Mannering (Lois Moran) is an heiress pursued by two suitors. Colonel John Beetham (Warner Baxter) is a famous explorer and he’s the man Eve’s uncle hopes she will marry. Eve however prefers the handsome plausible cad Eric Durand (Philip Strange). Eve’s uncle has employed a private investigator in the hope that he will dig up something on Durand that will bring his niece to her senses. Eve however is totally besotted by Durand.

The private investigator is murdered. Eric Durand has an obvious motive for the murder but Colonel Beetham has a motive also. It looks like the murder is going to remain unsolved but Sir Frederick Bruce (Gilbert Emery) of Scotland Yard has a reputation for never giving up on a murder case. Sir Frederick has also been in contact with the famous Charlie Chan who has provided some very useful pointers.

Eve of course marries her handsome bounder and sets off for India with him. Predictably the marriage is not a success. As luck would have it Colonel Beetham is also in India.

Much of the action takes place in India and in the remote deserts of central Asia (the scene of Beetham’s latest expedition).

There was a witness with vital information about the murder but he has decided that blackmail would be more profitable than talking to Scotland Yard.

The identity of the murderer is actually revealed very early so the emphasis is on the suspense angle of the investigation rather than the mystery. This is of course a perfectly valid approach but in this instance it falls rather flat. The screenplay has its flaws but it’s the lifeless execution that is the real problem. And the dialogue! The dialogue is often excruciatingly bad.

The film is a very loose adaptation indeed of the novel by Earl Derr Biggers. In fact it bears only a tenuous resemblance to the book.

Very early talkies have a reputation for being very static due to various issues involved with the early sound technology. That reputation is often undeserved but this movie really does suffer in this area. The camera setups do tend at times to be rather static. Director Irving Cummings is also much too leisurely in his approach.

Warner Baxter is OK but there are problems with the rest of the cast. Lois Moran is terrible. She started her career in silent films and it’s obvious she has not yet adapted to sound films. Her performance is as a result overly melodramatic and just doesn’t ring true at all. Gilbert Emery is very dull as the indefatigable Scotland Yard man. Philip Strange has potentially the best role but does little with it. Look out for Boris Karloff in a bit part.

For Charlie Chan fans the biggest issue is going to be that Chan plays a very minor role in the film, not appearing until very late in the proceedings. Chan is played by E.L. Park who was the last actual Asian actor to play the role (although Warner Oland claimed to have some Mongolian ancestry). This was Park’s only film role. 

When Chan finally does appear he’s only in a couple of brief scenes. Obviously at this stage no-one at Fox realised that the character was capable of carrying an entire movie.

The Indian and central Asian scenes are done surprisingly well and look quite impressive. They even have proper Bactrian camels. These scenes are the highlight of the movie.

Behind That Curtain is included as an extra in the third of the Fox Charlie Chan boxed sets. While Fox spent a fortune restoring the other Chan movies (with generally excellent results) they don’t seem to have done as much on this film, or perhaps the surviving print was simply in much poorer shape. Both image and sound quality are quite acceptable.

Behind That Curtain is played more as romantic melodrama than mystery. There’s not really a great deal of actual detective work in this film. It certainly has historical interest and  if you’re a keen Charlie Chan fan you’ll want to see it for that reason. However it’s much too slow and the lack of an effective mystery plot is a fatal flaw. The fact that Charlie Chan is hardly in the movie at all is also a very definite drawback. On the other hand the boxed set is very much worth buying and since Fox has thrown in this film as an extra you’re not losing very much (except an hour-and-a-half out of your life) by giving it a spin. There’s definitely no way this one would be worth buying on its own.

The Black Camel (1931)

Made by the Fox Film Corporation in 1931 The Black Camel is apparently the earliest of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan movies to survive (although it’s not the earliest surviving Charlie Chan movie). It’s also interesting as being one of the few Charlie Chan films to be set in the famous detective’s home town, Honolulu, and one of the few in which we get to see Charlie’s entire family.

Movie star Shelah Fane (Dorothy Revier) is in Hawaii to shoot a picture. She’s also just about to marry the rich and handsome Alan Jaynes (William Post Jr). She hasn’t actually said yes to him yet - first she has to consult her psychic advisor Tarneverro (Bela Lugosi). There may be a reason why she can’t marry her young man.

Also on the island at this time is Shelah’s first husband Robert Fyfe (Victor Varconi). She’s arranged to meet him, for reasons unknown.

Shelah’s friend Julie (Sally Eilers) seems to have some idea as to the reason Shelah may not be able to marry Alan Jaynes). She knows that Shelah has a secret from the past.

Inspector Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police is already on the scene. He’s also interested in events in the past but soon he’s going to be distracted by events in the present when a murder takes place.

Apart from the characters already mentioned there are several other possible suspects including a down-and-out artist, a sinister butler, a mysterious maid and a couple of pompous movie people.

Yet another unusual feature of this movie is that it’s based on one of Earl Derr Biggers’ actual Charlie Chan novels (although I have no idea how much resemblance it has to the novel apart from the title). It’s a decent moderately complicated murder mystery plot with a few good twists.

I’m rather fond of mystery plots involving show business or the world of movies and this one has the nice combination of Hollywood glamour (and a little decadence) with the exotic location. 

This is of course the Honolulu of 1931, still a true unspoilt tropical paradise, a far cry from the Honolulu of today. And there’s actual location footage, actually shot in Hawaii. 

This was in fact a more expensive and more ambitious film than the later Chan films made after Fox became part of 20th Century-Fox. It’s also visually quite impressive overall, with the fortune-telling scene between Tarneverro and Shelah being very moody and very atmospheric.

Warner Oland had already played Charlie Chan in Charlie Chan Carries On (one of several Chan movies that are tragically now lost). While I’m quite fond of the Sidney Toler Chan films it has to be admitted that Oland is overall the best of the many actors to play the great Chinese detective. In general Toler’s slightly harder-edged performance is perhaps closer to the Chan of Earl Derr Biggers’ novels so it’s interesting that in this film Oland gives us a Chan who is spikier and more forceful and more cop-like compared to his performances in later movies in the series.

Of course there has to be some comic relief and it comes in the form of Charlie’s Japanese side-kick Kashimo (Otto Kamaoka), an insanely energetic and enthusiastic  if not overly competent Honolulu PD junior detective. The good news is that he’s actually funny. It’s a performance you could never get away with today, but then you could never get away with making the Charlie Chan movies today either.

The supporting cast is solid with Robert Young as Julie’s boyfriend Jimmy being marginally less hyperactive than usual.

Bela Lugosi is perfectly cast as the enigmatic psychic Tarneverro. It’s a fairly restrained performance by Lugosi but a very effective one.

20th Century-Fox spent a lot of money restoring the Chan films for their DVD boxed set releases and it was money well spent. The Black Camel looks pretty good. There are a number of extras including an audio commentary track with film critic Ken Hanke and film historian John Cork.

The Black Camel is fine B-movie entertainment with the added bonus of a slight hint (a very slight hint) of the supernatural. In fact it’s definitely one of the very best of the Chan movies. And you get Bela Lugosi as well. Very highly recommended.