bestmovie: Charlie Chan, No. 37 - The Jade Mask (1945)

Well, these Charlie Chan films aren’t getting any better, I can tell you that. They’re becoming more prolific, somehow, with The Jade Mask as the fourth Chan entry in 1945 alone – outdoing Fox’s former record of three Chans per year. This same dubious accomplishment shall be repeated twice again, in 1946 and 1948. (Somehow, 1947 manages a mere one entry – I don’t know how it was so lucky.)

Writing at length about this nonsense yet again will be a trying proposition. Before continuing, let’s just accept a few things about the Monogram Chans. The plots do not matter. The cinematography is unimaginative (the screen caps below represent the best, most interesting shots in the film). The directing flat. The actors uninspired and lethargic. There’s barely even enough variation from film to film to make an up-close examination of the minor elements fruitful. And the camera never moves.

For what it’s worth, here’s out plotline, summed up. Once a-fucking-gain, a scientist creating secret weapons for the U.S. government is murdered near his laboratory. In this case, he’s found a process to turn wood into metal, with which any nation on earth could rule the world! Oy! Eventually, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler, far gone from the goodwill I granted him in Charlie Chan in Honolulu) will come along, working for his Monogram-only employers, the Secret Service, and solve the crime. In doing so, three or four other people will die violently, all by the same “exotic” murder method. Comedy will be lobbied about, by one of Chan’s sons and one of his chauffeurs (not necessarily the same ones), and it will strangely manage to be the best thing about the film; it will be only slightly intolerable.

There will be suspects, between 6 and 12, though normally 9, this number not determined by script needs, but by the casting director’s insistence. It is a fool’s errand, thirty-seven movies in (the big gag number) to actually list the characters. Still, the actors deserve recognition, for they spent even more of their lives trapped in the Ninth Circle of Hell that is The Jade Mask than I did. So we have Frank Reicher, Hardie Albright, Janet Warren, Cyril Delevanti, Al Bridge, Ralph Lewis, Dorothy Granger, Edith Evanson, and many more. As with all the Mono-Chans, they’re interchangeable B-picture stalwarts with no name value, even in their day…except for Frank Reicher, who was in King Kong. He’s the first one to die.

There will be sets, and like the suspects, they will be technically new, but for all intents and purposes the same sets we saw last time. With Monogram, that specifically means a chemistry lab of some sort, which in this one is passed off as a “furnace” – that’s the level of variation I’m dealing with. It’s like I’ve watched the same lame movie every day for over a week now. More broadly, our setting now is – Are you sitting down for this? – The Jade Mask takes place at a house. Oh…now…I cannot take it, Charlie Chan, please – stop – thrilling – me – so.

Now, a few specifics aside, all that could count for every Chan since Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (and a 99.9% guarantee the remaining ten Chans as well). That leaves me now with really nothing more to say, except to isolate specific strange or interesting things from each entry, and focus on them. This shouldn’t take too long.

Mantan Moreland is back, of course, as Birmingham Brown, given nothing to do. Most of the time, he’s literally just standing in the corner of the frame, bugging out his eyeballs at irregular intervals. He is now the high point of the series.

Tommy Chan, “Number Three Son,” meanwhile, is nowhere to be found. For the one and only time, we’re saddled with the next step down on the great Chan de-evolutionary chain of ineffective sons – “Number Four Son” Eddie Chan. Our performer here is Eddie Luke, actual younger brother of the far-far-far-superior “Number One Son” Keye Luke. I miss Keye. Eddie is mostly yet another dispirited copy of a copy, as these things go, but he has some specific characteristics – He’s a bookworm, and…Well, that’s it. And this is the most notable thing about The Jade Mask, which sets it apart from the rest. This series has gotten really rather useless.

Yeah, the franchise is stagnant. In movie terms, 37 flicks in is well beyond the standard quittin’ time. As TV is concerned, though, that’s barely two seasons! And yet we don’t see most TV shows growing so stale and tired so early on – And it is a constant assertion of mine that the serial films of the ‘40s were really a precursor to serialized television. I cannot say what it is about a movie series, that tires it out much sooner – and these Chans average 62 minutes long, which ain’t that much longer than our hour-long shows today (ads ignored, naturally). Of course if I had to watch thirty-seven episodes of something like “Leave It to Beaver” (that is, something archaic), I might start to see less inspiration than today’s best programming. Who knows? I am not watching “Leave it to Beaver!”

Okay, so what are the other remotely interesting elements of The Jade Mask? Well, there’s a mask. I assume it’s jade, but that’s from the title alone; yes, these movie titles are more informative than their feature-length content. Actually, there’s a ton of masks, one for each suspect present – this ought to at least be interesting enough to warrant a screen cap, but it isn’t. That’s how bungled some of these ideas are. There are also marionettes, and ventriloquists’ puppets, and other little creepy things, which are equally neglected – compare it to the contemporary Dead of Night, a very disturbing horror flick (from Ealing, of all studios). Monogram sucks!

During the killer’s reveal, we learn he’s been wearing one of those remarkably convincing “Mission: Impossible” rubber masks the entire time. Like in that show (and film series), it even changes the killer’s build, body type, etc. It’s…stupid.

Oh yeah, there’s also a remarkable continuity error where a motorcycle policeman is murdered for no damn good reason (outdoors), and the killer wears his uniform to perform another killing. Later, the policeman’s body is discovered (indoors), his uniform back on. The killer overcompensated at some point.

Also, the butler is killed, then made to walk around the house like a marionette (described, but not seen). For this to be possible, the house’d need a series of mechanisms equivalent to a Disneyland ride! And all this to set up a single unconvincing red herring!

And…that…is…all I had to say about The Jade Mask, and I haven’t the spiritual strength to attempt an actual (unnecessary) plot summary in greater depth. Would you believe it, I cannot even out-write my own screen caps? So scroll down a tad more, and bask in the unidentifiable visual fabric of the Charlie Chan series as a whole…