Charlie Chan gives his number three son (Tommy) a bum deal.
I mean, I get that you're upset that he's not (currently) in college at the moment. But that's a pretty harsh way to speak to one of your own kids.
So out of all the films I was expecting to cover on Cat week a Charlie Chan movie was not one of them. But while looking through the list of various cat related movies I came across ''Charlie Chan The Chinese Cat''
I figured it was a great excuse to watch another Charlie Chan movie. With Sidney Toler playing Mr. Chan and Mantan Moreland revising his role as that weird cab driver who's constantly upset about being involved in murder investigations but constantly follows Mr. Chan around even to the point where it becomes inconvenience and even dangerous for him to do.
All of it in this case done for a mere $5 owed to him as a taxi fare because he drove off too quickly before asking for the fare from Mr. Chan. I don't think the destruction of your taxi cab was quite worth it.
Anyways to get back on track this is a Charlie Chan movie that initially focusing on a mysterious murder I'm a wealthy businessman who happens to own the statue of a decorative Chinese cat made by a Chinese Merchant.
But then evolved into this weird investigation revolving around Diamond smuggling and serial killers. One of which happens to be the twin brother of one of the murdered victims.
If that sounds awkward and confusing for you to read, then just imagine how I felt having to watch that.
This film doesn't really know where it wants to go. It doesn't want to focus on any specific character for more than a few minutes and it just wants to get back to pressing on the case. But at the same time it doesn't want to focus on any specific part of the case either. Deciding instead to go on to the next scenario before wrapping up any previous conclusions.
We have fake Chinese jewelry, trap doors and offices, a chess set (that ends up being a major clue), a fun house (where a good chunk of the action takes place). An exploding taxicab, book stores and all sorts of other weird things popping up from time to time all alongside Mr Chan and this other guy making a bet 3 to 10 that Chan can't solve the mystery of a murder case that is now connected to a book which the man betting against Mr. Chan had written. Which happens to outline the entire murder scenario only with the victim's wife being the Killer.
At the end of the movie I was so confused with what was going on that I didn't even know who the murderers were. They show all three of them to us as Charlie Chan and the police have them arrested. But I couldn't tell you which one had done what, which one was connected to which specific murder.
Or even that these people have been in the movie previously.
There's so many weird wacky characters that pop up in this film each with their own awkward Side Story that you kind of lose track of what's going on.
Somehow despite all the B stories, the film is incredibly slow-paced. It just kind of draws itself out as everybody narrates the information instead of showing any way of acquiring it. There's a few fun scenes with Charlie Chan investigating and there's a few fun bits of him bantering with his son. But otherwise there's not a heck of a lot of entertaining interactions with anyone else. There's only so much Mantan Moreland can do with his facial expressions.
I think the film would have been better off if they did focused on one of its weird elements instead of all of them. Give us a larger story revolving around the fun house with all the strange pit traps and comedic setups that could be done.
Or focusing on the smuggling operation with the Chinese knock-off merchandise and the diamond smuggling.
Conclusion: A very slow and sadly not entertaining film. Part of me enjoys it a little simply because I like the Charlie Chan character.
And I like that he stays in a major city and doesn't wander off to some hick part of America too run around in a cave for 20 minutes. But that still doesn't save this particular film from being very mundane.
If you're one of the five people in the world who's interested in Charlie Chan merchandise then I might recommend it to you. Otherwise I'm sure you can find smuggling themed films that are far more entertaining.
Despite all my Melancholy I'm still very happy that I had watch this.
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