Watch Behind That Curtain For Free

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Behind That Curtain" is not really a part of the Charlie Chan series (Chan himself appears in a minor role, for maybe 2 minutes), and it's not even a mystery, but if you want to get technical, it's probably a better movie than any of the Monogram Chans, and some of the Fox ones as well! Some aspects are dated, of course, but I was expecting a film full of talk enclosed in rooms, and I got plenty of exotic outdoors footage, camel and horse riding, creative use of sound and foreign music, and a palpable sense of illicit passion in a prolonged will-they-kiss? scene. Lois Moran gives a sympathetic portrayal, and is quite hot to boot! **1/2 out of 4.

Seeing this film was really fascinating because I seriously think it may be the first genuinely bad film ever made. It seemed like there was no such thing as a bad movie when they were this old, but I was proved wrong. I remember first reading about Charlie Chan in Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. He eventually moved his reviews of it to his classic movie guide so I don't have much to go on from what I heard about it. The film is so strange as Charlie Chan doesn't appear until the last 12 minutes. Even then, he only has a few minutes of on screen! I believe this was the first Charlie Chan film made and was certainly a strange one.I have seriously never seen a older movie with a score of lower than 5.5 on the IMDb. I wish this had appeared on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or maybe sometime on the new Rifftrax. I think this is also the longest Charlie Chan movie ever made and it really shows. This film for me was just boring. The acting wasn't good and the characters were pretty unlikeable. The women especially came off as really weak in this film. This is one of the earliest talkies I've seen in my life. I guess we've always had trouble with movies even back then. It's even hard to describe the plot. So little happens, you just don't even care what the story is.There's a murder mystery and someone is getting a divorce and they go to India or something? It was just very dull and uninteresting. Charlie Chan, for what very little screen time he has, is actually pretty good. I guess the film has significance, but it's still very unfulfilling. *1/2 out of ****.

"Behind That Curtain" can be described in one word: agonizing.Some caveats. Historically it is wonderful to see. It is the sound debut of Boris Karloff and of Charlie Chan, who has a very small role in this.Back in 1929, actors were still learning how to handle talkies. It was an awkward time. The camera was stationary, for one thing.The style of acting was different, and so was the style of script."Behind That Curtain" is a good example of flowery, maudlin dialogue ("Do you know what it's like for a man like myself to envision you every night in that other tent? Looking upon the same desert?") and actors over-enunciating - worse than that, speaking slowly with huge pauses. "Did...you...find...any...thing." Also there was a lot of a dramatically stated "Do you mean..." without finishing the sentence -- usually regarding something sexual.In the story, a man hires a detective to investigate his niece Eve's (Lois Moran) fiancé Eric (Philip Strange). Her uncle believes he's only interested in her money. An old friend, John Beetham (Warner Baxter), who is in love with Eve himself, visits during this time. The detective is found dead. Eve and Eric marry anyway and move to India.It turns out uncle was right - Eric is a lazy brute who has moved his mistress/maid into the house and is constantly taking Eve's money. Desperate to get away from him, when John passes through India on an exploration, she begs him to take her along. Separate tents. The police haven't given up on the detective's murder, and they find Beetham to question him, and know that Eve is with him. Eve hides from them and then disappears, winding up in San Francisco. That's where Chan (E.L. Park) comes in.In the second part of the film, Lois Moran's rhythm picks up. Attractive and somewhat androgynous with her short haircut, she is an appealing actress saddled with over-dramatic speeches - I would love to see her in something else. Back then, Warner Baxter was tall and dapper, not the older, somewhat defeated personality of later years. He handles the dialogue pretty well, probably the best of everyone. Karloff plays his manservant and gets the big line "The desert gives and the desert takes away." Just know what you're in for if you decide to watch this. It's interesting to see how acting styles have changed since then, becoming much more subtle now, but also how someone like Baxter could seem more modern, as could Barrymore, Fairbanks Jr., and others.

Man did this movie suck eggs. The dialog delivery is so slowwww and drawwwnnn out that the only way to get through this sleeper is by taking a few naps during scenes. There is no mystery, there are no interesting backdrops, there are no interesting characters, there is no reason to watch this dog. Unless of course you've lived under a rock for 70 years, then this "talkie" will blow your socks off with the novelty of sound in a movie.If this is the kind of movie fare that they find when they dig up movies that "had been lost to posterity", lets hope that others like it stay lost, because this is 90 minutes of your life that you'll never get back.