The Feathered Serpent

Here, Charlie and crew (Mantan Moreland; Keye Luke & Sen Yung), are on vacation in Mexico. They stumble upon a man, who is in terrible condition, walking in a nearby field. Charlie takes him into his auto and heads quickly to the nearest city for help. The man is delirious so Chan can get little information out of him other than the fact he was held prisoner and he was on an expedition hunting for a lost Aztec treasure.

Chan arrives in a nearby city and soon meets members of an expedition who are also hunting for this lost treasure. In fact the sick man is a member of their group. The ailing man and another archaeologist went missing during their search. Before the ill man can explain what happened he is murdered.

Charlie and company join the expedition with the purpose of finding the missing archaeologist and perhaps the lost treasure. Much is made out of the fact that this film features the return of Charlie's son Lee (Keye Luke) and the only teaming of Charlie's Number One and Number Two sons. It's interesting but the screenwriters don't pull off the union effectively. Lee is much more domineering here than he ever was in the Fox films. So it is a bit of a miss, but still of interest to a long time Chan fan.

Lastly, I'll comment on the other reviews who need to call the Monogram Winter's films garbage. Yes, they don't have the skilled writers of the Fox series. Yes, the production values don't match Fox, and the plots can be a little oddball. But these are solid little mysteries and quite good compared with other independent studios.

As most of you probably know, throughout the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films at Fox, his sidekick was "Number One Son" Lee, played by Keye Luke. Lee was the best of all the Chan children and sidekicks. He was charming and funny but you could also take him seriously as a potential detective, unlike son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung), who was pretty much always played for laughs. After Oland died, Luke left the series and returned here many years later. But the Charlie Chan series was in the sewer by this time. The series was at Monogram and on its last legs with the worst of all Charlie Chans, Roland Winters, as the star. Since Monogram's answer to every problem with the Charlie Chan series was to add more sidekicks, that's exactly what they do here. Welcome back, Lee Chan.

The plot sees Charlie and his sons Lee and Tommy investigating a kidnapping in Mexico. There's also some stuff about an Aztec treasure but that never goes anywhere interesting. This is the penultimate Charlie Chan film at Monogram. It's crap, of course, as all of the Winters Chans were. It seems likely to me they took some sort of jungle adventure script and shoehorned Chan into it to make it a mystery. Still, it's probably the best of the Winters Chan films because of the return of Keye Luke as well as seeing him team up with Victor Sen Yung as the erroneously-named Tommy. Unfortunately, there's also Roland Winters and Mantan Moreland. You take the good, you take the bad I guess.

In a Mexican village, a team of Americans plan a trip into the mountains to search for an ancient treasure and two missing scientists. Charlie Chan stumbles into the case and joins their expedition, along with his number one and number two sons and chauffeur. Soon they are all tenting it, spying on each other and sneaking in and out of camp.

Bob Livingston is part of the search party but we soon discover that he actually heads a gang that's after the treasure. They have kidnapped the missing professor and are holding him in a secret temple whose hidden door swings open when you step on a certain big rock.

Roland Winters does okay in a fairly active role as the great detective. Keye Luke is a rather mature and serious Lee Chan. Victor Sen Young and Mantan Moreland, as Tommy Chan and chauffeur Birmingham Brown, are teamed up as usual to handle the comic relief. No explanation is offered for Keye Luke's surprising return to the series; we can only note that at the beginning of the picture the Chans are setting out on a family vacation, and guess that Lee must have been invited.

The plot is a little different from most in this series--we know who the villain is from early on. The production, of course, is cheap and the dialog seems hastily hashed out, although Mr. Chan does offer one or two of his wise sayings. ("Very difficult to estimate depth of well by size of bucket.") Overall it's really not very good...but enjoyable enough for fans.

Note: a fun double feature would be this picture preceded by 1937's Riders of the Whistling Skull. Not only is this Chan picture is a remake of that Three Mesquiteers western, but the earlier movie also featured Bob Livingston--as one of the good guys, in that case.

Yes, strangely, this Monogram productions movie concerning the Chinese detective is far better than a Twentieth Century Fox film, starring Warner Oland. I did not know at all this one, where adventure and action is more important than pure mystery. That suits me well, actually. It is more exciting and a total surprise for the audience, used to closed in mysteries. I should have seen this film earlier, that would have made me searching more Charlie Chan's stuff. William Beaudine is the director, not Bruce Humberstone or Eugene Forde, the Twentieth Century Fox home directors. Worth watching, if you have to see onlly an handful of Charlie Chan adventures.

"The Feathered Serpent" is the only Charlie Chan film featuring both Keye Luke and Victor Sen Yung together as Charlie's sons. Charlie here is portrayed by Roland Winters. He does a very good job, but I prefer Warner Oland in the role. He was also so warm and cheerful. Toler was very good, but more sardonic and sarcastic.

In this film, Charlie and two of his sons are asked to investigate a gang who has kidnapped an archaeologist to force him to search for a treasure in Mexico.

Mantan Moreland plays Charlie's chauffeur, Birmingham. I know his characterization is not politically correct today, but what a funny and talented man he was. I always enjoy him in these films.

By this time, Charlie Chan films were being made at a poverty role studio. As offensive as they are today, I take them for what they were and like them. We cannot view everything from today's viewpoints.