Il drago volante

Roland Winters is Charlie Chan in "The Sky Dragon" from 1949.

Chan and his son Lee board a plane to go to San Francisco. Lee is very excited, as he's been taking flying lessons from the pilot. If Lee looks a little older here, it's because he's 45, and his father is the same age.

Coffee is passed around, and Lee spills his coffee on his dad. The coffee was drugged; so fortunately, Lee doesn't get much. He finds the detective hired to guard $250,000 that was on board plane dead, the pilots drugged, and the money gone.

Charlie figures the money was thrown out of the plane via parachute. And there are a lot of suspects - like everyone. The hostesses, played by Noel Neill (of Superman fame) and Elena Verdugo (of Marcus Welby fame) are suspects, as are the pilot (Milburn Stone of Gunsmoke), the copilot (Joel Marston), a burlesque queen (Iris Adrian) and her brother-in-law (Lyle Talbot), and a Mayor (Paul Maxey of The People's Choice). A baby-boomer movie for sure.

This was the last Chan film, with Winters a rather staid, formal Charlie spouting his words of wisdom. "Innocent act without thinking, guilty always make plans." Humor is added by Mantan Moreland as Birmingham, who aids Lee in an investigation, breaking into the burlesque house.

Enjoyable with some interesting camera work - everyone in the plane turning and facing the camera while Charlie is talking.

Though it's seen as un-pc today, this was a fun series.

Charlie Chan and number one son Lee doze on a plane trip. Lee wakes up and discovers that the passengers and crew are all out cold. Everyone has been drugged (except for him and his pop, who didn't drink their coffee). A dead body is lying up near the cockpit and a large packet of cash has vanished.

The Chans investigate, of course, and suspects include a pilot and his stewardess girlfriend, a pair of suspicious-looking passengers who appear to be stalking a different stewardess, and a security guard in charge of transporting the now missing money. Back on the ground, the action flows from a nightclub to the Chan home and finally back to the airplane, where Mr. Chan gets everybody back on board to explain his deductions and draw out the killer....

Roland Winters and Keye Luke are just fine as the Chan father-son team. Unfortunately the script doesn't offer them much in the way of clever dialog, but they dutifully investigate the case and manage to keep it fairly lively. Mantan Moreland offers support as chauffeur Birmingham Brown. Tim Ryan as a detective and Milburn Stone as the airline pilot are among the other vaguely familiar faces in the cast.

It's not particularly exciting or surprising but at least the plot makes sense. So it's no classic--but heck, it is kind of fun.

The Charlie Chan series ended with The Sky Dragon in which murder and a robbery are committed in a passenger airline while in flight. The ultimate of locked room homicides. Unfortunately for the ones who did this caper they had Charlie Chan and son Lee on board. After that they hadn't a chance.

Roland Winters and Keye Luke bring in Tim Ryan of the SFPD who is more than happy to assist the local authorities. Pilot Milburn Stone and co-pilot Joel Marston and hostesses Noel Neill and Elena Verdugo are also suspects. Gracing the cast as she always does is Iris Adrian playing a burlesque queen who was a passenger. She's traveling with brother-in-law Lyle Talbot on a mission of her own.

The guilty party is one who is rather quick on the trigger. In that it's easy to figure out who it is. How the robbery was done was a bit more clever and it involves an accomplice or two.

Keye Luke who was number one son while Warner Oland was Charlie Chan returns for the final film. I had the pleasure of seeing Keye Luke on Broadway in the original cast of Flower Drum Song, my first Broadway show. Ironically he played a traditional Chinese father in that show.

If they had only put a real surprise in the ending this would rate a notch or two higher. As it is The Sky Dragon is a fine film to conclude the series.

The last Chan film made by Monogram and Roland Winters is a sad final bow for the great detective and great film series. The supporting cast is good for a Monogram picture. The best thing about it is that Keye Luke is back as Lee Chan. Great title. Poor picture! Sorry Charlie!

The Charlie Chan series at Monogram comes to an end with this picture. The plot sees Charlie (Roland Winters) and "Number One Son" Lee (Keye Luke) on an airplane where all the passengers are drugged. While they're out, a man is murdered and a quarter-million dollars stolen. Also appearing in this one is bug-eyed comic sidekick Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). The rest of the cast includes Milburn Stone (Doc from Gunsmoke), Noel Neill (Lois Lane from Adventures of Superman), and Lyle Talbot (movie star extraordinaire). Winters is weak as usual but the plot is surprisingly fresh for Monogram. Keye Luke is fun and the supporting cast is decent. It's ironic that the Winters series ended after its two strongest films. But it was a case of too little too late, I think.