When Chan moved from Fox to Monogram, there was a certain potential to this move – a potential which Monogram’s first entry, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service, completely failed to realize. What Monogram could do, now Chan had a certain freedom from its former formula formers, was something different – Not to switch everything up, but to reproportion the elements to Monogram’s advantage. See, Monogram was poor, Poverty Row, making Fox look good. But even without budgets (and the sickening desire for “prestige” that comes with ‘em), Monogram could actually focus more on the action, suspense, and exploitation elements that would at least give Chan an identity. I am happy to report that The Chinese Cat, Monogram’s next effort under regular series hack helmer Phil Rosen, manages that!
There is a man. He plays chess. A hand looms. A gun fires. The man dies. He upsets a bishop on the chess board.
See? They’ve reduced the opening murder from 15 minutes to 15 seconds! Action!
Cue the spinning newspaper montage, which seriously never gets old! THOMAS P. MANNING MYSTERIOUSLY SLAIN!, crows the Daily Expositor! More news! The D.A. has dropped the case! Murder never solved! Exclamation points over-used!
Just when the 1944 cinematic excitement is becoming too much for me, along waddles Sidney Toler’s Charlie Chan, bringing with him Toler’s traditional pace-retarding professionalism. Chan boards a yellow taxi cab (yellow by name only, for it’s B&W), chauffeured about by new series regular – Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland)! As a bug-eyed, screaming negro stereotype, the sort the ‘40s over-indulged on, Birmingham is a potentially horrendous series addition – but Moreland’s performance is subdued. He’s still the prime comic relief, oh sure, but it’s somehow no longer overtly racial – it’s Birmingham’s personality which provides the “humor,” a mix between an everyman and “Scooby Doo’s” Shaggy.
As a one-off suspect in Secret Service, it is odd to consider how Birmingham could be wedged in as a regular. Well, this current meeting is a pure and total coincidence (the driving force of B-cinema). Seemingly the only reason Birmingham shall be tagging along after Chan for the next several entries is because Chan has mistakenly stiffed him on his cab fare. Tag that Chan man, Birmingham, and grab your cab tab! It’s pretty weak, actually.
I’m going to harp on Birmingham a little more, in light of the return of “Number Three Son” Tommy Chan (Benson Fong). See, Birmingham is serving much of the purpose Chan’s sons formerly served – he’s the supposed audience surrogate (read: recipient of explanatory dialogue), and the comic bungler whose street smarts shall get Chan out of scrapes and even accidentally turn up clues on occasion. Maintaining the Chan-wide “Scooby Doo” parallels, he’s the Shaggy and Scooby to Chan’s exceedingly-unattractive Daphne.
(Tommy is now almost totally useless, to the film and to Chan. It seems his only function is to act as sounding board for Chan’s sarcastic putdowns – like the second half of a sitcom’s roster. That’s it; Tommy’s no longer even trafficking in that ridiculous ‘40s slang he was so hep to before, daddy-o)
Leah Manning (Joan Woodbury, Chan semi-regular), daughter of the murdered Thomas Manning, seeks Chan’s aid in the “mystery” – Tommy is now so useless he cannot even sustain the old “mistaken Chan” gag Keye Luke excelled at. Whatever…Chan is on the case!
Now, I put “mystery” in quotes up there ‘cause that’s one of Monogram’s series switches: Chan, by embracing the purely-adrenal style of 1940s action cinema, has less room for mysterizin’ than before – though it’s a bit of a chimera. As if to signal their intentions early, the culprits are (mostly) revealed directly to us right away. Like in some of Chan’s earlier adventures, the villain here is a cabal – several hoods actively out to assassinate Chan. The result is now Chan has to fend off a far higher quotient of attempts on his own life – and even act the action hero on occasion. It’s Chan edging ever so slightly into Bond territory, and it’s good – Chan was done with its old staid mystery conception anyway.
An interesting note: Amongst this cabal are the twin doctors Carl and Kurt Karzoff (both played by John Davidson – trickery!). One of them has requested to meet Chan, to hand off the latest clue. And while Monogram’s largely ignoring the wild confusion twins could bring to a formula mystery potboiler, we do know this – Kurt, the good twin, is not long for this world.
The enjoyable noir imagery this series occasionally dabbles in greets Chan (and Tommy [and Birmingham]) as they plan to meet with Kurt. They have been preceded, though, by the main killer. His identity is still a secret, cabal or no, so he’s given the giallo treatment – black gloves and boots, close-ups obscuring his identity as he chokes the life from Kurt.
Our killer vanishes into the thick, thick fog, fog so thick that I swear in my former profession as a firefighter, I never encountered smoke so heavy. One John Carpenter movie aside, they just don’t do movie fog like that anymore!
Charlie Chan, and his perpetual ethnic sidekicks Tommy and Birmingham, are joined by Lt. Harvey Dennis (Weldon Heyburn). They discover Kurt’s ridiculously odd collection – bread. In Dennis’ poetic words, said bread is “stale, hard and very heavy.” (…Okay, sorry, I’m looking for entertainment where I can find it.) Chan reveals the reason for said bread hardness – it’s delicious hollow bread, three Ming lion figurines within. You know, this is the sort of playful quasi-exotic detail I’d expected more of from this series. But this scene is kinda lingering aimlessly, so they gotta end it the only way they know how – let Birmingham bug out his eyes, and thus apparently earn a laugh from…whomever finds this funny (‘40s whites?).
