Charlie Chan, No. 19 - Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1938)

Friends, bloggers, countrymen, lend me your hits;
I come to bury Warner Oland, not to praise him;
The franchises that men do live after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Oland … The noble Keye Luke
Hath told you Oland was ambitious:
If it were so, he was also tremendously racist,
And grievously did Oland portray Charlie Chan …
Here, under leave of director Eugene Ford and the rest,
(For Ford is a hack filmmaker;
So are they all; all egregious hacks)
Come I to speak of Oland’s final film …
It was boring, tedious and bland to me:
But IMDb … well, they pretty much agree with me there.

Actually, I’m serious about Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo being boring, for why else would I fruitlessly start off this assessment with a totally left field Shakespeare pastiche (I think there was something weird in the pizza I just ate)? For indeed, this is Warner Oland’s final performance as Charlie Chan, though he did not know it at the time, nor does anything directly in the film indicate it. Of course, much as with Charlie Chan on Broadway, Oland is barely in this movie – this is as much due to his rapidly failing health (from years of drinking and smoking) as it is to do with his general assholism (from years of drinking and smoking). At least unlike Charlie Chan on Broadway, they’ve managed to spread their scant Chanism throughout the picture, rather than in limited juicy lumps…Of course therein lays that boredom.

(This was also Keye Luke’s final Chan-isode – apart from something I won’t discuss until next time. Of course he’d continue to have an average to really average Hollywood career afterwards, peaking when he played Kato in a Green Hornet serial – any man who plays the same role as Bruce Lee deserves our respect.)

Anyway, let us move on to Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo. And here we are at Monte Carlo, at the one thing everyone knows about Monte Carlo –their casino. Such it is, after Broadway offered up not a single Broadway element. Of course, the casino will only figure into the first 15 minutes or so, ‘cause the filmmakers surely cannot let it interfere with their Mad Libs formula storyline. Well, at least we get a little casino, which is alright considering the lame attention given to race tracks, the Olympics and Paris in the past.

A French croupier welcomes M. et Mme. Unspellable, who turn out to be Charlie Chan and “Number One Son” Lee (Warner Oland and Keye Luke, in case you’d missed out on this at some point). They are greeted by the Monacan Police Inspector, who I am assured by the IMDb is without a proper name – people keep calling his Joibert or Flaubert or Robert or something, but damned if I can understand French and its complete lack of clear consonants. Anyway, he is played by Harold Huber, who played a similar, non-Frog inspector in Broadway – and has another similar role in the later Chansterpiece City in Darkness.

“Inspector” takes the renowned Chan under his aile, showing him the Chemin de Fer table, where Sean Connery is introduced as James Bond playing a hand of – Wait a cotton pickin’ minute! I mean, where generic “Chan Brand” mustachioed businessman Paul Savarin (Edward Raquello) plays Chemin against generic “Chan Brand” non-mustachioed businessman Victor Karnoff (Sidney Blackmer) – considering my mustache before, I am freakishly pleased to see at least one man sans mustache! However, I do rather hate how quickly they sometimes glom all the suspects down our collective throats and expect us to care. I am far beyond caring about such trivial matters such as exposition in Charlie Chan films now. Oh, and there’s also a blonde beauty alongside Savarin, an Evelyn Gray (Virginia Field, by process of IMDb elimination).

As always, there are also the lovebirds, busy over at the roulette table: Victor’s sister, Joan Karnoff (Kay Linaker) and Gordon Chase (Robert Kent). Man, another Joan! These scriptwriters happen upon names they love, and they stick with ‘em, just like they did with “Paul” earlier...and later too, as it turns out. And while I continue to use the term “lovebirds,” it has now officially ceased to mean what it originally did. See, once the Charlie Chan films felt the need to graft disenchanting romances onto their murder mysteries, for the “emotion.” These roles were always played by a rotating but similar set of blandly attractive young Hollywood actors. The romance stuff is mostly gone now, thank each and every deity in all of Hinduism, though a paired duo of attractive (and therefore boring) people still appears in each entry.

…Except I was wrong! Gordon actually has eyes for Savarin’s Evelyn, not Joan. This is odd, and a clear-cut distinction from earlier entries such as Behind That Curtain, since Evelyn doesn’t look the ingénue part quite as well as Joan does. For instance, here are Gordon and Joan together – Don’t they look like your standard Hollywood romantic couple, but with attractiveness and acting skill lowered down to B-movie level?


This screen shot was taken around 5 minutes into the film, by the way. For this entry, I randomly decided to take similar screen shots at 10 minute intervals, to give you a good idea of this film’s visual fabric. Go ahead and scan ahead now! Yeah, they’re pretty much the exact same composition and camera setup. Now imagine this for a straight 72 minutes, once a day for about two weeks. You can see why I’m getting sick of this damned franchise!

Rounding out our cast rather belatedly (on my part), there is also bartender Al (George Lynn), who has some sort of sinister conspiracy going on with Joan. Because of the way these mystery movies are constructed, neither this nor any other question is gonna get answered until the final three minutes (and we’ll never have a chance to outguess the movie either), so I pretty much stop caring about this stuff ahead of schedule.

