There’s a little something the Chan movies have been addressing lately, in every second or third entry, which remains in the background rather insidiously. This is the thing which will come to define so very much of the franchise’s own story, and they don’t even know it yet. That thing is World War II.
Charlie Chan in Rio doesn’t directly address World War II – it’s not even about spies, like most of these recent topical entries. Still, around the time the Disney Studios were putting together their silly little Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros movies to win over the South Americans, with their relative isolation from war-torn Europe, the Charlie Chan movies were themselves glad-handing South America in their own stilted, B-movie way. And considering how strangely complimentary Rio is of Brazil’s police (in a series where cops are typically less competent than Chan’s own son Jimmy), I can only imagine the Good Neighbor Policy was well underway.
Considering Carmen Miranda’s recent emigration to Hollywood, there was clearly a minor Brazilian mania in the air by 1941. A song I cannot name but have always associated with her appears both here and in the roughly contemporary Blondie Goes Latin (and surely in other forgotten obscurities not covered by this blog). Charlie Chan in Rio even goes further in its ersatz Miranda rights, as the Carioca Casino (read – legally not the Copacabana) hosts a bevy of dancing Brazilian beauties prancing about in their structurally-sound fruit hat monoliths. If you were to boil down what “Brazil” mean in the 1940s, this is all you’d be able to come up with – And it’s all the Chan people could think of too, as the rest of the flick is just the same thing we’ve always seen – a murder mystery between wealthy white people secured in a mansion.
Our pseudo-Copa dancer here is Lola Dean (Jacqueline Dalya), the ex-sweetheart of Ken Reynolds (Richard Derr). Charlie Chan in Rio rather recalls Charlie Chan in Reno (apart from the incredibly similar titles) by emphasizing the same incestuous social relationship between all the suspects. Unlike Reno, though, Rio is rather simplified, perhaps due to criticisms of the former film. Still, it’ll require some effort here to parse out all the relationships.
Ken, Lola’s ex-lover, is currently married to Joan Reynolds (Mary Beth Hughes), who is blond, attractive, and exceedingly alcoholic – the perfect woman. Joan is jealous of Lola. Lola’s current lover, meanwhile, is one Clarke Denton (no actor noted), which is a problem for Joan’s friend Grace Ellis (Cobina Wright, eventual gossip columnist), as she has the hots for Clarke as well. Of course this would be a problem for Bill Kellogg (Hamilton MacFadden), Grace’s current lover. Really, it’s the same set of relationships as in Reno, only with a few extra strands removed for simplicity’s sake.
Meanwhile, Charlie Chan and son Jimmy (Sidney Toler and Victor Sen Yung, I must say yet again) are in Rio to aide Chief of Police Souto (regular Harold Huber) in the arrest of Lola. We don’t know yet what all this is over, but it at least gives Chan something to do while awaiting the instigating murder. Still, for the sake of “decorum,” Chan shall withhold arresting Lola until she heads home.
Lola take a while in getting home, in a totally Chanless segment of movie that is maybe its most entertaining – it’s more fun trying to piece together where the plot is going than watching Chan go through the same old murder mystery motions. First, Lola accepts a marriage proposal from Clarke. She is congratulated by her friend Helen Ashby (Kay Linaker, screenwriter of The Blob) and maid Lily (semi-regular Iris Wong, ‘cause there weren’t too many attractive Chinese girls Hollywood was willing to employ regularly). To celebrate, Lola plans to throw a major shindig at her home that night – an opportunity to get all the suspects together in time for Lola’s inevitable murder – What, you hadn’t already guessed that?! Oh, spoilers then.
Lola’s next stop is the Continental Hotel, to visit the ostensibly Indian psychic Marana (the clearly Canadian Victory Jory, who was in Gone with the Wind, has a star on the Walk of Fame, and is totally above a Charlie Chan movie). Marana’s specialty is something called “psychognosis,” a cigarette-based hypnosis featured on tons of really iffy web pages. Marana puts Lola under, at which point Lola confesses to her sordid past – she is really Lola Wagner of Honolulu, who killed someone named Manuel Cordoza three years ago. That’s right, oh reader of infinitely astounding care and memory, this is now pretty much the same exact setup as The Black Camel (a Derr Biggers book, so they’re regularly returning to the source now). Before Marana can do anything about this, Clarke is there to see Lola off.
This is the point where Lola arrives home, sees everyone, then goes upstairs. One expectable scream later, and all have convened to find Lola murdered, backstabbed. Chan takes the case, naturally, and – Does he ever get paid for this stuff? Anyway, there are a great many clues, pretty much the same Derr Biggers created for The Black Camel. The series is becoming more meta in how it frames its mysteries, as Souto instantly pegs these clues as a set of carefully arranged red herrings no real murder would ever create. See, the functional mysteries from a decade back are now the ridiculous clichés of this generation. Still, the central real clue involves a crushed brooch (in place of the former film’s crushed orchid), with missing pin that’s now embedded in the killer’s shoe.
I’m going out of chronology in this discussion, but it addresses how Rio is a meta commentary on The Black Camel – to my Charlie Chan O.D.ed mind, at least. It is obvious to Souto, the amazingly intelligent police officer, that this pin could’ve been lodged in a shoe some time after the murder by an innocent party – and this becomes a plot point here. Way to build on the plot holes I never noticed in older movies!
