The Red Dragon (1945)

Charlie arrives in Mexico City to solve murders and recover the missing papers that contain the formula for a super atomic bomb

Good grief,this movie is not on YouTube.Am I getting a day off to watch Yankees vs Red Sox. No,not so lucky for I found it sitting at The DailyMotion website along with commercials every 10 minutes.

Walter Dorn, played by Donald D. Taylor asks the Mexico City police commissioner to summon Charlie to help protect the super atom bomb formula. A tree stump is not as wooden as Donald's acting ability and thankfully he's bumped off minutes later. Charlie arrives and confers with scientists about the formula. This super A Bomb can destroy a country because,besides Plutonium and Neptunium there is a new element added.Charlie check Uranus.
The murder victims die by gunshot, 2 bullets but only 1 gunshot and no gun to be found. Sounds interesting but the resolution isn't. The film is very talky,no real detective skills exhibited and only brief action at the end
Mantan Moreland gets credit for avoiding this turkey. He was temporarily replaced by his cousin Chatanooga Brown who is played by Willie Best. I remember Willie chiefly from the My Little Margie show
The one piece of interest is at a nightclub scene where Charlie gets on the dance floor and does The Rhumba

Every girl crazy 'bout a Sharp Dressed Chan
3 out 10 stars.

Shadows Over Chinatown (1946)

Charlie Chan, Number Two Son, Jimmy, and assistant Birmingham Brown are all on a bus heading south to San Francisco to investigate a murder case involving an unidentified armless, legless, headless torso. Chan learns that an elderly woman, Mrs. Conover, is traveling to San Francisco to search for her missing granddaughter, Mary. He tells the concerned woman that he will do what he can to help her find her missing loved one.

Everybody is on the bus.Jack Hamilton or rather Perry White of The Adventures of Superman is on the bus.A pickpocket who just keeps mysteriously appearing throughout the movie is there too. A private detective who's tied into everything is on the bus. An AWOL marine who's had relations with the missing granddaughter is on the bus. The only one not on the bus is the real bus driver who'd been ambushed before the movie started. I think the bus is from the Trans Coincidence Bus Lines.Some of the coincidences spill over at a restaurant when Charlie's waitress is the missing granddaughter he's been searching.When you're on a roll.....

Great to see #2 son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) back in his 1st appearance in a Monogram Chan.I enjoy his portrayal as an assistant much more than Benson Fong.Of course they still have to throw in a Mantan I-Is-Scared scene in every movie, this time in a Chinese curio shoppe.Pathetic stuff

Charlie gets shots in the chest early in the movie. However the bullet gets imbeded in his pocket watch causing no serious harm.If you can believe all those people on the same bus you can believe that too. In fact,I don't recall if the mysterious shooter was even identified. Charlie's slipping.But maybe not.In the end,Charlie bravely confronts a man armed with a pistol. Charlie is very confident with his lucky watch. Fortunately there were no bullets left (Charlie did not know that) but Charlie was able to physically take down the younger killer anyway.Those Rhumba lessons Charlie took in the previous film do come in handy

Lots of coincidences and lucky breaks,the good son returns and Mantan continues chewing up his scenes.Charlie even visits an escourt agency.Heh Heh.If you got an hour to kill on a rainy afternoon




Charlie is shot and Perry can only watch

Dangerous Money (1946)

Aboard a passenger ship in the South Seas, undercover agent Scott Pearson tells Charlie Chan that he is being sent to Samoa to investigate the sudden appearance of money and artworks stolen from Philippine banks during the Japanese invasion. Later, while the passengers gather in the salon for a ceremony to celebrate the crossing of the equator, Pearson is stabbed in the back and killed. Chan, along with Number Two Son, Jimmy, and assistant Chattanooga Brown, works to find the killer who lurks among the passengers.

Willie Best subs for Mantan Moreland for the final time. Makes no difference since their characterization is interchangable.2/3 of the movie takes place on a cruise ship set, the balance on a Hollywood studio tropical island set.Lots of knife throwing from mystery hands. I wish I kept track of the number of thrown knives or bullets fired by hands behind curtains throught the series.
Of interest:Character actor Dick Elliot, a small rotund man seen in many films is a loud-mouthed sleazy salesman here. Also Charlie puts his dancing shoes on again for a waltz. And a surprising reveal (not really) when one of the characters turns out to be a cross-dresser.
The subplot about the sleazy salesman is irrelevant. The main plot is a bit of a snooze. Like the last few films these entries are mostly lackluster with a small sprinkle of interesting tidbits
I've read where Sidney Toler was in pain during this and the previous films shooting due to his spreading cancerous condition. A few scenes where his movements looked a bit unsteady but otherwise I couldn't tell.
Sidney will only make one more Chan film

About to embark on the Roland Winters phase of the Charlie Chan series. Here is Roland's background and other interesting factoids provided by the wonderful Charlie Chan Family Home Website


Roland Winters was born Roland Winternitz in Boston, Massachusetts on November 22, 1904. He was in his middle teens when he worked on a cargo ship that sailed to Central America and later to the West Indies during the summer. It was at about this time that Winters began his career on the stage, working in theater groups around Boston. In 1924, at the age of twenty, he was acting in Broadway productions, beginning with Firebrand, which was produced by a friend of his brother. During this period, Winters also played bit parts in a couple of silent films.

