Charlie Chan sur la piste sanglante

Monogram Charlie Chan film with a plot that is a mix of a generic espionage mystery with murder at a radio station. It seems like maybe they took the plots to a couple of previous B murder mysteries (not even Charlie Chan ones) and combined them. Once again, Charlie gets help from comic relief sidekicks Benson Fong and Mantan Moreland. Fong plays Tommy Chan and he's as boring as ever. Charlie's a jerk to him throughout the movie and I honestly couldn't blame him. Tommy was clearly Charlie's least favorite son.

Mantan Moreland plays Birmingham Brown, who is a little more restrained here than his earlier Chan films. Also appearing a couple of times is Moreland's old vaudeville partner Ben Carter. The two do an amusing bit that was probably from their vaudeville days. It's basically a conversation between the two where neither ever finishes a sentence because the other seems to know automatically what he's going to say. It's funnier on screen than it reads here. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Abbott & Costello's vaudeville routines. I have not been a fan of Mantan Moreland's character in the Charlie Chan series. However, if he had been more like he is in his scenes with Carter, I think I would have liked him more. Instead, he's usually just doing his bug-eyed "I'm afraid of spooks" garbage, complete with lots of double takes and talking to himself.

I also liked seeing pretty Janet Shaw. Something about her I always found appealing. There's an actor character called Horace Karlos, played by Leonard Mudie, who is supposed to be a parody of Boris Karloff. That's fun for fans. Altogether, it's not the greatest Charlie Chan or even a particularly strong one. But it's watchable with some enjoyable parts. Considering this was made during the dreadful Monogram years we should be thankful it isn't worse.

Some Charlie Chan movies by Monogram are just wretched. "The Scarlet Clue", however, is fairly well done. Lighting and camera angles make for a suitably mysterious atmosphere. The whodunit puzzle contains a well defined group of suspects. And the script is humorous, both the dialogue between Chan and his son, and the constant jabber of the wonderful Mantan Moreland.

But the film seems terribly dated. The plot, which involves WWII radar secrets in a radio station, is outmoded, and the scientific "equipment" belongs in a museum. Moreover, production values are almost nonexistent. There are some plot holes; and at the end, Chan never tells us how he deduced the identity of the killer.

Overall, for those who enjoy Charlie Chan movies, "The Scarlet Clue" is one of the better ones to watch. Everyone else will probably find this movie lame.

The Scarlet Clue finds our intrepid oriental detective Charlie Chan now working for the federal government on a spy case. He's trailing a suspect, but when Sidney Toler requests help from the local police, they bungle it and the suspect winds up dead. He certainly now can't help Toler find who's behind the plot to steal radar secrets.

But the roads seem to lead to a local radio station with a whole bunch of suspects from ham actors, to shifty technicians, and an owner who's right out of Rebecca. A few more murders occur before we find out who the master spy is.

Charlie is now breaking in number 3 son Benson Fong and if possible he's a bigger dunce and hence a bigger foil for Charlie's fortune cookie wisdom than before. By now Mantan Moreland as chauffeur Birmingham Brown has joined the series and his stereotypical role is one reason the series doesn't get much air now. But one thing this film does do is feature Ben Carter who worked a nightclub act with Moreland and two of their routines get into the film. They're pretty funny I will say.

What I also found fascinating here is that since this film was made in 1945, made for Monogram and hence made in a matter of days, I'm not sure whether the folks behind the spy ring are Communists or Nazis. It was left vague and I'm certain that was done deliberately.

So you might want to see the film and see if you can figure out who was running the radio spy ring.

The mystery begins as Chan tracks a murderer across country to a radio/tv station. Once on the scene murder murders occur and Charlie, his son and Birmingham Brown almost meet their end in a rather novel way.

This reminds me of the great Frankie Darro/Mantan Moreland film Up in the Air which concerns murder in a radio station. That film moves better than this one in many ways since it never gets side tracked with the sleuthing of Number Three Son. Still this one has some novel twists in the means of murdering someone which keep this a watchable film.

I'm not entirely happy with the denouncement since events not long before it prove that the filmmakers were far from being fair.

Still for all its flaws its an enjoyable movie, especially with Moreland and his night club partner "not" saying anything

6 out of 10.

Famed detective and government agent Charlie Chan is back again for this Monogram film where Charlie is trailing a suspect who may be involved with plans to steal radar equipment/secrets from our government for foreign spies and who has just killed aboard a ship. Chan and detective friend trace suspect back to a radio show and from there on Charlie helps at least three more people get killed with his investigation. This is an interesting Chan vehicle and gives Sidney Toler plenty of screen time to hone his Chan skills. Benson Fong and Mantan Moreland are back once again and lift the mundane to the amusing with their comic routines. Moreland, again, steals his scenes and gives the film a lot of vitality it would otherwise not have. I particularly like a couple of routines he does in the film with a guy he knows and neither one lets the other finish the sentence. The comic timing was first-rate! As for the mystery, it is not too terribly confusing though when the end is told no real explanation as to why and who did crimes is revealed fully. I enjoyed many of the characterizations of the show people. I thought the means of death were very inventive, and I loved the whole thing with the elevator. Very clever.