Sidney Toler

One of the six Charlie Chan pictures Sidney Toler made for Monogram after the series left Fox. When murders pile up around a radio station that is secretly tied to a wartime espionage ring, Chan works the case while his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown stumble through the clues beside him. The film is best remembered for the extended comedy routine between Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter, whose rhyming, never-finished conversations became a signature of the Monogram Chans. Directed by series veteran Phil Rosen, it is a brisk poverty-row mystery that keeps the plot moving and the banter constant. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, directed by Howard Bretherton for Monogram Pictures. When two members of a showgirl troupe vacationing at a Malibu Beach resort are garroted, detective Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case, assisted by his Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Toler was stricken with cancer during filming and was so physically weak he could hardly walk or deliver his lines; he died on February 12, 1947. The film entered the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.

Mystery · Crime