O Olho de Ouro

A gold defunct gold mine is mysteriously profitable. The owner of the mine thinks he is being targeted and soon to be dispatched. He thinks this is right up Charlie Chan's alley.

Charlie poses as a jade dealer and with help from his standard entourage, must sort out the dastardly doers and find out what it is they are doing. Can he save the mine owner in time or is it curtains? If the mine owner goes is his daughter next?

"Ain't that something? Good gracious of me. That's Mr. Chan allover. When you think it is, it ain't and when you think it ain't, that is just what it is." - Birmingham Brown (Mantan Morland).

I watched it because it was available and also because I had never seen it before. But I don't crave for Charlie Chan series, or maybe the Twentieth Century Fox films, starring Warner Oland, far better than those produced by Monogram Pictures and starring Sidney Toler. I am not a specialist of this movie series, so I won't describe details seperating both productions, but this very one is so lousy, so lame, that the best way to appreciate it would be to make a fun of it. Unlike concerning the Twentieth Century Fox features, made with greaat more care in directing and story telling. If you crave to mystery thriller and involving investigation, so, maybe it is for you.

Charlie Chan heads to Arizona to investigate a gold mine mystery. A typically cheap Monogram movie starring Roland Winters, the worst of all Charlie Chans. Mantan Moreland returns as unfunny comic relief character Birmingham Brown. Victor Sen Yung is back as Tommy Chan. The western locale allows both to dress like cowboys. So it's trying to be like a Bowery Boys comedy or something. Except the Bowery Boys were funny. The once-great Charlie Chan series had fallen pretty far by this time. Winters is absolutely terrible as Chan. Poorly written, directed, and acted -- it's a really a stinker of a movie. The one positive thing I will say about it is that actor Ralph Dunn, who plays the mine superintendent, has a pretty cool head of hair.

The story is set mostly in Arizona near an old gold mine. The owner is being threatened and wants Chan's help. It's a good premise but the story is dull and unconvincing. There are not enough suspects to make the puzzle interesting. The killer here is easier to figure out than in most Chan stories. There was one surprise toward the end but it only contributed to the story's implausibility.

Characters are shallow and generally uninteresting. Way too much time is spent on the drunk who stumbles around the swimming pool. This character isn't really needed anyway and my impression is that he functions mostly as filler; the film contains a lot of filler, despite the short runtime.

Outdoor visuals do not look much like Arizona. The mine-shafts add a spooky quality. But film lighting renders the tunnels too bright to be convincingly subterranean. Overall lighting is generally too dark. Production design is predictably minimal and cheap.

As bug-eyed Birmingham Brown, Mantan Moreland is always a welcome addition to the cast. But Victor Sen Yung doesn't add much as Number Two Son. And Roland Winters is dreadful as Charlie Chan. Winters just doesn't have the Chan persona that Warner Oland or Sidney Toler had.

With minimal mystery and suspense, few suspects, and a dull Charlie Chan actor, "The Golden Eye" is below average for this series. Only hard core Charlie Chan movie fans will find much appeal in this film.

This episode in the Chan series features skimpy sets - not rare in the later Chans - and a weak role for the usually entertaining Mantan Moreland, but some Chan is better than none. Roland Winters does a perfectly serviceable job as Charlie - lacking the warmth of Warner Oland, but also lacking the harshness of Sidney Toler in his father/son interactions. The plot is pedestrian, but the series is about Charlie and assistants, not the stories, so a less than perfect plot is OK. This movie lacks the beautiful women in gowns we often get in Chans, and not much of a love affair, so some of the classic Chan features are missing. By this late time, they were spending very little money on the series, and milking it for the value of the franchise. One can imagine that it was a perfectly good way to spend an hour on a Saturday in post-war America.

I noticed that after crediting Roland Winters and one woman actress, Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Young came next. In spite of the fact that a white man was playing Chan, clearly a black man and a Chinese man came next in popularity with audiences. For some reason, this fact is never credited. The theme of racist America is just to popular to be spoiled by such facts.