City in Darkness

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.

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'...

In my opinion, this has to be one of the worst Sidney Toler's Charlie Chan's. I say this for two reasons. This first is Charlie seemed to be a minor character in this movie. Somehow, the movie was taken over by Harold Huber's loud and chaotic character, Marcel. Somehow, someone, I suppose the director, Herbert I. Leeds, let him run wild spouting a lot of nonsense in a loud voice. Maybe the first "I see it all now!" was funny, but it was definitely overplayed. This movie could have been so much better if they had just allowed Paris to co-star with Charlie.

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.

With war in Europe looming large, "Charlie" (Sidney Toler) is in Paris to celebrate with some of his colleagues from the previous conflagration when he finds himself embroiled in the mysterious killing of "Petroff" (Douglass Dumbrille). There are few clues, but those that there are seem to centre around the young "Marie" (Lynn Bari) who is constantly having to beg, borrow or maybe even steal money to pay for an all-important passenger to travel to Panama and thence onto the safety of the USA. The deeper he delves, though, the more suspicious the activities of the deceased man start to look, and together with local policeman "Antoine" (Pedro de Cordoba) they roll their sleeves up. I quite enjoyed this, especially the effort from de Cordoba as a French policeman who might make "Insp. Clouseau" look efficient. He also gels well with the meticulous Toler who isn't accompanied by any of his brood for this adventure. There are loads of red herrings and at the end the tiniest bit of prophesying as the dark clouds really were gathering in 1939. The production is all a bit stage bound and basic, but that doesn't really spoil the enjoyment and if you like Toler and his forensic approach to sleuthing coupled with his Confucian profundities, then it's an amiably paced watch.