Dangerous Money

On board the S.S. Newcastle bound from Honolulu to Samoa, Charlie Chan is approached by a fellow passenger who reveals himself as Scott Pearson of the Treasure Department; he's on a strictly secret mission concerning 'hot' money on the islands, but there have already been two attempts made on his life and so he asks Charlie for help. Charlie suggests that the best place to observe all the other passengers is the lounge, where a party is being held for the crossing of the Equator - but the danger comes from OUTSIDE: through the blinds of a window, a knife shoots right into Pearson's back...

Together with Captain Black, Charlie goes through Pearson's secret papers, where a mysterious 'Lane' is mentioned - but who is he?? More or less EVERYBODY on board seems suspicious in some way: loud-mouthed 'cotton trader' Burke, a Swedish trader called Erickson and his Samoan wife, Rona Simonds who poses as a tourist, but there seems to be something wrong with her papers, and the ship's purser George Brace obviously covers up for her, strange ichthyologist Prof. Martin, Reverend Whipple and his ugly wife...

When they land in Samoa, things become even more complicated: we find out that Burke blackmails Rona, then that he himself also knows things he hasn't admitted - and then more knives come flying through the air... And finally, Charlie's favorite 'number two son' Jimmy and Chattanooga make a GREAT discovery!

A real treat for all fans of complicated crime movies - and a big joy for the fans of the 'Charlie Chan' series: Sen Yung (who'd been serving in the US Airforce Intelligence during the War!) is back again as Jimmy! Not that Benson Fong as 'Tommy', or the other 'members' of Charlie's large family who'd played his assistants in between, hadn't added a great lot of entertainment to the movies they'd played in; but Jimmy is - well, just Jimmy... Fresh and rash and self-confident as always, he and ever-frightened 'Chattanooga' Willie Best make an EXCELLENT duo here to lighten up the murderous plot!

Charlie is on board a cruise ship. While there he is approached by a government agent. He represents the Treasury Department. After confiding to Chan that there have been threats on his life, he is killed. Tommy and Chattanooga are on board as his assistants (I thought he was on vacation, but). There are several plots at work. A young couple is keeping some sort of secret. There is a blowhard who is driving everyone crazy with his invasive behavior. People are being killed with knives that are thrown with amazing accuracy. To complicate things, there is a knife thrower on board. Anyway, it's typical Chan. There is the obligatory scene where the lights are turned off and chaos ensues. The writers really couldn't let go of some obviously tired plot elements.

When a murder takes place on board ship, it's a good thing that Charlie Chan is there to solve it!

It's Sidney Toler's next to last appearance as the detective, and it's a pretty good entry in the Monogram series. Victor Sen Yung is present again as #2 son, Jimmy, and his comic timing with assistant Willie Best. The cast is well filled out, with Dick Elliott, Joseph Crehan, and Gloria Warren. Toler is looking tired, and the movie is directed to have him move as little as possible. He was suffering from the cancer that would eventually kill him. Longtime cast member Mantan Moreland told him he should be in the hospital, but Toler worked on; "Manny, if I go, all these people are out of a job."

And so he soldiered on. It's good that this one is a better mystery, and the cast was up to higher standards.

Ocean-going steamships and trains make great settings for 1940s mysteries. Charlie didn't have any adventures in a train, but this is the second on a ship--the third if you count the docked sailing ship in one of his outings. Toler is outstanding as always, in one of the greatest ongoing screen characterizations of an ideal film detective: clever, humane, with a sense of humor and of justice. It's his ability to make Chan so very likeable which really elevates these films, putting them, on the whole, on about the same level as the great Universal Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. And Toler never had the support of a truly first-rate, all-pro actor, as Rathbone had in Bruce. This movie is pure fun. Lots of action. The humor is sometimes very corny, but that's part of the charm. Highly recommended!

Storywise, this is yet another disposable Chan story, industrialized movie-making.

There are two things of interest here.

One is how the needs of the Chan franchise ferret out peculiar corners of the American national story. In this case the US was well into the beginning of administering regions in the Pacific. This gave opportunities for new kinds of crime and the novelty of the crime was one of the attractions of the series at this point. So we have the smuggling of colonial currency, an esoteric illegality — and the use of new weapon, a "knifethrowing" pistol.

Ho hum. I suppose that will be interesting to historians. But for students of film there's a lesson here too. What do you do if your story depends on matters of race and you want to exploit that but also want to bury it? You fold it into other narrative elements of race.

For those who don't know the franchise, it was very long and successful. It stars a white guy pretending to be a Chinese master detective, the acting mostly through a halting English and a few phrases like: "a hasty man can drink tea with a fork." Incidentally, this fits in an odd place in the detective genre because we never really see any detecting, any real wisdom. The only thing we see is him setting traps with the trap revealing the hidden crook. He never figures it out directly.

Back to race. Chan's race is hidden twice. First, we have one of his sons as "assistant," a comic, bumbling idiot. This truly is racist and deliberately so. The contrast between the son (played by a real Asian) and his lack of insight and his father is amplified by the physical appearance and the obvious appearance.

And this is further folded or shadowed (an appropriate term) by the black guy. He is placed as far from the son in all dimensions as the son is from the father. He is that much more comic, and independently clueless, and also independently "ethnic." Its a vile notion to exploit by today's standards, but the method of shadowed folding is clear.

Its a device used in literature, but much more common in film because you can link so many more qualities in parallel, here all aligned to "detection" qualities. That Africanamerican's name is Chattanooga, derived probably from Jack Benny's "man" Rochester.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.