It is obvious that as the Charlie Chan series moved from 20th Century Fox over to Monogram that quality diminished a great deal both in the technical and in the actual storyline content. It is obvious that the screenwriters were putting in many twists and turns into the short running times of these programmers because it is not always easy to remember who is involved in what scheme and who was there or not around when the murder took place.
The actual murder here is quite chilling, almost like an old-dark house theme as it is set up, but the list of suspects are entirely all too stereotypical, with the acting not up to par as previous entries in the series. Chan has gone onto #4 son (Edwin Luke) as his sidekick here, more intellectual here and less of a "Gee pop" All American guy who happens to be of Chinese descent. Mantan Moreland gets his usual number of malapropisms and cowardly desires to flee from danger, some funny, some not. It appears here that Monogram simply left one of its Z-grade horror movie sets up so they could rush through another Chan film to collect some easy profits. Such a shame they didn't spend more time on the script.
The actual murder here is quite chilling, almost like an old-dark house theme as it is set up, but the list of suspects are entirely all too stereotypical, with the acting not up to par as previous entries in the series. Chan has gone onto #4 son (Edwin Luke) as his sidekick here, more intellectual here and less of a "Gee pop" All American guy who happens to be of Chinese descent. Mantan Moreland gets his usual number of malapropisms and cowardly desires to flee from danger, some funny, some not. It appears here that Monogram simply left one of its Z-grade horror movie sets up so they could rush through another Chan film to collect some easy profits. Such a shame they didn't spend more time on the script.