Watch Charlie Chan in Shanghai For Free

Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Warner Oland (Charlie Chan), Irene Hervey (Diana Woodland), Jon Hall (Philip Nash), Keye Luke (Lee Chan), Russell Hicks (Andrews), Halliwell Hobbes (Colonel Watkins), Frederick Vogeding (Marloff), Max Wagner (taxi-driver henchman), Neil Fitzgerald (Dakin), Gladden James (Forrest, the valet), David Torrence (Sir Stanley Woodland), Guy Usher (president, chamber of commerce), Sun Wong (Moy Ming), Colin Kenny, Jimmy Phillips, Pat Somerset, Phil Tead, Luke Chan, Jack Chefe (reporters), Lynn Bari (2nd hotel switchboard operator), James B. Leong (Shanghai police operator), Harrison Greene, Frank Darien (tourists in café), Charles Haefeli (crook on boat), Russell Hopton, Eddie Hart ("G"-men), Eddie Lee (servant), Torben Meyer (French diplomat), Pat O'Malley (Belden), Harry Strang (chauffeur), Walter Wong, Sammee Tong (waiters), Jehim Wong (rickshaw boy at dock), Charles Stevens (beggar), Francis Pierlot (missionary), Hamilton MacFadden (reporter at stern of launch), Regina Rambeau.Director: JAMES TINLING. Original screenplay: Edward T. Lowe and Gerard Fairlie. Based on characters created by Earl Derr Biggers. Photography: Barney McGill. Film editor: Nick DeMaggio. Art directors: Duncan Cramer and Lewis Creber. Costumes designed by Alberto Luza. Wardrobe master: Sam Benson. Camera operator: Rudolph Maté. Music director: Samuel Kaylin. Stunts: Chick Collins, Bob Rose, Dick Stoney. Assistant director: Aaron Rosenberg. Music recording: Vinton Vernon. Sound recording: Albert Protzman. Western Electric Sound Recording. Associate producer: John Stone. Executive producer: Winfield Sheehan.Copyright 11 October 1935 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. Presented by Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Roxy: 13 October 1935. Australian release: 27 November 1935. 6,300 feet. 70 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Charlie Chan bests an opium ring operating in Shanghai. NOTES: Number twelve of the 48-picture series.COMMENT: Another highly enjoyable excursion for Chan fans. In this one, Warner Oland not only makes with the usual aphorisms, but speaks in Chinese and even sings! Keye Luke makes an engaging number one son. The other players are likewise well served by the script (despite the fact that it's packed with inside jokes): Russell Hicks has the role of his career as a G-man; the heroine is a really attractive little lass; and the hero is most ingratiatingly played by Jon Hall (under his real name, Charles Locher). Director James Tinling takes excellent advantage of some eye- catching sets and production values, keeping the action moving at a smart pace and staging one or two really spectacular stunts. Other technical credits, including Barney McGill's attractively atmospheric black-and-white cinematography, are likewise highly appealing.

Before Charlie Chan was in Shanghai, someone tries to kill Warner Oland on the boat from Hawaii. Even villains can get some unfriendly vibes at times.Charlie Chan In Shanghai, the only time that the famous detective actually was in the land of his ancestors in the film series, finds Warner Oland and Keye Luke going there to help stamp out an opium smuggling ring. They are summoned there by a Scotland Yard Inspector who gets himself shot and killed during a banquet by means of a booby trapped box. The suspect pool was a little thin in this particular movie which doesn't make it quite rise to the level of some of the other Oland and Sidney Toler features from Fox. It was also the last film released under the Fox film banner, henceforth all productions would be under the new reorganized 20th Century Fox.As the villains also seemed to know every move that Oland was making for a while you know they had to have some inside help which also narrows the suspect pool. I think you'll figure it out way before the end.Still Oland is at his inscrutable best in this feature.

Charlie Chan (Oland) and one of his enumerated sons travel to Shanghai to visit the home of their honorable ancestors. They immediately get mixed up in murder and an opium smuggling ring. Warner Oland provides the usual fortune-cookie proverbs -- "Sometimes eyes cannot see nose on own face" -- while Key Luke as the son provides a bit of humor, or tries to.The plot is what can be expected in a 1935 inexpensive mystery. There are a couple of Chinese characters here and there, a picture of a dragon, some rear-projected Shanghai, a trap door, a pistol projecting through a door that's ajar, and mostly bare bones studio sets of Westernized hotel rooms and offices. The opium is the MacGuffin but it's not important. We learn practically nothing about who's doing it or where it's going, except that "beautiful poppy has sting." They could have called it "Charlie Chan Goes to Spitzbergen" and made the move about smuggling lutefisk. Come to think of it, though, I'd rather visit Shanghai today than Spitzbergen. A chat buddy lives in Shanghai. It's probably the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated city in China. There's a KFC on every corner in case you get tired of snakes and turtles.That lutefisk might not have been too far off the mark, as far as that goes. Warner Oland was Swedish himself and is a less than convincing Asian. Key Luke is a much better impersonator of Asians, probably because he was born in China. As far as Chans go, I think I prefer Sidney Toler to either Oland or the awful Roland Winters, who came to the series both last and least. Support in the cast comes from players who aren't bad. Jon Hall as the misunderstood hero is handsome, I guess, and Lynn Bari is somewhere in there too.

The Hawaiian detective, Charlie Chan, visits the homeland of his ancestors along with his son, Lee. Once there, not unexpectedly there is a murder and Chan is called into action to solve the crime. It seems that somehow the Opium trade and the US State Department are pulled into the case and it's up to clever Charlie to solve it. Along the way, you get to see Oland sing a cute little song to a group of kids (a rarity in these films) and his son is there to provide some comic relief, though it's much more subdued and less blundering like it was in later films--and this is indeed a relief. Lee isn't the idiot like many of the later Chan clan!I've long thought that the Charlie Chan films deserve to be remembered far better than they have--particularly the early ones that featured Warner Oland as the brilliant detective. While they clearly were B-movies (lower budget films intended for a double-feature), they were significantly better than nearly all the other detective series films from the same era. Excellent writing and production values compared to the rest of the genre really set them apart. Here, we've got the whole package--Oland in the title role, his best sidekick (#1 son, played by Keye Luke), a very good plot and a less hurried pace than the cheaper series made by Monogram in the 1940s---so it's certainly well worth a look.By the way, in today's world, the Chan films are not exactly welcome in many circles because they are NOT politically correct. This ISN'T because they portray Asians badly--heck, Chan is seen as brilliant and the rest of the Asians in this film are decent folks and not cardboard stereotypes. However, Chan was played in this and the rest of the films of the next couple decades by Westerners in Asian garb. While insensitive, for the era it was made, this was the norm and I hope that viewers can accept this and just watch the films for their own merits.