Bill Kellogg’s character is a further wrinkle in the slow creep of meta elements. See, he’s a nutty murder mystery fan, the sort of 1940s fanboy this series was surely attracting at this point, and the sort of audience member (like myself) for whom this meta stuff is directed. Bill himself does a good job of predicting Chan’s actions and techniques, even debating the different forms of trap Chan often employs. There is little unique commentary for modern audiences to whom “meta” has become its own genre, but it’s worthwhile to note meta’s cinematic evolution. And other characters frequently refer to Bill as “Bulldog Drummond,” a reference I totally do not get until – Aah! It’s another series of murder mysteries from the ‘30s I was previously unaware of! This really was the Golden Age of the Sequel! Oh well, guess I’ll have to add that to this blog’s ever-growing years-long backlog of movie franchises!
The investigation putters along for a bit, aided by a late starting point, a short running time, and Jimmy’s comic buffoonery. As Iris Wong is back on the cast, Jimmy once again has a romantic interest (precisely as in Reno – Hmm, Rio really is a pure combo of that at The Black Camel). Answering one of my ancient complaints of this series (mostly for Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo), this movie marks the first time subtitles appear in Chan. Took ‘em long enough! I’ll ignore, for now, the questionable choice to do the titles in the same generically “Asiany” font as my neighborhood’s local Thai restaurant, or how Chan’s syntax gets no better when speaking in his native language.
There’s one pleasant red herring to deal with in this entry – a butler! Ah yes, we all know this one, and Chan has actually done the “butler did it” angle before – in The Black Camel, for instance. It’s even done meta butler jokes before, so all it must do here is acknowledge how The Black Camel made use of this angle – and surely audiences in 1941 must’ve been somewhat conversant in The Black Camel’s twists and turns, due to the novel more than a 10-year-old film in the pre-VHS era. For what it matters, they learn the butler has stolen Lola’s jewelry, and Jimmy gets into a grand, stunt-heavy fight with him.
And now the butler is about to confess to…something when – cliché time! – the lights turn off for a single second, then return. The butler’s been shot! At least half the Chan movies (or half of all mysteries, really) use the old “lights out murder.” What amazes me here is its efficiency. With the whole case assembled, we’re asked to believe one person could do all this in a mere second. Man, if only murder was that easy… (Actually, if murder was that easy, the killer ought to have shot everyone!)
It’s around here where the shoe and pin thing comes into play – clearly delayed by the ultimately purposeless butler murder. Chan assembles everyone at the dinner table, to discover who made the pin-based scratch marks earlier that evening – this itself is a fairly common variation on the finale Chanquest, Black Camel aside. And because this is so common, Chan must fend off the meta questioning of various parties.
When the pin is found lodged in Helen’s shoe, these Doubting Thomases demand Chan provide further evidence. Marana is here, revealed to truly be Alfredo Cardoza, brother of the man Lola murdered back in Honolulu. (Lola’s former husband is also here, notable only because his name is Paul – and we can’t go one entry without a man named Paul.) Anyway, Alfredo (nee Marana) presentss his cigarette hypnosis for everyone, with a record he made of Lola’s own druggy confession. He also hypnotizes Jimmy briefly, in a genuinely humorous scene where the drugged Jimmy essentially confesses that he’s lazy and horny – I’m paraphrasing. So, with such Jedi mind tricks readily available, Marana shall now use his magical lie detector cigarettes on Helen, to determine her guilt.
In all the plot hole pre-guessing that’s taken place here, I’m astounded no one questions why Marana’s method cannot simply be used at the outset, and in every other murder mystery from this point on in history. Well, it’s a new plot hole, so maybe they’re unaware of it. (It’s like how plastic surgery has suddenly rewritten the ‘40s mystery rules as of Wax Museum and Murder Over New York.) Anyway, Helen takes Marana’s test, and reveals that…she knows nothing of Lola’s murder.
Well, it’s back to square one, apparently, only now’s the time for Chan to reveal his greatest trickery of all. He smokes the very same cigarette Helen just enjoyed, a real salve to his T-zone. (Ah, Hays, chain-smoking was OK, but the word “damn” wasn’t.) After a lengthy scene that is nothing but a pure advertisement for delicious Chesterfields, Chan reveals the cigarette has had no effect on him – Marana (er, Alfredo) is in cahoots with murderess Helen, and slipped her a falsely hypnotical cigarette – that is, a normal cigarette. What a silly plot device!
Helen’s upcoming unsolicited confession reveals the exact same motive as The Black Camel – she was wife to the guy Lola murdered, herself formerly Barbara Cardoza. Hence also Alfredo’s involvement. But what of that randomly assassinated butler? Well, Helen had bribed him into silence with Lola’s jewelry, then feared a confession – so take that, innocent man! This is just…I can accept revenge over a murdered husband, but you don’t just shoot butlers for fun and profit and expect nothing to come of it.
Case now closed, that looming specter of WWII reappears, as Chan presents Jimmy with a freshly delivered letter (here where neither of them live): Jimmy has been drafted to shoot Nazis!
Considering Jimmy has been featured in each and every Sidney Toler Chan, I’m not sure what Fox intended by sending him off like that. Maybe, in place of escaping his college on a tri-yearly basis, Jimmy would now likewise be escaping the U.S. Army – surely a fine message for young moviegoers. Perhaps, for whatever reason, they were trying to write Victor Sen Yung out of the series, to allow him the chance to play evil Japanese in all those propaganda movies. Who knows?
Unbeknownst at the time, Chan’s time at Fox was nearing an end. The series as a whole was nowhere near dead – not with seventeen entries to go! – but WWII was about to put it in a serious coma. And we’ll see how all that is addressed next, in the final Chan movie made under Fox – Castle in the Desert.
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. 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. 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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