Dans la cité obscurcie

The "City in Darkness" is Paris, where Charlie Chan and a group of colleagues from the last Great War are gathered for a reunion on the eve of the next one. As the picture opens, a newsreel-style sequence presents a fascinating and frightening summary of European events of 1938—as they appeared from the vantage point of early 1939.

In this setting, with war imminent and preparations mounting, the nighttime blackout in effect occasionally helps the story along—such as the scene in which Mr. Chan, captured and tied up in a shop's back room, manages to surreptitiously switch on an outside light, knowing the police will come and pound on the shop door and thus rescue him.

The plot itself concerns the murder of a shady character named Petroff—and the usual number of suspects who may have had reasons (personal or political) for doing away with him. There's a shop owner (Leo G. Carroll) who makes and sells fake passports on the side; a young couple (Richard Clarke and Lynn Bari) trying to catch the last boat for America for six days; a "business associate" (Noel Madison) of Petroff's who slides in and out of the picture; and butler and patriot Antoine (Pedro de Cordoba).

C. Henry Gordon is a natural as the prefect of police, the old friend Chan has come to visit. Sidney Toler is solid if rather subdued as Mr. Chan. Instead of assistance from number two son, however, this time around Chan has to deal with…

Harold Huber as a bumbling inspector who hopes to solve this case to impress the prefect. His accent is thick, his gestures are exaggerated, and whenever he is on screen he interrupts loudly, whoever else may be speaking. It's a comic role—but, for my taste at least, it's a bit too much. I'm all for broad humor but in this case it only partially works and it distracts from an otherwise rather serious movie.

It's certainly an interesting setting…but overall I'm not sure they didn't concentrate too much on the picture's timeliness and neglect to polish the dialog and plot.

By his fourth film in the series, Sidney Toler had settled into the Charlie Chan role quite nicely. In many ways, this is a fascinating film to watch because of its historical value--as it talks about the events leading up to WWII as well as the assumption that the Munich Agreement would avert war. As a history teacher, this is great stuff--a real insight into Europe on the eve of war.

However, despite the interesting backdrop of Paris as it prepares for war, the film ultimately is destroyed by one man--Harold Huber. This was Huber's third Chan film--having played a French inspector in Monte Carlo as well as a New York inspector. The problem in this film wasn't his accent (here and in the previous film, Huber was fine with his fake French accent), but how incredibly obnoxious and stupid his character was. This film did not feature a Chan child but most of the blundering was done by Huber. This might have worked had they not made Huber five times stupider than any of the Chan children. Plus, Huber came on so strong and was so dominant in the film that you really wanted him to die, as he completely over-shadowed Toler. Because of this, this might just be the worst Chan film that Fox Studios made. Watchable but annoying.

Although not the best of the Charlie Chan series, this is a cut above the later Sidney Toler Chan films. However, what really makes it worth seeing is that the story takes place during the 1938 Munich Crisis (September 1938), yet was produced before WW-II began (September 1939). The setting is Paris, which is blacked out due to the threat of war, and while the French armed forces are busy mobilizing. The city-wide blackout explains the title, as "The City of Light" had been transformed into a "City in Darkness".

There are plenty of lame gags involving the distribution of gas masks, and people panicking due to false air raid alarms. Within a few months of this film's production none of those things would be laughing matters anymore. In fact, although produced prior to the outbreak of WW-II, the movie was not actually released until December 1939, by which time the war had actually begun.

In a sense, therefore, "City in Darkness" represents a significant moment in history that, one might say, has been preserved in a drop of amber. It was the moment when one world crisis was averted, leading to the preservation of world peace for a last few happy months before the final unleashing of Armageddon. For that alone, if for no other reason, "City in Darkness" is still worth a look.

Even after watching it a couple of times, this - admittedly unique - entry in the 'Charlie Chan' series still looks like a somewhat strange and a little bit inappropriate mixture of a 'usual' murder mystery and an early WWII flag waver. It starts like a Newsreel about the dramatical political developments in Europe; and it is announced that on September 28, the whole city of Paris has to remain in darkness because of the possibility of a German air strike.

The next thing we see is a reunion party of secret agents from WWI, to which M. Romaine, the Prefect of Police, has invited his old friend Charlie Chan; and they drink a toast to peace, hoping there'll not be another war soon...

But at the same time, there is a spy ring of an enemy country in full activity: Charlotte Ronnell arranges with sinister Belescu that a cargo full of French weapons manufactured by another enemy spy, Petroff, will sail out the same night to get into the enemy's hands before an embargo will be imposed; but Belescu tricks them, and they're left without the necessary papers. And in another part of Paris, Petroff's innocent former secretary Tony Madero wants to flee the country in order not to be accused as a member of the spy ring, and his wife Marie promises him to get him a ticket and a false passport from shady M. Santelle - but she's got to raise a lot of money, and her only hope is Petroff...

... And a few hours later, Petroff is found shot, discovered by his butler Antoine, a veteran from WWI who has just sent his young son to the army; and so, while the soldiers are leaving for a possible war, Charlie and his friend's godson, dopey inspector Marcel (played once more by Harold Huber, who specialized in playing nervous, clumsy Frenchmen) investigate the Petroff murder, looking for clues like a camellia lying next to the body, a smashed window in the cellar, and so on...

Somehow, this mixture doesn't work properly - solving a murder case (even if it's connected to a dangerous spy ring) amid the atmosphere of a city preparing for war is simply somehow like losing one's sense of proportion... And when the case is solved, the film takes us back to politics: Romaine proclaims happily that there will be NO war, because Hitler has just invited the French and British Premiers to a conference in Munich! BUT since the film was released in December 1939, the further developments were already known by that time; and so Charlie Chan can utter one of his wise 'foretellings': 'Beware of spider who invites fly into parlor'...

Always loved Charlie Chan movies, especially with Sidney Toler. He was the first CC I ever saw, as they were always on TV in the 50's. As I got older I appreciated Warner Oland, but Sidney was first. I also realized that the CC films with Oland were better than the later ones.

"City In Darkness", however, was a disappointment, and, as several reviewers mentioned, Harold Huber spoiled the whole show for me. He chewed the scenery and was a grating presence whenever he was on screen. He had a pretty big part, so you couldn't get away from his outrageous overacting and using a poor imitation of a French accent. That, and the final scene was confusing - you had to remember when all the suspects were in the room with the murdered man, which was supposed to be before (or after?) midnight. Too bad, but with a long-lived series like CC's they were bound to come up with a clinker.