Now, just why the hell are the Chans in Monte Carlo? I mean, there’s no mystery going on yet! Well, it turns out Lee is now a world-renowned artist (and amateur sleuth, martial artist, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, and costume designer, as per series-wide continuity). He has a gallery show someplace else in France. To that effect, he and father Charlie are all set to leave Monte Carlo ten minutes into its titular entry. Cue vast tons of Komedy, as their chauffeur struggles to drive them in a rancid old coupe.

More time than usual has to be devoted to the bland, uninteresting suspects (as in Broadway), due to Oland’s uncooperative imminent death. We learn much of our exposition here, all concerning the “motive.” Victor has a shipment of metallurgic bearer bonds leaving Monaco this evening and…all the named characters have some interest in this million-franc haul (even bartender Al). Damnit! Here I was, thinking we’d have something exciting like a casino heist! I want casino heists! (Better’d watch an Ocean’s Eleven movie, eh?)


Anyway, the Chans’ chauffeur’s coupe’s wheel’s busted itself out on the side of the highway. One thing I rather strangely enjoy about badmouthing these old disposable movies is when I discover specific forms of badness you’d never think you’d see in a movie. In the case of Monte Carlo, an English language movie, there are in total about 25 minutes’ worth of pure French – whole conversations in French, even the same conversations repeated in French, then reiterated again in English right afterwards. It’s an easy way to turn a one minute scene into a three or four minute scene. Considering how often the word “minute” appears in this review, I’d suspect my boredom was rather severe.

So Lee has one of these French “routines” with their chauffeur, for the alleged “humor” of it all. Then the chauffeur leaves, and the Chans, father and son, proceed to go right ahead and stumble over a body. Again, how many corpses must Charlie Chan happen upon in an average year?! I mean, I’ve only knowingly stumbled upon one fresh human corpse in my entire life (actually, just a skull). This is just ridiculous! Ah, but we’ve got our murder – of some person I haven’t seen before.

The cops come along, prompting Lee to go into another multi-minute “joke” scene concerning his attempts to speak French. You know, making a joke longer doesn’t automatically make it funnier (this goes for you too, “Family Guy”). Oh well, the cops haul Lee and Chan in to prison, under suspicion of murder. Quoth Chan: “Fortunately, assassination of French language not serious crime.” It still is a crime in France, surely, because it’s the only language I know of that’s regulated by a government body. I’m serious!

In comes “Inspector,” sproikening ze French mit ze other Frogs. They enjoy another endless translation gag with Lee. DAMNIT! Is the mere fact of a foreign language so funny to these filmmakers?!...Okay, we know the Chan people are racist (Charlie Chan in Egypt, the series as a whole), so I guess foreign languages are inherently funny to them. Yeesh!


Enough of the Chan films somehow finding a new way to offend me. Here are the facts in this case: Victor’s employee, a poor bastard named Renault, is the dead man. One million ₣ in bonds done been stolened. The chauffeur is missing. That’s…it, actually. Ah, but it’s easy enough to stretch this info out into five or so minutes: French! My God, man, that language is becoming a serious crutch for the movie! It’s almost avant garde (ala Mystery Train), except I think here it’s merely an example of laziness. Didn’t subtitles exist yet in 1938?!

Here is the point where Chan interviews all the suspects, and there is never anything truly original or new in this particular use of the formula. This is merely a checklist all Chan pictures must go through. Motives? Check. Alibis? Check. Clues? Check…sometimes. Oodles of nonessential details meant to distract us morons? Check. Oland? Swedish.

Relatively early for a Charlie Chan movie, the semi-regular Second Murder happens…in a way. The chauffeur’s body is found dead in the marsh, which…In ‘30s terms, this is what a body count picture looks like. There is also a receipt concerning the contents of the bonds, but it is too convenient a clue for a murder mystery, so the killer promptly burns it in everyone’s presence while no one is looking (I, for one, was staring at the Internet).


When a Chan picture is playing faithfully to formula, I have nothing to say about it, so I’ll pass over minutes of this movie in relative silence. Then, eventually, we have Chan at a restaurant attempting to order a waffle from the waiter. Ugh! This is gonna be another jokey bit about the French language, ain’t it? God! And at this point, I have nothing to say about this either.

Meanwhile, at another table, lovebird Gordon meets with Savarin’s paramour, Evelyn. Gordon confesses his love for Evelyn and – See? The lovebirds aren’t quite in this one! So be it, this was once my least favorite formula element, so I’m pleased it’s largely gone bye-bye by the by-and-by.


Evelyn has a meeting with Savarin, whilst Lee listens in at the door. They have a lengthy, boring conversation about the stock market – Is there any other kind of stock market conversation? This chat…goes…on…and…on… [Zzzz…] Lee has a “comic” routine with a butler – the French language is invoked. I never thought I’d learn to hate a language (other than German), but damn me if Charlie Chan couldn’t somehow get me to turn on the Frogs! And concerning that conversation of Evelyn’s, I don’t even remember its content. It could well possess the chief clue, but I’m no longer trying to play along with these things. I merely try to will them to move along faster, and bide my time until they end…Then write several thousand words about them.