In 1931, Winters got the job of announcing Braves and Red Sox games on radio station WNAC. He continued to work in radio until 1947, when he was cast in the role of Van Duyval in the Twentieth Century-Fox production of 13 Rue Madeleine which starred James Cagney.

James S. Burkett, who, with Philip N. Krasne, had purchased the screen rights to Charlie Chan from Sidney Toler in 1943, had Winters test for the role, following the death of Toler. Immediately after Winters' trial scene, Burkett informed him that the part was his.

At the age of 43, Roland Winters, more than thirty years younger than the late Sidney Toler, and virtually the same age as Keye Luke who would again appear as Chan's Number One Son, Lee, opposite Winters in both The Feathered Serpent (1948) and The Sky Dragon (1949). Viewers sometimes comment on Winters' seemingly lethargic portrayal of Charlie Chan. A possible answer is that his seeming lack of energy, plus the addition of touches of gray to his dyed black hair, were meant to give the impression of an older, more Toler-like Chan.

The six films in which Roland Winters portrayed Charlie Chan, along with the rest of the Monogram Chan series that had preceded them, still pale when compared to the much higher-budgeted films from Twentieth Century-Fox. However, they are often an improvement over a number of the final films that Sidney Toler had made. Mantan Moreland continued in his role of Birmingham Brown, and Sen Yung (Victor Sen Young) remained in the series as Charlie Chan's Number Two Son, except that he was now referred to as "Tommy" rather than "Jimmy."

Although the Charlie Chan series came to an end with The Sky Dragon, Monogram Pictures had planned to shoot several more Charlie Chan films in Europe that were to feature Winters and Keye Luke without Mantan Moreland. The first film was to have the working title Charlie Chan in London. Because of a requirement of the British government, Monogram had placed funds for this project and other planned Charlie Chan films within banks in that country. However, without warning, the British Finance Minister devalued the English Pound. With their funds suddenly slashed in value, Monogram was forced to cancel the series. Roland Winters and Keye Luke were given the news as they were preparing to leave for England.1

With this, an era, framed by the Charlie Chan film series, had come to an end. However, his legend would live on with the detective eventually returning in a new series of adventures and through a new entertainment medium.

1 Charles P. Mitchell, A Guide to Charlie Chan Films.

Docks Of New Orleans (1948)


Simon Lafontanne, head of a chemical company, goes to consult Charlie Chan who is staying in
New Orleans along with his number two son, Tommy, and his chauffeur and assistant, Birmingham Brown. Lafontanne suspects that he has an enemy who is having him followed everywhere he goes. Chan agrees to investigate further just before Lafontanne is nearly kidnapped in front of the detective's residence. The next morning, a pair of Lafontanne's business partners pressure him to sign a clause that has been added to their business agreement whereby, in the event of the death of any of the principals, his share of the profits will go to the remaining partners. A short time later, Lafontanne is found dead in his office, apparently of a heart attack, but Charlie Chan believes otherwise.

There are 2 quick scenes of a dock. Its the same fake dock as the previous movie set in San Francisco. This is Monogram folks. And there is nothing with a New Orleans flavor. Not even a plate of gumbo.

Charlie finds a cigarette butt in a car that an unknown suspect had occupied.Charlie tastes the ashes.Remarks that the man who smoked it came from South America because the tobacco is mixed with the bark of the coquina plant.
Later at a party,Charlie asks a man for a cigarette and remarks how wonderful the coquina plant adds to the taste. Charlie is happily puffing away for the next few minutes. Is this the cinematic introduction to crack?

Gone is the white suit that Sidney Toler constantly wore. Instead its a light grey one.Gone is the Chan voice with annoyed undertone. Instead we have a William Shatner type voice with these...odd..halting...inflections that...will be Roland....Winters' trademark

Happily they have pulled in the Mantan shenanigans and he's reasonably humorous. His nightclub partner Ben Carter had passed away and a fellow named Haywood Jones does the Interrupting Conversation routine with Mantan.Later its Mantan on piano and son Tommy on violin for The Chop Suey Boogie

Finally,this movie hinges on folks getting killed by a gas filled vacuum tube hidden in radios.At a certain high pitch,the tube shatters and your dead. Its death by Ella Fitzgerald

4 out of 10 stars and I might be too generous. And the countdown is now 4

The Golden Eye (1948)

An Arizona mine owner named Manning seeks help from Charlie Chan because he believes that someone is out to kill him. Chan agrees to help.Posing as a dealer in oriental curios, Chan travels to the Manning home where he finds that Manning has been gravely injured in a mysterious accident in his mine. Very suspicious of the situation, Chan, along with his number two son Tommy and assistant Birmingham Brown proceed with what proves to be a very dangerous investigation.

A new low for the Chan series.Nothing of much interest is going on here. Here's the best I can come up with:
The Chan team head to a dude ranch in Arizona. Son Tommy wears a silly looking cowboy outfit
The laughs abound when Tommy and Mantan pack a suitcase
Lt Mike Ruark pretends he's drunk half the movie. That gets tiring
The other half of the movie are scenes in a mine shaft. Also tiring
I would have fell into a coma if Lt Ruark pretended he was drunk in a mine shaft
Briefly a woman wrestles a nun. They needed to expand this scene
And the topper:Everyone not a regular cast member (with one exception) is dead or guilty
Rating-2 out of 10. The movie made Roland Winters sleepy too

Thats the end of Charlie Chan movies available on DVD. 2 more to go