Charlie Chan à Honolulu

Fairly good blend of comedy and mystery. There's been a murder aboard ship in Honolulu and Charlie must leave his clan and expectant daughter-in-law to investigate. Highlight for me is George Zucco doing his mad scientist routine with usual straight face. Here he collects human brains in bottles, and when he grabs Jimmy Chan (Sen Yung) to measure his head, it's funnier than all the other antics combined. Fine cast, including fast-talking Dick Lane, sinister Marc Lawrence, Kewpie-doll Phyllis Brooks, and the much-underrated Claire Dodd with a force to her that's good enough for A-pictures. Also, it's a sprightly Sydney Toler in his first turn as the Chinese detective. For me, the rotund rubber-faced Eddie Collins is a matter of taste, but he does have his moments with the pet lion (likely left over from another production). Anyway, it's a good fast 60 minutes with a well-developed array of suspects and a number of chuckles.

A fun opening scene: a dinner table crowded with Chans of all sizes. Charlie (Sidney Toler) tries briefly to quiet down his offspring and enforce some manners; they listen politely to his proverb and then go right back to grabbing food and yelling.

Lots of family involvement in this Charlie Chan picture, especially in the first half. A Chan daughter is about to deliver a first grandchild, to the excitement of all. Number two son Jimmy (Sen Yung) wants to be a detective and has even made business cards: "I bet I could be the best in the islands," he tells his pop, "with your help." 10-year-old Tommy Chan (the hilarious Layne Tom, Jr.) has the same detecting bug as Jimmy.

With Charlie off at the maternity hospital, a case inevitably develops—it's a murder on a ship just arrived in port. Jimmy and Tommy ill-advisedly start the investigation on their own; soon enough, Jimmy nearly gets himself thrown overboard for impersonating an officer. Of course, Charlie arrives on board just in time to rescue him: "Young squirt merely chip masquerading as block."

Eventually, the picture does settle down into a nice study of several suspects. The great George Zucco is suspicious-looking Dr. Cardigan; Phyllis Brooks is a woman travelling with $300,000 in cash and is the only witness to the murder; Richard Lane and Marc Lawrence are a cop and prisoner on their way home to the States; Claire Dodd is a mysterious female who may be keeping some secrets; and Robert Barrat is the ship's captain who can't wait to get his cargo back out to sea. Eddie Collins is comic relief as a scaredy-cat animal trainer in charge of a lower hold full of zoo animals.

It's a pretty good mystery and throws suspicion back and forth quite well; although I've seen this one before, I couldn't remember who did it and I couldn't guess, either!

While this is the first film in the series for both Sidney Toler and Sen Yung, both seem so familiar in their roles that it's hard to evaluate them as newcomers—apparently that's a good indication that both stepped in and became instantly at home.

More humor than most Chan pictures, but solid all the way around.

Due to the regrettable death of Warner Oland, 20th Century-Fox had to look for a 'new' Charlie Chan to continue its immensely popular series; they found him in Sidney Toler, who was indeed an ideal choice, not only because of his physical appearance (although he had primarily Scottish roots, he had quite an oriental look, and he always claimed that there had been Asians among his ancestors), but also of his acting style that was quite similar to Oland's: he was simply PERFECT at portraying the gentle, polite Chinese with a lot of wisdom, cleverness, and also humor.

Now, since the protagonist had changed, the producers seemed to think it best to change his assistant as well: instead of 'number one son' Lee, it's now 'number two son' Jimmy (Sen Yung, who would make a wonderful team with Toler for many more 'Charlie Chan' adventures) - but, in order not to upset the audience too much, they let Toler's first appearance begin right at his home in Honolulu, among his whole huge family... to which another member is just about to be added; not a child, but a grandchild for Charlie this time! But amid this happy family scene, a police call comes in, calling Charlie to a freighter off the harbor where a murder has been committed - only it's not Charlie who takes the call, but one of his smaller boys, who tells everything to Jimmy, who's most ambitious to become a detective as well, and goes there to impersonate his father, hoping to get his first 'big' case that way... Instead, he and his little brother who followed him secretly are in a pretty bad jam soon; and Charlie, who's been informed of somebody 'impersonating' him, comes to their rescue just in time!

Anyway, Jimmy has done quite a good research job until now - only it's up to his father now to put the pieces of the difficult puzzle together: a man traveling with a bag filled with money which he'd handed over to a pretty young lady who had orders to forward it to an unknown destination was shot; there are five more passengers aboard the freighter: the VERY strange psychiatrist Dr. Cardigan (George Zucco, one of the greatest specialists at this kind of roles), young Judy Hayes who was entrusted the money, mysterious Mrs. Wayne, and a police officer who seems on strangely friendly terms with the murderer he's in charge of and has to turn over to the States' authorities. But that's not all: the cargo room is full with... beasts: lions, elephants, monkeys - and their boozy warden, who has to deliver the whole 'Noah's Ark' load to the zoo!

So there's LOTS of adventure and suspense guaranteed in Sidney Toler's debut as 'Charlie Chan': murders, criminal psychology, hot money, convicts - and on the other side great fun with Jimmy Chan's first attempt to be a detective, the stuttering animal warden who takes 'his' lion for walks and sleeps beside him, but is afraid of ghosts and shadows, the creepy psychiatrist examining everyone with a loony look in his eyes... In short: there ARE some changes in style, but it still remains the same good old 'Charlie Chan' series we all adore!

This has to be the wildest of the Charlie Chan movies I've seen. It was Sidney Toler's first effort in the lead role, replacing Warner Oland, and it featured more comedy than any other Chan film to that point.

In this film, Chan and his number two son Tommy, his number five son Charlie Jr., and others including a doctor who keeps a live brain in his suitcase, all provide laughs. Along the way is a funny-faced lunatic animal keeper and a lion on the loose. They provide a lot of laughs.

As far as suspects go, there is a strange psychiatrist (the one with the portable brain), two pretty women, two ship's captains, a guy disguised as a cop and his suspect. I told you it was wild. It's too difficult to figure out "whodunnit," so you just sit back and enjoy the wild action and humor.

Yeah, it's silly.....but it''s tremendously enjoyable.

Warner Oland had died and Sidney Toler took over the role of Charlie Chan. While Lee is apparently in college, Number Two son, Jimmy, becomes the one aspiring to be a detective. During a rather tiresome beginning involving the birth of a grandchild, there is some banter between father and son and other child. While Charlie is at the hospital with the entire here, one of the boys gets a call about a murder aboard a ship. Jimmy and his stowaway brother end up on the ship, impersonating honorable father. In addition to two woman, a strange man who sleeps with a lion, is a weird character played by George Zucco, who was in many horror films. He has a kind of fish tank where he keeps a brain alive. Anyway, things go from bad to worse. One of the women came aboard with 300,000 dollars. It is soon missing. There are numerous suspects and eventually Charlie gets wind of his son's bumbling activities (not terrible, just not very insightful) and heads for the ship. This isn't a bad transition for the series as Toler picks up pretty well where his predecessor left off. This Chan, at least for now, is a bit harsher.