Charlie Chan au Musée de cire

Very atmospheric entry in the Chan series with Charlie trying to set the record straight in a case that has been falsely judged. Marc Lawrence gives a standout performance as a murderer set for the death penalty by Chan's testimony but subsequently escapes seeking plastic surgery at the wax museum run by Henry Gordon. The storyline is that Chan is to square off with Berlin detective Dr Otto Von Brom (Michael Visaroff) on a radio broadcast from the museum to reassess this case in which Von Brom pinned the murder on innocent Joe Rocke. Chan accepts the challenge suspecting Gordon of harboring Lawrence at the museum. The cast turns in uniformly good performances. However, the viewer must contend with the irrepressible Sen Yung as Jimmy Chan and his silliness. This is a decent mystery but it is the filming and setting of this movie that makes it a cut above the other Chan films.

This may be the highest ranked Charlie Chan film on this entire website. I feel bad for not being as captured by it as most people do. When you have a movie series with literally dozens of entries, it's easy to see them becoming episodic. It seems like less a movie and more like just a long episode of a TV show. In fact, "Columbo", another detective series actually did have episodes that were this long. That being said, this is still a good movie. I am starting to get more familiar with the characters, especially Charlie Chan's son, Jimmy.

I really do like how they mixed up the formula a bit here. This wasn't really a simple murder mystery. It was interesting to see Charlie find new light shed on an old case. Was there another movie about that? There's so many characters that have distinct roles it's hard to keep up. There's just so much going on with which character was supposed to die, which one was manipulated, and how someone even died. It's not a mystery to the audience as much, but more to the characters. I still like this dynamic and would recommend this. Uh, sorry I couldn't keep up with the plot that well! ***

Dr. Cream's wax museum hosts a weekly "Crime League" radio broadcast: renowned detectives revisit famous unsolved crimes and debate various solutions.

Charlie Chan reluctantly accepts a challenge to appear on the program to discuss the controversial Rock Case—which culminated, he has long been convinced, in the execution of an innocent man. Little does Mr. Chan know that he himself is now being set up….

Sidney Toler is excellent as the master sleuth in this prime Charlie Chan mystery, one of the series' most memorable. It's a mostly serious Chan we see here—unflappable, quick thinking, even gutsy—and Toler appears to inhabit the character effortlessly.

Sen Yung is good as usual as Jimmy Chan—sneaking in, snooping around, making himself invaluable despite his pop's protests.

Marc Lawrence is the escaped murderer out to get Chan for helping convict him; C. Henry Gordon the shady Dr. Cream, wax dummy creator and sometime plastic surgeon; Joan Valerie the museum assistant who doesn't mind gangsters hiding out in the basement but argues that a murder on the site will ruin their whole setup.

The "crime museum" provides a suitably spooky atmosphere, and a convoluted enough plot keeps viewers as well as detectives guessing who is who. Definitely a top notch Chan mystery.

A convicted murderer (Marc Lawrence) escapes and vows revenge on Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler). He receives help from an unscrupulous doctor who lures Charlie to his wax museum for a radio show on criminal cases. I realize that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense but trust me it works out okay. "Number Two Son" Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) is especially high-strung in this one. Chan series vet C. Henry Gordon plays humorously-named villain Dr. Cream. Joan Valerie and Marguerite Chapman provide the pretty. Spooky wax museum backdrop is a plus. This one's got lots of suspects and atmosphere to spare. There are also quite a few implausibilities so be prepared to suspend disbelief more than usual. Still, it's good fun.

Dangerous McBirney, who's just been sentenced to death on the evidence Charlie Chan gave, escapes and heads directly for an old acquaintance, Dr. Cream, once a famous facial surgeon (with his 'best' clients being from the underworld), to get a 'new' face from him; but Dr. Cream has gone into another business now: he's the owner of a wax museum of crime - and exactly from there a radio reporter decides to make a broadcast on the infamous Rocke case, where an innocent man was executed, as Charlie had always pointed out; and of course, he invites Charlie as well as his 'antagonist' Dr. Von Brom, who insists that Rocke was guilty.

Now can you imagine a more appropriate setting for a creepy, mysterious murder mystery with more and more complications coming up and confusing us as well as Charlie (and Jimmy, who as usual finds his way in through some rear window) than a 'Crime Museum', full of dummies portraying murderers with guns and daggers in their hands, jail cells, gallows, executioner's axes and electric chairs...? And the ruthless killers, who are after Charlie because he helped convict McBirney, intend to use the latter in a VERY diabolical way...

There are so many different murder cases intertwined here that in the end we really don't know anymore who's who (especially since there's someone here who can 'change' faces) and who's after whom; and so we all (especially Jimmy...) witness some REALLY frightening scenes in this eerie 'House of Wax' - a movie which provides us with absolutely GREAT crime entertainment, a 'must' for every fan of the genre!