Charlie Chan at Treasure Island?! I’m only four days removed from Muppet Treasure Island, and already I’m returning to that fictional setting – a setting which is totally inappropriate for the relatively grounded Chan series? Actually, no. The “Treasure Island” in question here is in fact San Francisco’s Treasure Island, dredged up from sludge in time for the 1939 World’s Fair...eh, not the one in Queens that the Men in Black later blew up, but a parallel West Coast World’s Fair. This island later served as the home for the Navy, countless hippies (San Francisco, remember), and that bullet time thing from The Matrix. One bus now serves this place, and it has sea lions.
As by my highly irregular habit of acknowledging the director of Charlie Chan movies, the opening credits inform me this one was done by Norman Foster, the architect best known for designing London’s Gherkin in 2004…I think that may be a different Norman Foster. In actuality, Chan’s Norman Foster was really just another vision-free non-auteur. You can see why I don’t often mention these guys.
Ah, but Charlie Chan at Treasure Island is an incredibly good Charlie Chan picture, with a visual language that is far more exciting than the talking heads we often get. Methinks they were finally getting used to the idea of sound filmmaking. Of course, this was 1939, the legendary Greatest Year in Cinema Ever, So There. It was the year of The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Hell, the Wikipedia article on film in 1939 doesn’t even mention Charlie Chan! Suffice it to say, 1939’s Chan was still drinking from America’s delicious pre-fluoridation water, and is still an exemplary example of film – for its franchise. (Though it’s certainly Sidney Toler’s best Chan film, it falls just shy of the high watermark of Charlie Chan at the Opera, which has the unfair advantage of starring Boris Karloff. Second out of 22 ain’t too bad, though.)
They get our attention right away, with a ‘30s plane rushing through a ‘30s thunderstorm. Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) is aboard, well convinced of his imminent doom, despite the calming words from father Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler, but of course). Nor of any help to Jimmy is a statistician named Thomas Gregory (Douglass Dumbrille) or a mystery novel author, Paul Essex (Louis Jean Heydt). But no matter, soon enough (two hours’ flight time) the plane is out of the storm, and everyone onboard has calmed down significantly. Paul has calmed down a little too much, though. He’s dead.
This looks like a job for Charlie Chan! With the plane landing at Treasure Island (for the Fair), Chan inspects Paul to find nothing immediately the matter with him. His just-completed mystery manuscript, “The Secret of the Pygmy Arrow,” is missing, and all that’s left on Paul’s person is a radiogram, with vague, cryptic hints about astrology, Scorpio and Zodiac. Soon enough it is determined that Paul actually committed suicide (with poison), all due to fear of a San Francisco-based killer, known for his letter-writing, self-named Zodiac…I…wait…Uh oh!
I’ll get this out there now – This is the movie that inspired the real life Zodiac Killer! I’m totally serious, the prime suspect was freakishly obsessed with this flick, Star Wars having not yet been made. So, rather indirectly, this fun but disposable Charlie Chan flick is responsible for a recent David Fincher movie…as well as the Clint Eastwood franchise I intend to visit next…and an indeterminate number of real life murders. Whoa!
The basic focus of this movie, divorced from bizarre future events, is the paranormal, the astrological, the proto-Criswell. What this movie isn’t, though, is a by-the-numbers murder mystery in the way the preceding Charlie Chan in Reno was – they need to occasionally break up the mysterizin’ with genre experiments such as this. It seems now a general rule that Charlie Chan does best when exploring the horror genre – Charlie Chan in Egypt being the horrible counterexample that proves the rule.
Given Treasure Island’s disinterest in procedurals, the next characters we meet are decidedly not suspects, nor even all that important in this tale. They are Paul’s freshly-minted widow Stella, and her Uncle Redley, characters of such unimportance I won’t even bother with their actor parentheticals. Then there’s the sudden presence of the SFPD, also not suspects (the cops never are in these flicks) – chief here is the Chief, one J.J. Kilvaine (Donald MacBride, he of a surprisingly decent movie resume), yet another of Chan’s seemingly innumerable buddies in law enforcement all throughout the world…Considering Chan visits San Francisco nearly as much as Hawaii, we’ll see if Kilvaine, unlike any other police officer, actually returns next time Chan is in town…I wholly doubt that he will.
Ostensibly, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island is one of those entries where Chan is up against a specific, known threat – in this case, Zodiac. That drives the plot more than usual here, and actually seems more organic than the usual formula formalism. To assist Chan in his pursuit of the wicked, wicked Zodiac is his chief rival in the realm of supernatural hucksterism, The Great Rhadini! This guy, head of the Temple of Magic over at Treasure Island, is a legitimate magician, a pure illusionist who is wildly opposed to charlatans like Zodiac with a claim to be genuinely otherworldly. And Rhadini is our great guest star for this entry – Cesar Romero. If you don’t recognize the name, you’ll recognize the next picture; even if you don’t, it’s entertaining.
