El castillo del desierto

My opinion is this is one of the best in the Chan series. It has a good story that is written well. The cast is great with some wonderful character actors. I think the production quality is a little better than other Chan films. One thing that stands out are lighting and camera angles. They create an ambiance of suspense.

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is summoned to a mysterious castle in the Mojave Desert where a bizarre masked man (Douglas Dumbrille) lives with his wife, a descendant of the famous Borgia family. There are also several other guests at the castle. When one of them is poisoned, Charlie must investigate with meddlesome son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung).

The last of the 20th Century Fox Charlie Chan films is one of the weirdest. The plot, at its heart, is a simple old dark house mystery. But the setting here, a castle in a desert, is different enough to keep things somewhat fresh. Also the eccentric characters help out a lot. It's an enjoyable entry in the Fox series. Not the best or worst but somewhere in the middle. Sadly, the quality would drop considerably when the series moved to Monogram a couple of years later.

Lucy Manderley makes a brusque announcement: "Two things we never discuss in this house—my family and Paul's accident." –Her husband Paul wears a mask that covers half of his face; Lucy herself is descended from the Borgias of Renaissance Italy, renowned for power and poison. "This house" is the Manderley estate, a lonely medieval-style castle stuck out in the desert.

Charlie Chan is on hand at said estate—but the urgent invitation he answered was apparently a fake. Has Mr. Chan been summoned to witness a murder or provide an alibi? Sidney Toler is steady as always as he attempts to find out.

Eerie music, dimly lit castle sets and some good shadowy camera work create an appropriately spooky atmosphere for this fairly standard but highly enjoyable Chan mystery.

Among the entertaining cast on hand at the old dark castle are Douglass Dumbrille as the odd Mr. Manderley and Lenita Lane as his nervous wife; Henry Daniell as mysterious sculptor Watson King; and Ethel Griffies as Madame Saturnia, a spooky soothsayer whose predictions all involve death.

Sen Yung also offers assistance as Jimmy Chan. On a week's leave from the Army, Jimmy tells his Pop that "What I'd like now is the relaxation of a good murder case." He finds a suit of armor a good hiding place to spy from, but keeps getting pushed over and tumbling down flights of stairs….

The plot involves a couple of murders by poison—pointing suspicion at Lucy Manderley, the only possibly-unbalanced Borgia in the group. Other elements adding to the mystery include a sleeping potion like the one Shakespeare's Juliet took, and the early disappearance of the only vehicle's distributor, leaving the entire group stranded and cut off.

Overall, it's a fairly standard Charlie Chan: a decent mystery plot featuring a few chills, a fair mix of comedy, and a bit of action as well. Very entertaining for fans.

I've never understood why some folk in the Asian community don't like Charlie Chan.

A reviewer here said he cringed at the racist comment of an innkeeper who wouldn't let Charlie sit on his porch. Well, gee...in 1940 America that was common behavior. But Charlie Chan doesn't throw a fit, he gets on with the job of investigating murder and at the end of the film shows himself to be smarter than all the white folk who looked down on him.

Doesn't that make him a great role model? That was the case in many of the Charlie Chan films. The character was created at a time when Orientals were always villains, nothing more. Earl Derr Biggers created Chan to be a hero. He is brighter than everyone else he meets, for all that he doesn't speak grammatical English. Not because he's stupid, but because he's an immigrant from Hong Kong! Lesson? Just because someone's English language skills are not up to snuff doesn't mean that they can't run rings around you intellectually.

True also to the tenor of the times, Chan has to have "comic relief" - either his fully Americanized sons (and occasionally daughter) who speak English perfectly and are played by Asians who deserve to have their work seen - or by African Americans Stepin Fetchit or Mantan Moreland. I admit I do have problems watching those characters - I don't think I would have thought their actions funny then, nor do I think their funny now, but again, they're part and parcel of the times.

Having said all that, Warner Oland is the only Charlie Chan for me. I've never really cared for Sidney Toler's version. The plot is rather labyrynthine, but fun for all that. For the most part, anyway!

While I admit that the Chan films of Warner Oland are, as a group, superior to those of Sidney Toler, that doesn't mean that some of the Toler films aren't rock solid and as good individually as anything Oland made. Three that immediately come to mind are Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum, and this film, Castle in the Desert. (By the way, why isn't the title Charlie Chan and the Castle in the Desert? It would have made sense to me.) In Castle in the Desert, Charlie is summoned to a strange, isolated castle in the middle of the Mojave Desert. But no one in the house will admit to having sent of Chan. His presence is, however, quickly needed when in no time at all Charlie finds himself up to his elbows in murder, poison, deadly arrows, red herrings, and suspects galore. What could be more fun!

I've seen someone use this phrase before to describe a Charlie Chan film and I think it fits Castle in the Desert – "It's a crackling good mystery". As I've indicated, all of the necessary ingredients for a fun outing with Chan are here. In fact, Castle in the Desert is really more like two mysteries in one. While the solution to the first is fairly obvious, it's still a lot of fun and just an appetizer for the more difficult and dangerous mystery to come. This was Toler's last Chan film for Fox and, by the time this one was made, Toler could have played the role in his sleep. He seems so at ease with the character. The rest of the cast is enjoyable with Henry Daniell and, one of my favorites, Douglass Dumbrille standing out in support. Another bonus for Castle in the Desert is that Victor Sen Yung as #2 son Jimmy Chan isn't anywhere near as annoying as he is in some of the other Chan films.

Overall, Castle in the Desert is a nice finale to the Chan films at Fox. Nothing that would come later at Monogram is anywhere close to matching it. I've got no problem rating this one a strong 7/10 verging on an 8/10.