You know, it’s normally not too difficult to tell in what order a film series goes. At the very least, just look at the year the thing was made in, and there you are. But that doesn’t work with something like Charlie Chan, not when there is an average of three entries put out every year! Thus sometimes (like now), I am unable to say with certainty in what order the three 1940 entries arrived. Between Charlie Chan at Panama, Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum and Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise, Wikipedia puts today’s entry, Panama, in dead last. The IMDb self-contradicts, somehow saying that these movies are all sequels of each other. But it really doesn’t matter, for there’s never any continuity between entries anyway. For whatever reason, I’m going with Charlie Chan in Panama first, then moving on to the others.
With war in Europe now a certainty (no more of that dratted ambiguity like in City in Darkness), Charlie Chan can officially start to battle vicious Nazi spies. With this topical subject matter becoming a semi-regular part of the Chan series, we’re seeing a major decrease in the original formula villains – individual upper class murderers – and a significant uptick in that other occasional Chan plotline – cabals of spies. So it is here, and it’s disappointing to reveal just how tiresome this new series direction is becoming as well.
But all cosmetic changes aside, Chan’s underlying nature never falters. Almost without exception, things must start out with a great old forced ingestion of interchangeable suspects – as always, we have the lovebirds, the eccentric genius (often the only interesting character), the businessman, the least-likely suspect (80% likelihood of culpability), the boring other guy, and the poor jerk who has no personality because he will die one reel in. (Slasher movies do something similar.) Recognizing these types can help viewers, and it informs meta-narrative investigation. Still, by this 24th (or so) film in the franchise, it’s becoming mighty boring!
Nonetheless, who do we have on our platter for today?
The lovebirds – Kathi Lenesch (Jean Rogers) and Richard Cabot (Kane Richmond). Kathi is vaguely interesting, partly for topical reasons to do with WWII Czeckoslovakia, and partly because she kills about 5 minutes of movie with a nightclub act. Richard is useless even by the standards of male lovebirds.
The eccentric – Achmed Halide (Frank Puglia). He’s an “ethnic” (Egyptian, specifically), and taken to parading around in a fez and being generally suspicious, so naturally we’re supposed to suspect him – mostly because he’s an ethnic. There’s also Dr. Grosser (Lionel Royce), deviant breeder of bubonic plague rats. Given his credentials, normally he’d qualify wholly for this role, except I think he’s on screen for a total of 2 minutes.
The least-likely suspect –Jennie Finch (Mary Nash). She’s an ancient Chicago schoolmarm who’s simply on vacation for the first time ever. Ah, but consider that percentage noted above. The only reason I do not peg these characters more often is quite simply because I grow disinterested enough to flat out forget about them.
The boring other guy – Cliveden Compton (Lionel Atwill). At least this one wears a stupid hat.
The murderee – R.J. Godley (Addison Richards). The means of death is what’s important, so here it is: R.J. visits Charlie Chan, who now runs a Panama hat shop. Considering this is set in Panama (lest you missed the title), and Chan always wears a Panama hat anyway, this is a perfectly appropriate in-joke – and maybe the cleverest thing in this series. By the way, Chan is passing himself off as one “Fu Yen,” allowing Sidney Toler to act uncharacteristically like a Chinese stereotype (that is, to act like Warner Oland). All that’s well and good, but what of the murder? Well, R.J. enjoys himself a delicious cigarette, and dies instantly (2 seconds in). Either someone secretly slipped him the most astoundingly quick poison in history, or he had extremely weak lungs.
Chan knows these murders always have a limited set of six to twelve potential suspects, so he is quick to identify the passenger list on R.J.’s recent plane flight over the canal as our suspects above. Further, considering the newfangled spy theming going on, Chan knows the real killer is dread master spy Ryner, who lamentably has never been identified – It could be anyone running our cabal at the canal! And in one dramatic day’s time the U.S. fleet shall be traveling en masse through the Panama Canal, and Ryner intends to blow them all up (a few years ahead of Japanese schedule).
Aiding Chan, and stealing the only formerly useful trait of male lovebirds, is Jimmy Chan, as usual (Victor Sen Yung). Chan first runs into Jimmy totally at random in a Panamanian prison, which the movie more or less outright admits is a complete coincidence – I mean, what the hell is Jimmy doing in Panama in the first place?!
Going over the suspects’ bios (wordier versions of what I wrote up there), Jimmy develops a natural and always-incorrect suspicion towards the eccentric – at first, it’s Grosser, ‘cause the man carries sick rats around for no reason, but soon enough Jimmy’s natural anti-Egyptian sentiments draw him to Achmed. To this end, Jimmy creeps endlessly around Grosser’s warehouse of exotic diseases and cats, which would normally be a perfectly acceptable suspense sequence (by the standards of a 1940s B-movie programmer, that is). Normally, it would be. Not in this one, however, not with all that darkness. Check out the screen cap below to see what I mean.
