O Olho de Ouro

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.

Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) agrees to investigate the strange happenings at an Arizona (or is it New Mexico - I really can't be bothered to check) goldmine. Along for the ride are son Tommy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland).

I have seen all of the Sidney Toler and Warner Oland Chan films - most multiple times. But oddly enough, this is my first experience with Roland Winters. I'm not impressed. Maybe it's my personal bias, but he seems all wrong for the role. Instead of the measured, deliberate Chan played by both Toler and Oland, Winters is too quick in both speech and action. And, if it weren't for the yellow-face, I'd swear Winters was trying to pull off some kind of European, maybe Italian, accent. It was all so distracting.

As for the film itself, you know you're in trouble when the credits begin with the words Monogram Pictures and end with the name William Beaudine. That pretty much says all you need to know. Honestly, it's just a bad movie and not really worth dwelling on.

On a positive note, The Golden Eye doesn't feature an overdose of Tommy and Birmingham. Their comedy bits are limited. And thank goodness because as much as I like Moreland, his Birmingham Brown schtick gets old pretty quick.

Finally, there were two things that bothered me while watching The Golden Eye and both are related to Victor Sen Yung. First, why is he named Tommy in this movie? If you've seen any of his previous Chan films, you know he's Jimmy. Second, in 1948, he was 33 years old - way too old to be playing the bumbling son. In fact, he's way too old to be playing Winters' son. Winters would have been 44 when this movie was made - a difference of only 11 years.

3/10.

This is one of the last of the Monogram series of Charlie Chan films. By 1948, the series had been around for many years--since the late 1920s. Through the decades, Warner Oland and Sidney Toler had made a ton of these fun murder mysteries. By the death Toler in 1946, it was obvious that the series had been gasping for life for several years. However, instead of calling a halt to the films, Monogram plodded along with several more Chan films that starred Roland Winters. Now Winters wasn't too bad--after all, with makeup he was able to look like Chan and his delivery was rather Chan-like (though a bit rapid). However, the wit of the Sidney Toler version was noticeably absent. Another problem is that by 1948, the movies just weren't as interesting and were usually written in such a hasty manner that plot holes abounded--and this one looked rather Swiss cheesy at that! I know this to be so because I have seen all of the Fox Charlie Chan films that are in existence and almost all the Monogram ones--the slide is obvious.

Charlie is out west to investigate how a supposedly played out gold mine is suddenly brimming with gold. During the investigation, the man who hired Chan is supposedly hurt and his entire face is wrapped in gauze and doctors won't let anyone in to see him. It's so completely obvious to anyone with half a brain that either this isn't the man or he's being drugged. Oddly, Chan allows this ruse to continue for some time--even though someone's life might be at risk. Even when the nurse/nun who is caring for him reveals she's an idiot and practically knows nothing about medicine, Chan does nothing.

In addition to lots of inaction, the film is brimming with dull and awkward performances. About the only one who comes off reasonably well is Tommy Chan--who oddly was re-named Tommy even though he'd been Jimmy in the earlier films and was still played by the same actor (Victor Sen Yung). Even the usual comic relief from Mantan Moreland seems very subdued in this film. There simply is no energy or life to this film and a few really broad performances sink the film further.

The bottom line is that there isn't much of a mystery and Chan could easily get to the bottom of it. Instead, the amazingly subdued Chan sits back and lets the film go on for some time until the conclusion. Dull and uninspired.

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.