Charlie Chan in The Chinese Cat

Monogram's Charlie Chan films tended to suffer towards the end by lack of caring. The plots ended up confused and messy aimed more at Birmingham Brown and the Chan son of the film being silly while Charlie said wise things. Here, thankfully, the film is blessed with a decent mystery, different sets than most of the others, and several good supporting performances, in particular by the always wonderful, and sadly not well known John Davidson.

Here we have the death of a chess expert and assorted other goings on that make this one of the better later Chan films. I don't want to say too much since the joy here is in the watching, and this film is certainly worth watching.

7 out of 10

Sidney Toler again reprises most honorable interpretation of Charlie Chan. This time Chan is helping a former police detective(now just a cop) and a beautiful woman out to clear her mother's name in the murder case of her step-father many months ago. It seems he was murdered in his study grasping a bishop from a chess set in the shadow of an ebony Chinese cat statue. Well, this film has a neat and tidy mystery - not too terribly clever or hard to grasp - but highly enjoyable nonetheless. Toler does his best in bringing charm and grace to the role of Chan with always a generous dose of subtle humour. Toler perhaps has too many clichés to throw out, but most of them in this film are amusing and some even telling. Benson Fong is back as #3 son. He and Toler have good chemistry, but he is even better when paired with cab driver/later to be chauffeur Birmingham Brown(played by a great, sometimes forgotten Mantan Moreland). Moreland is just wonderful in his portrayal of a witty, sometimes very blunt/direct working man playing against the characters of Chan and #3 son. Add to this that Moreland is just plain funny. He had me in stitches more than once in this film and every one of his scenes is a real hoot. All the acting is solid if not dazzling in any way. Ian Keith does a particularly solid job as a naysayer to Chan's gift of detection and John Davidson has a good time playing some weird twins Carl and Kurt. While not one of the best Chan films, Charlie Chan in The Chinese Cat is a very entertaining entry.

Tommy Chan, Number Three Son, promises a young woman that her stepfather's killer will be apprehended by his father. The police have listed it as an unsolved crime and there seems little hope. We, of course, know better. Once again, Mantan Moreland, who is a cab driver in this one, assists out of fear for his safety. There seems to be something going on with Chinese cat statues and diamonds. A police detective, sort of a Neanderthal, who really knows nothing, has been demoted. He fell in love with the young woman in question and was seen as a liability. Actually, it turns out that he is. He knows nothing and contributes nothing to the solution. Charlie also gets into it with a mystery writing who thinks he can outdo the great Asian detective. Maybe a little too much funny stuff and some really stupid criminals. Kind of par for the course.

Son Tommy replaces his brother Jimmy, and for the better. Jimmy's bug-eyed, constantly interrupting persona was somewhat over the top, and Benson Fong's Tommy plays the role of sidekick just straight enough to take the cringe out of the character. Much of the comic relief is transferred to Mantan Moreland's Birmingham Brown, and Moreland was the man to carry it off. Unlike most of the Chan comic relief characters, Birmingham's antics are generally set apart from Charlie's detective work, and don't interfere so much with the unfolding of the mystery. And Moreland himself was just a better actor than the Chan sons or the various other characters who played the role.

The fun house is a classic crime setting, and its use here - though done on the cheap - fits right in to the series. The plot doesn't play out like many Chan movies - a good guy isn't revealed to be a bad guy, As a result, the end is less a reveal than a long action/danger scene. Nice change-up from the usual Chan. And while many prefer Warner Oland, Sidney Toler is Chan to me in this episode - one step ahead, as always.

These Sidney Toler "Monogram" Chan films, the last in the series, don't measure up to Warner Oland's earlier efforts but they are still very entertaining to me. Even with Mantan Moreland, who probably offends the sensibilities of a lot of people with his scared black-man routine. I can see where that's offensive, but if you just take him as a comedian and let it go, you can enjoy and even laugh with him.

The only thing I did NOT find funny in here, but I normally do, is Charlie's insults to his kid. In this film, Tolder insults "Number Three Son" (Benson Fong) so many times that it borders on downright mean-spiritedness.

Anyway, it was still a "decent" combination of mystery and comedy and the ending was cool, with Chan and his assistants chasing the bad guys around a "fun house." All the Charlie Chan movies are entertaining.