SUNDAY's MYSTERY MATINEE: The RETURN OF CHARLIE CHAN!!!

After a hiatus of almost a year, I thought I would revisit my passion for Mystery/Detective movies in general, and Sherlock Holmes & CHARLIE CHAN in particular. We continue with Honorable Detetive!

CHARLIE CHAN AT MONTE CARLO: 1937, Fox, b&w, USA, English, 71 minutes. Starring: WARNER OLAND, KEYE LUKE, Virginia Field, Sidney Blackmer, Harold Huber, Kay Linaker, Robert Kent, George Lynn, Edward Raquello. Directed by Eugene Forde.

This is not the best of the Oland Chan pics... but certainly IS one of the most fun and eye-appealing. The opening scene in the gaming room of a Casino located in Monte Carlo is oh so stylish and suave. There may be no James Bond or Cary Grant characters, but let me say that Sidney Blackmer and Edward Raquello in their white tie tuxedos, accompanied by the beautiful Virginia Field in her sparkly evening gown is one of the most evocative and cool CASINO scenes I've seen in a long time. Everybody smoking cigarettes, roulettes wheel spinning, cards being dealt out, bets being made, insults being traded, the whole set-up of our competing co-stars is marvelously stylish and urbane. The movie starts out with so much pregnant atmosphere you can "cut it with a knife."

The acting is typically good, in that stock-company, contract-actor, 1930's kind of way. Virginia Field gives a a believable performance as the femme fatale/gold-digger and bit-actor George Lynn is fun as the tough-talking barkeep Al Rogers. But I particularly liked Edward Raquello's turn at the debonair, vaguely Southern European (Hungarian-tinged?) man of mystery/wealthy gamer. I would have loved to have seen Raquello playing Count Dracula, as he has the magnetic charm (and even looks a bit like) of a young Bela Lugosi. His foil is Sidney Blackmer playing a hard-nosed financier millionaire.

And as good as Oland (as Chan) and Keye Luke (as #1 Son, Lee Chan) are, and they ARE, the movie is completely stolen and dominated by the over-the-top scene chewing (but totally delightful and engaging) HAROLD HUBER. Huber plays the local law-man Chief of Police Jules Etienne Joubert! That's Huber in the picture (above) wearing his full dress police uniform and talking on the phone.

The movie has that delightful 1930's convoluted plot with too many characters and way too much information ALL PUT FORWARD and introduced too quickly in the movie's first 10 minutes or so.

Since there really isn't anything about this movie that I didn't thoroughly enjoy (except that Oland didn't have quite as many lines and activities) let me simply give you some "bullets" that make this a keeper in the mystery movie genre pantheon.

* While there are a couple of murders, it's actually an interesting crime that centers around blackmail, and the theft of a million dollars worth of metalurgic bonds. The various crimes are all neatly (and logically) tied back to their source (the killer and his nemesis) at the movie's conclusion. I like a film that has no red herrings and no deus ex machina. This was a solid detective script that hangs together with internal logic and cosistency.

* While the wonderful Keye Luke (above - about to be lynched by an angry mob who thinks he's a window-peeper) who also doesn't have as much to do in this cast-heavy movie, is bit more restrained, he does have several funny bits that show what a marvelous comedic actor and physical stuntman he really was. His mangling of the French language is very funny, and his spying scene outside of Edward Raquello's hotel room is classic Luke physicality.

* Every scene with the motor vehicles, and especially the taxi cabs of "Monte Carlo" are delightful. I never realized how much those open fronted (no roof over the driver & the front seat) automobile cabs resembled the carriage-horse drawn-cabs that Holmes and Watson rode around London in. And there is one really funny bit with Oland and Luke getting stranded when their cab breaks down. The sequence is made all the more funny by the great interplay between Huber, and taxi-hack Louis Mercier.

* Oland does his patented "grab the finger tips of his left hand with his right hand finger tips" schtick. Well, that makes me happy and reassures me all is well in Chandom!

* Virginia Field is really "easy on the eyes" (see her below with her apparent love-interest played by Robert Kent. I really think she should have been an even bigger star; though she does receive second billing.

And of course there are the usual CHAN-isms that we all love, to-wit:

"humble presence (Chan's)... of no more importance than one drop of rain in cloud-burst."

"Illustrious ancestor once say- 'destination never reached by turning back on same."

"Fortunately, assassination of French language not serious crime."

"Tongue often hang man quicker than rope."

"Question are key to door of truth."

"Car with new spark plug like flea on puppy-dog: make both most active."

See this movie: you've got OLAND and Luke doing a good reprise of their great Father-Son chemistry. Though it is sad to note that this is the FINAL Chan movie that Oland appeared in. His health was not all that good when this movie was being made. There is a fascinating (and actually very sad & poignant) EXTRA feature on Warner Oland's life which appears on the DVD.

And you've got one of the best scene-stealing, histrionic, fake-accented performances in the 1930's by HAROLD HUBER. Huber truly looks like he is having the "time of his life" in this role.

MONDO FUN.... a good pre-Halloween Autumn flick.