Zodiac, for his part, runs a psychic ring nationwide, and is believed to be responsible for a rash of suicides, of which Paul is only the latest. Chan and Rhadini opt to pay Zodiac a visit at his ostentatious faux-Egyptian manor, accompanied by Chronicle reporter Pete Lewis (Douglas Fowley). Pete is our latest lovebird, in a purer sense than I’ve seen in several entries, with all the boredom and disinterest that implies. Interestingly, though, his female counterpart, Eve Cairo, shall prove to be far more interesting…when we get to her.
For now, though, the trio is at Zodiac’s, greeted by a be-fezzed Turkish manservant Abdul (Trevor Bardette). They pass through an interior filled with occult whatnots and bugaboo bric-a-brac. In absolute movie terms it’s not much visually, but when you watch enough films done more in the style of a stage play than a moving picture, such imagery seems instantly striking.
Passing further into a satin-lined fortunetelling chamber, our trio awaits Zodiac’s vaunted entrance. And in comes Zodiac now, with his full on turban, beard, and alarmingly rubbery face. Considering I haven’t bothered to list an actor for Zodiac at all, that should say something.
Dr. Zoidberg – sorry, Dr. Zodiac – it’s an easy mistake for me. Anyway, Dr. Zodiac hears Chan’s queries, serving as a large-sized medium for the afterworld. Paul appears, in the form of a floating female head in a crystal ball, perfectly predicting the centerpiece of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Ah hah!, this movie inspired both the Zodiac Killer and Walt Disney – if they were indeed different people…Oh of course they were.
Wait, what!? Sorry, I’m getting distracted (I’m also watching episodes of “Star Trek” right now, which ain’t helping). Anyway, “Paul,” in the form of Zodiac’s various trickeries, offers up no worthwhile news – as though we thought he might. And the Chan pictures never outright embrace the supernatural, for as much as mystery luminaries such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have been over-enamored of it! Ultimately the trio is tossed out, largely due to Rhadini’s own pissy magician outbursts. Chan vows to “destroy false prophet,” not so much because Zodiac is influencing mass suicides, but because he’s an asshole.
Rhadini invites Chan to a party that night on Treasure Island, at the so-called Hawaiian Village. Treasure Island is really just Crazy World, a chance for loco visuals in place of 72 minutes of people standing around a hotel room. Here is Rhadini’s comic relief butler Elmer (Wally Vernon), the latest in a long Chan line, who are never useful for the mystery, and hardly useful for the comedy. He’s not a suspect, for as little as there are suspects in this. There is also Myra (June Gale), Rhadini’s wife, who is similarly a non-suspect. Gregory, that fellow from the airplane, is also here, entirely to be a red herring. There are further secrets to this guy, but they don’t matter, so I shall say no more of him. It’s so liberating not to have to double-guess half a dozen ulterior motives all movie through!
This is also where we first meet Eve Cairo (Pauline Moore, also from Charlie Chan at the Olympics), Pete’s would-be love interest and audience disinterest. As she is, though, Eve is a professional psychic, apparently under some sort of Zodiac sway, but also simultaneously under Rhadini’s employ – and all this prevents her from pursuing an unpleasant relationship with Pete. Hmm, methinks Rhadini and Zillow – er, Zodiac have a tighter connection than their surface “wizard’s duel” would indicate.
Eve has the ESP, and performs her mindreading skills right there on stage for everyone. Chan suspects some sort of code system between her and Rhadini, so he tests it out with sneaky Chinese wile – the Chinese language. Nonetheless, Eve proves genuine, successfully reading Chan’s braining even when Rhadini is at a loss. Having been proved real, Eve then goes all Deep Red (or Italian giallo in general), shrieking about a killer’s mind there in the audience, ready for murder. An instant later, and Chan has dodged a knife.
Here’s something else I have to get off my chest – This Charlie Chan movie buys into ESP! Now, Chan films have never paid any real lip service to the supernatural, and are generally opposed to the pseudo-sciences, yet here they are, using Chan’s own words to place extrasensory perception well within the confines of mother science. It even plays a crucial role in unmasking the real Zodiac late in the film! Still, this remains a hugely skeptical branch of science, and apart from a Fox B-movie series trying to predict unsuccessfully the pattern of future scientific development, there’s little to its presence here. Still, the use of Eve, and ESP, is entertaining, so I’ll let the franchise’s usually rigorous “real world” setting wiggle just a little for it.