Another unendurable scene plays out, yet the sixth operating under the assumption that watching French people speak French to each other is the height of hilarity. At least it ends with a mob of peasants chasing Lee away Frankenstein style. At least these minor little non sequiturs continue to entertain me.

Chan and “Inspector” go into bartender Al’s apartment for dialogue-based reasons I never once tried to work out. Here they discover Al’s murdered corpse killed to death by a fatal gunshot. Huh, a third death? That’s something of a Chan rarity! “Inspector” instantly deduces that it was a suicide, that Al was the bearer bond burglar who – just – couldn’t – take – it – anymore (his guilt, that is, not this movie). Chan instantly rules out suicide, using his usual Channishness. How do these non-Chan police detectives function worldwide without Chan’s aid? No murders would ever get solved!


Everyone still alive gathers together in “Inspector’s” office, about ten minutes ahead of schedule, for the exact same murder mystery dénouement scene as we got in the last one. This is the only part of these movies where anything really happens, apart from Lee’s unrelated shenanigans. First off, Joan (former “lovebird” candidate) reveals she was marred to L. Rogers – Who?!...Oh, Al Rogers, the bartender. Okay then, a last name would’ve helped earlier. So that explains their little conspirin’. There is some lengthy talk about Al’s potential guilt, but it all boils down to something we already know – Al done did died dead.

Blah blah blah, further accusations are lobbied about like so many…lobbied things. The lengthy, lengthy dialogue that takes place is just rather nonsensical. I cannot even make total sense of my notes for this section, so I’ll just reproduce a part of them in whole:

“Gordon gives key to it [the bearer bond satchel] – find ‘um bonds, Chan explains 200,000 of 1,000,000 francs still missing. Sez [sic] are in Victor’s own safe, planted there by murderer, who also planted bag. Gets receipt from Victor, never actually burned – or is it burnt. Talk of access to key, I – could – care – less, and Gordon…is…murderer.”

Okay that last part’s important – Gordon is the murderer. Oh well, the male “lovebird” was the killer last time too. Eh, I guess it’s so much of a non-twist it’s a twist. And the motive is…ah, I couldn’t give a shit! Whatever, there are still four minutes left! Egads!

So Gordon goes and does something stupid, that dumb dummy, revealing murderer-only knowledge – explaining how he brutally murdered three random men all to buy nice things for Evelyn…That’s a pretty inane motive. Then, totally out of left field, Gordon up and leaps out of the nearest window, Airplane! style. He instantly gets his fool ass run over by a car. What an asshole!



Ha ha ha HA HA HA! I laughed for minutes at this! It is easily the funniest thing ever in a Charlie Chan picture – and it’s totally unintentional. You know how freaking funny that horrible bus death was in the first Final Destination? This is the same thing, ‘30s-style. And…it doesn’t really work 1/10th as well in screen caps.

And then, wrapping everything up, “Inspector” banishes Evelyn and Savarin from Monte Carlo, because to hell with them! The end.

This was, as noted, Warner Oland’s final performance – and just when Charlie Chan was attaining brand new worldwide popularity. In the scant time between Broadway and Monte Carlo, two entire foreign entries were made starring a “Charlie Chan” character. Neither of them are of the Fox series, and thus they will not be considered here (they’re lost anyway). For what it’s worth, one of them was a Spanish production, La Serpiente Roja, with Aníbel de Mar as Chan. Another, The Disappearing Corpse, was Chinese, with “?” both starring and directing. I here assume that, for the first time ever, a Chinaman plays the Chinaman!...And later the Chinese made two more Chan movies, again starring the enigmatic “?”

But all that is trivia. The Fox series itself would continue. It was all primed to continue anyway, for no one knew Orland wasn’t immortal. But this is where the man dies, in a story that is far too interesting to be relegated to the ass end of a Chan review. As such, it, and the fate of the franchise, will have to wait a week, while I go ahead and enjoy a moment of temporary sanity –


Related posts:
• No. 3 Behind That Curtain (1929)
• No. 4 Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
• No. 5 The Black Camel (1931)
• No. 9 Charlie Chan in London (1934)
• No. 10 Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
• No. 11 Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
• No. 12 Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
• No. 13 Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
• No. 14 Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
• No. 15 Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
• No. 16 Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
• No. 17 Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
• No. 18 Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
• No. 20 Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
• No. 21 Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
• No. 22 Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
• No. 23 City in Darkness (1939)
• No. 24 Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
• No. 25 Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
• No. 26 Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
• No. 27 Murder Over New York (1940)
• No. 28 Dead Men tell (1941)
• No. 29 Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
• No. 30 Castle in the Desert (1942)
• No. 31 Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
• No. 32 The Chinese Cat (1944)
• No. 33 Meeting at Midnight (1944)
• No. 34 The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
• No. 35 The Red Dragon (1945)
• No. 36 The Scarlet Clue (1945)
• No. 37 The Jade Mask (1945)
• No. 38 Dark Alibi (1946)
• No. 40 Dangerous Money (1946)
• No. 41 The Trap (1946)
• No. 42 The Chinese Ring (1947)