Oh boy. It must truly be Christmas time. For we have yet again another wonderful Charlie Chan movie. This one taking place on the island of Hawaii at what is now the famous Pink Palace Hotel. I think it has a better name than that but I'll be damned if I'm going to look the thing up.
So I usually watch Charlie Chan movies for a combination of lighthearted detective stories mixed in with overly silly acting from whoever plays Charlie Chan.
In most cases it's Warner Oland who does a phenomenal job of capturing that strange mannerisms of Charlie and giving him that kind of poetic English to which he speaks with all the time.
However this film that actually has a decent plot.
There's an investigative murder revolving around this Hollywood actress and there's a whole slew of upper class people who are all considered culprits.
And of course is Charlie Chan's job is to root out the enmaterial or unsuspecting people so he may discover the true root of the problem.
Which becomes all the more problematic as certain people want to either leave the island or cover up the murder for their own dastardly Deeds.
There's all kinds of weird stuff going on here.
There's a guy who pretends to be a psychic who purposely misleads the woman into not marrying this guy that she was kind of interested in, the guy himself has his own nefarious plot and there's even a secondary element involving a starving artist, a diplomat to France and maybe just the household maid.
Honestly it gives you a whole slew of culprits and they're all pretty fun to watch. Especially because none of them take Charlie Tran seriously cuz they're a bunch of no good jerks.
Although I think the bigger issue is that he's not upper-class and therefore unimportant in their eyes. Which makes it all the more fun when Chan and his amusing assistant detain these people and keep them against their will because of an investigation.
It's kind of weird watching A Charlie Chan plot where the actual murder investigation is the point of the movie.
A lot of the times with these stories they add in some secondary elements such as a killer on the loose trying to kill Charlie or some sort of ridiculous Side Story to try and outshine the actual murder. A bunch of pointless drama to confuse the audience but hear there's none of that. There's a drama to be sure but it's all part of the actual case and you see where most of it ends up long before the murders even discovered.
And if nothing else the interaction between blank and Bela Lugosi is more than adequate reason to watch. They both play these semi over-the-top characters with semi fake accents and it just makes for a lot of fun. Especially if they keep trying to add up that Bela Lugosi is in fact the murderer but it most likely is based on someone else.
And if nothing else the interaction between Warner Oland and Bela Lugosi is more than adequate reason to watch. They both play these semi over-the-top characters with fake accents and it just makes for a lot of fun.
Especially if they keep trying to add up that Bela Lugosi is in fact the murderer but it most likely is based on someone else.
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