Enough is enough! Chan is just flat out going to burgle Zodiac now, because to hell with doing this the nice way. This is the engaging thing about Toler’s performances: he’s a Chan of action, seeming ever more the detective than Oland’s superhumanly humbled Magical Chink ever could be. Once again Pete and Rhadini are with him. Jimmy also shows up, in disguise with a pair of Groucho glasses – which weren’t convincing even in the day when it conceivably could be Groucho Marx robbing your house! In they go to the psychic parlor, looking for “clues” in that same vague sense that Fred and Velma do. In similar “Scooby Doo” fashion, Zodiac’s gaggle of ghastly ghosties and ghoulies goads them on…and Chan shows them all up for the unconvincing 1930s special effects we know them to be.
Zodiac’s whole rubber face mask appearance simply turns out to be…a mask – again, I think special effects dissonance makes this more obvious now than it was in 1939. There’s also a secret passage (neato!) to a back office, where they find Paul’s missing manuscript. Actually, Jimmy planted that there, mostly because Jimmy’s a moron. Ah hah!, but there’s also a further secret passage (the inner sanctum’s inner sanctum), which reveals Zodiac’s true game: he’s using information gleaned by his psychics to blackmail the wealthy and puppet-like of America – it’s a psychic phishing scam! Chan, in pure Toler mode, burns Zodiac’s accumulated dirt.
At home, Chan reads Paul’s novel, which basically explains Zodiac’s exact same scheme in metaphor – it’s like “Star Trek” on social issues…I knew watching this while writing would be distracting! So where are we in this film anyway? Well, they still need to find Zodiac (surely not an easy thing, if you ask the SFPD), and to do so, they devise a scheme I don’t think Dave Toschi ever tried…Rhadini, the Great and Magnificent and Jokery, challenges Zipcar – er, Zodiac to a straight-up magician’s duel, the same stakes as the Scopes Monkey Trial hanging in the balance: Science vs. Religion! Go…Chan.
Zumba’s – er, Zodiac’s acceptance comes in the form of a letter nailed to the Temple of Magic with that same knife from before. A crowd amasses to see Rhadini’s grand showdown, I assume not so much because watching two magicians bitch-slap each other is fun, but because the presence of Charlie Chan promises they will get to see death happen. It’s like Nascar for 1930s intelligentsia!
Impatiently awaiting the Big Z, Rhadini performs a little prestidigitation (that is, magic). Chan is asked to join the stage, the perfect insightful mind for Rhadini to test his trickery on. They’re all about to go and levitate Eve on a table when – Ooh! Aah! – it’s Zodiac! He heads for the stage, ready for the grand, world-shattering duel, when –
Ah hell, Zodiac’s dead! Someone went and shot him through with an arrow. But “Zodiac” proves to just be the Turk, Abdul, meaning the real Zoloft – er, Zodiac – is still on the loose. Now this is what the audience is here for, to see an ethnic guy get murdered, then watch Charlie Chan solve said murder five minutes later! And, well, the conditions of the murder must be recreated, so Rhadini is to go through that whole levitation thing again, Jimmy subbing for Eve, when -
BAM! POW! ZONK! Rhadini is stabbed in the shoulder! Jimmy, the levitatee, has been dumped through a stage trapdoor to the basement, where he instantly starts to drown in a massive water tank – Wait, I’m thinking of The Prestige! At least it wasn’t “Star Trek” this time. No, actually, Jimmy merely tumbles into the basement, a part of the levitation trick. Rhadini, meanwhile, is led to his dressing room by a doctor who’s suddenly there.
Chan has one more trick to coax out the dreaded Zamzar – Zodiac. ESP! Eve is to read Chan’s mind on stage – thus it is she who runs through the final reel exposition Chan normally gets to deliver. Then she falters, struggling to say that Zodiac is…is…is…And here is the killer’s hand!, poking out from an iron maiden that happens to be there, gun at the ready Eve senses this, killer’s thoughts overriding Chan’s (see, it’s nutty with the ESP usage, ain’t it). Chan snatches the gunman, revealing the true Zanzibar – er, Zodiac to be…
Tune in next week! Same Chan time, same Chan-nel!
Or just read the next paragraph. It’s Rhadini – Nailed it! I mean, there weren’t even the usual “obviously not-obvious” suspects to choose from this time, so it’s clearly the strange, creepy, Batman-killing guy. Frankly, anyone else would have seemed a cheat. The only thing is Rhadini’s alibi – he’s had his Turkish manservant play as Zardoz – er, Zodiac. Rhadini killed ‘im with a trick wand, which is obvious when you watch it. Easy enough, as is that attention-diverting shoulder wound. Okay, we’re done here!
Except for – yawn – the lovebirds getting together. Also, Jimmy tumbles through a trap door! This is easily the biggest intentional laugh I’ve gotten from this series.
But don’t worry. Tesla’s teleportation machine will create a new Jimmy before you’ve even realized it.
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. 19 Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1938)
• No. 20 Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
• No. 21 Charlie Chan in Reno (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)
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