Next Chan meets with Dr. Paul – Oh God, again with the Pauls! (I’m sorry, it’s my problem, I can deal with it…) Dr. Paul Recknik (Ian Keith), author of the tell-all book on Manning’s murder, “Murder by Madame.” (Everyone thought a “Madame” killed Manning.) And hey, you notice something? They’re not overpowering us with bland suspects all at once here! Secret Service did this to a remarkably awful sub-Foxian degree, so if Monogram can keep this up, bully for them! Anyway, Chan makes a gentleman’s agreement with Recknik as regards the Manning case: If Chan cannot solve it, he will write the Chinese War Relief a check for $2,000. If he can, Recknik’ll pay ‘em $20,000. This must’ve been a WWII cause Monogram was backing.
Chan’s next stop is the Manning mansion, to examine secret revolving bookcases – Cool! Here we meet another suspect, Manning’s old business partner, George Webster Deacon (Cy Kendall). About him I haven’t much to say. Meanwhile, as proof Tommy’s function is now Birmingham’s, he (Birmingham) quickly starts up a comic flirtation with the house’s pretty black maid – while Chan’s son would formerly do likewise with the traditional pretty Chinese maid. It’s different…I guess.
Having found three more Ming lions in Manny’s study, Chan goes to see the Chinese artist who made them, Wu Song (Luke Chan – Whoa, now that’s a Chan in-jokester’s perfect name!). Manning’s lions have secret compartments in them, Wu’s design, containing stolen diamonds. And here is the titular “Chinese Cat,” another compartmentalized curio containing curtailed crystals. I love this! It’s diamond heists as motive! It’s stupid as all hell, sure, but it’s so purely stupid – I think Monogram’ll be good for me in this way.
Ah, but I said this movie was also full of awesome 1940s action, right? Oh yeah! First up, Birmingham’s cab explodes! It is Birmingham who identifies the ticking bomb, but Chan who knows what it is. Tommy, meanwhile, picks his ass.
Next up, the killers try to take Chan out in his hotel room by pumping in a deadly gas called “oxyzide” (?!). Tommy collapses first, proving he is more useful as an inert, motionless body than as a sentient entity. Then, same as before, Birmingham identifies the gas, but Chan saves the day. I sense a series-wide routine on our hands here.
Chan has traced the diamonds’ smuggling line through Deacon to the Sea Side Art Company, a seaside art company. Thus our erstwhile trio makes their way to the docks, to discover Deacon dead. Ah, three murders, not a mere two – Monogram knew who was buttering their bread (bloodthirsty audiences).
Across the way is an old, abandoned funhouse – the sort of setting I’m surprised hasn’t appeared in Chan yet, considering like 15 “Scooby” episodes take place in funhouses. Indeed, this is the place the cabal calls “lair.” And in go our heroes, ‘cause the Monogram Chan is a man of Chan action – No Chanquests for this mofo, oh no, he’ll just walk straight into the killers’ clutches, knowing his smarts ’ll get him out somehow. All hail Chan! (Of course, the first thing to happen to Chan and Tommy is they are taken hostage, so maybe it wasn’t such a Chan-tastic idea.)
The various unnamed thugs are clearly not our suspects from before – Holy bucking convention, Batman! Still, they know Chan now has those precious diamonds, and are willing to endlessly torture Tommy to learn where he’s hidden them – Thank you merciful Lord in Heaven! Birmingham, meanwhile, is being his humorous black self out in the hall of mirrors, having an encounter with a “jitterbuggin’ skeleton.” Heh heh, skeleton!
Now, here’s how Chan escapes. When Birmingham bungles into the Tommy-torturing chamber, Chan up and announces Birmingham has the diamonds. Suddenly all 5 thugs are tailing Birmingham on a grand action chase through the funhouse, leaving the Chan man unguarded. Smart, guys! Chan asks Tommy to untie his lashes, but this is well beyond Tommy’s meager competency levels, so Chan simply finds Birmingham before the 5 baddies do and has him do it. Then it’s a climactic fight sequence in place of a parlor unmasking (thank you, Jeebus!), where Chan makes fine use of the old head-clonk fighting technique. And with all the thugs subdued, Dennis and the cops can arrive – just like that!
Action sequences or no, it’s still a Chan picture, so Chan gets his traditional post-climax exposition – what an awful place for exposition! It turns out Deacon killed Manning, determined by a roundabout bit of logic where Manning’s chess bishop equals a deacon because – Hey look, Birmingham’s standing next to that skeleton again! The end.
…Well, what can I say? It was stupid, but it wasn’t boring – kinda like Step Up 3D. The mystery stuff still holds water (barely), but they’re wise to get beyond it – entertainment being what it is and all. And indeed, the proportions are all reworked, with comedy and action taking more precedent than ever. In overall Chan terms, this ain’t great, but it’s a damn sight better than Monogram’s inaugural effort. I’ve no genuine faith in the series at this point, but at least I’ll be able to get through the rest of them.
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. 29 Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
• No. 30 Castle in the Desert (1942)
• No. 31 Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (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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