Again, here’s another problem that’s also quite common in slashers. For a scary setting, you need artful lighting, not a complete lack of it. There’s not even any substantial dialogue garbled through muffled 1940s recording equipment; all I have to follow this six minute scene by is the off-the-shelf soundtrack. And it’s an odd problem, because director Norman Foster did quite well at controlling the shadows in something like Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, and I’m watching this on the same format as I did that one. I think someone just screwed up, or stage lights were one of the things being rationed for the years-away war effort…or they just didn’t care.
Whatever the cause of this problem, it pervades this entire movie. It doesn’t help that Jimmy soon enough collects Chan to return to Grosser’s lair. This time, some mysterious figure has drowned all of Grosser’s sweet, innocent virus rodents, which is something I can only tell because Chan more or less just says so (darkness). So for once I am thankful for normally redundant dialogue.
The very final shot in this second warehouse scene (putting our total darkness screen time up to 10 minutes, with interruptions) is the only visible part of it – it’s boring guy Compton’s business card and hotel number. Now, normally the hotel rooms in Chan movies are flat and uninteresting, but at least they’re lit! No such luck here, even though by current standards it is brighter. Still flat and uninteresting, though. And spies or no, Charlie Chan in Panama is overly wedded to archaic series formula – not only is the second corpse (Compton, natch) found here, but a handgun also looms. I’ve seen ten handguns loom in this series, the last of these back in 1937 or so – that makes it about seven entries ago. But this is important for the “plot,” because Jimmy gets his hands on the handgun (but not on the hand holding the handgun), allowing Chan to use ballistics to match it up with the bullet Compton helpfully caught in his torso. And it’s strangely funny to see an old movie over-explain something like “ballistics,” which is like Police Movie 101 nowadays.
Chan phones the formulaically unhelpful Panama police, affording one of the few interesting shots (above) throughout all the inky black. Meanwhile Jimmy smokes a cigarette; he’s never done this before, but it’s needed for the gag where Jimmy then learns of R.J.’s death. Convinced he too is dying, Jimmy screams out “I’m going, Pop! Everything’s going black!” No, Jimmy, that’s just the crummy cinematography.
Soon Chan (and Jimmy, very much not dead) have headed to an interesting Panamanian jungle cemetery, mostly because they saw a map in the darkness when I couldn’t, one which presumably leads to here, since the point-out-the-obvious dialogue is failing me for once. No matter, it is here where they run into Miss Finch for no particularly damn good reason whatsoever – unless… (It’s a potential plot hole now, but when we learn Finch is Ryner, it seems sensible – if a rather obvious clue. Oh, and “spoilers.”)
Ah hah, here’s something! It’s Achmed’s tomb, even though Achmed’s still alive (and presumably a tourist) – he just built it ahead of schedule, as is his Egyptian wont. So what do you do when you find a giant, suspicious tomb in the jungle? Well, I’ve seen enough Indiana Jones movies to know how to not trigger the self-sealing devices, but Charlie Chan only has the original serials the Indy movies were based on to guide him. Thus we cannot blame Chan for locking himself, Jimmy and Finch in the catacombs. At least they’ve found Ryner’s secret cache of explosives…However, most of those explosives are already gone.
Oh no, wait, there they are, hidden within the canal powerhouse! For a minute there I was worried that they’d be used somehow to explode the canal…oh wait. (And entirely as an afterthought, the bombs are planted by some entirely anonymous yokel who won’t be seen before or since. Ryner’s subcontracting!)
And with time ticking away, those ka-boom-booms are dangerously close to demolishing vast amounts of stock footage ships! Here they are now:
Oh wait, wrong movie…Hold up, here they are:
Back in the tomb-cave-lair, Chan flat-out refuses to Chan his way out of this one. But Finch has a cinch to clinch them from this pinch: Let’s just use some of that nitro glycerin to blow up the door! Now, to my modern mind, I simply thought this was another danged plot hole where she knew something she shouldn’t – in most movies, that’d be the case. But not in Chan! I keep forgetting mysteries work differently, and half the plot holes are intentional clues. The real challenge is parsing those clues out from the unintentional plot holes that remain…
But screw Finch’s method, for soon enough all turns to darkness (I’d neglected to point out a few dark scenes in between, by the way), allowing five minutes of whatever to happen, with indecipherable screaming and gunshots as my only guide. The end result of this is that now, somehow, Manolo is in the graveyard, and he is dead. Maybe I could make something of this had I seen the entire sequence leading up to it!
Chan races off directly to the powerhouse, somehow Channing out the precise location of the bomb…Well, the building, at any rate. Bomb still unfound, Chan amasses the scant few remaining suspects (one problem of having a higher-than-average attrition rate). Between the lovebirds (out of 24, the male’s been guilty thrice, the female never), the eccentrics (guilty even less often), and the “not obvious” Finch, who’s your money on? Even disregarding those clues as plot holes, I can still work it all out, using my meta knowhow. Chan knows it already too, of course, but he just wants to screw with the killer a little with bomb terror, reveal he’s already disarmed it, then go ahead and arrest Finch anyway – yeah yeah, she’s Ryner, you can go home now. As the cops would say, they’ve pinched Finch.
I have nothing more to say now. I’m going to sleep.
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. 22 Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
• No. 23 City in Darkness (1939)
• 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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