Behind That Curtain

An international orientalizing romance mystery from the pen of Earl Derr Biggers, author of the Charlie Chan mysteries. Chan is not really in this movie, except indirectly—instead there is a British-explorers-in-the-East theme, India and Persia and Tehran and pith helmets. Eve Mannering (Lois Moran) has married the wrong man, Durand (Philip Strange), who is a bounder and who has killed an agent, Hillary Galt, to prevent Eve's uncle from finding out. A watchman, blackmailing him, writes to Eve in India, and she confronts her husband, who hurts her and acts threatening, so she disappears into the desert with dashing, dependable Col Beetham (Warner Baxter) who has been longing for her all his life. Meanwhile, the urbane Scotland Yard detective Sir Frederick Bruce (Gilbert Emery) pursues the mystery with a clue provided by Chan, and the story winds up in San Francisco will all wrinkles ironed out. A very early sound movie, this one is marred not so much by the spotty sound recording as by the stagy acting style: thrilling and plummy tones ("ohhhhhhhhh Erik!") from Moran and Baxter. She's sometimes quite winsome, and Boris Karloff has a tiny part as Beetham's oriental servant. Later films focus on Chan, but not this one. Interesting use of title phrase, first to indicate why explorers explore, and then to preface Beetham's film-illustrated lecture at the denouement.

Hey, it's an old movie in a bygone style but I took it for what it was and had a good time watching. Being of English heritage may have helped. Eve, damn it, I love you! Fun! Nice to see Boris Karloff too and some nice location shots.

Most of the other reviews pan this film to such an extent that you might pass over it. Please do not. In the 1920s Miss Lois Moran was one of the most beautiful ladies on earth and she shines here. No, not in the acting department, the director forced her to give in to melodrama. But the camera is in love with her and that transcends all the silliness of the plot. We are fortunate indeed to have this relic as a testament to her charm.

As others have noted, this film is very dull. This is largely due to the extremely slow delivery of actor Gilbert Emery, who plays Sir Frederic Bruce of Scotland Yard. You can almost sense the impatience of the other actors whenever he's onscreen. If you're only curious about Charlie Chan, skip to the last 10 or 15 minutes.

According to THE FILMS OF BORIS KARLOFF, by Richard Bojarski, this was released in both sound and silent versions (a common practice during the early years of sound films). It would be interesting to see if the silent version, running at a faster film speed, is less dull.

This 1929 film is included on Charlie Chan Volume 3 as part of the complete history of Chan's character at Fox. For that reason it is good to have it. Viewing it, however, is another matter entirely. It is a great example of a bad early talkie in almost every category except cinematography. Fox used sound-on-film versus vitaphone, thus their early talkies don't have that static claustrophobic quality other 1928 and 1929 talkies have.

However the dialogue in many ways is held over from the silents as is the acting. At one point Warner Baxter is declaring his love to the leading lady by repeating "I love you! I love you! I love you". In the words of Singin' in the Rain, did someone get paid to write this dialogue? The overacting is unbelievable and the speech is tortuously slow.

The point of interest for most of us watching this film, the first appearance of Charlie Chan in a Fox film, doesn't take up much screen time. He appears near the beginning to identify a crucial piece of evidence and for a few minutes during the end. The murderer is identified almost at the beginning of the film and most of the time is taken up by a poorly acted love triangle tale. This is not the first appearance of Warner Oland in the title role, though. That doesn't occur for another two years. This film is only for hardcore Charlie Chan fans the same way that "An Old Spanish Custom" is for Buster Keaton fans.