Watch Charlie Chan on Broadway For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Associate producer: John Stone. Executive producer: Sol M. Wurtzel. Copyright 22 October 1937 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Central: 18 September 1937 (ran one week). U.S. release: 22 October 1937. 6,125 feet. 68 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A gangster's moll is murdered at the Hottentot Club. Charlie suspects foul play.NOTES: Number fifteen of the sixteen pictures made by Warner Oland in the series, and the third of five (four with Oland and one with Toler) directed by Eugene Forde.COMMENT: A lively entry with a great cast that will particularly delight Harold Huber's vast legion of fans. Harold has almost as much dialogue as Charlie himself in this one. In fact, all the players deliver solidly with the one notable exception of the player who is finally unmasked as the killer. Oddly, said player is happily convincing up to that moment but is then totally unable to strike the right murderous attitudes. Fortunately, the rest of the cast line-up more than compensates for this lapse, particularly Louise Henry (a charmingly vivacious catalyst), Joan Woodbury (who performs a torrid dance number with eye-catching dexterity), and the wonderfully perky heroine, Joan Marsh.Director Forde's staging varies from happily out-of-the-box (the cortege of welcoming police cars speeding off to the blaring strains of "Chinatown, My Chinatown"), to the reasonably stylish (Miss Woodbury versus the camera hounds) to the inconspicuously incompetent (a couple of wrong angles here and there that edit none too smoothly).As for the mystery itself, it's not only quite intriguing but fast paced and most lavishly (by "B"-picture standards) presented. Harry Jackson's lustrous photography deserves a special commendation.

Nightclub singer Louise Henry returns to New York as it turns out with Warner Oland and number one son Keye Luke on the same boat. She hung around with a lot of criminal types like Marc Lawrence, Douglas Fowley, and Leon Ames and reputedly kept a diary of events that could mean long stretches in prison if she turns it over to law enforcement. Excellent reason for people wanting to do her harm.In addition to Warner Oland investigating to help Inspector Harold Huber of the NYPD, reporter and photographer Donald Woods and Joan Marsh are trying to scoop each other to please city editor J. Edward Bromberg who has a big interest in this case.I'm kind of divided in terms of my feelings about Charlie Chan On Broadway. On one hand the eventual perpetrator of both Henry and then Lawrence's homicide fits quite logically when you remember the sequence of events. But the casting will throw you off.Oland and Luke do some good work here helping clear up a pair of homicides of some people society won't miss unless you're a fan of Henry's singing.

"Charlie Chan on Broadway" is somewhat of a misnomer, since most of the New York City action takes place far from the bright lights of the theater district, and instead are presented in the setting of the Hottentot Club, a premier night club run by mobster Johnny Burke (Douglas Fowley). The film begins aboard an ocean liner, where we observe Burke's former flame Billie Bronson (Louise Henry) conceal a package in the Chan luggage; it turns out to be a diary containing information on mob rackets, and there are plenty who would pay dearly for it. When Billie turns up dead in the Club, along with her shipboard tail Tom Mitchell (Marc Lawrence), the hunt is on for the killer.Keye Luke is on board again as Number #1 Son Lee, and Harold Huber joins the Chan series as Police Inspector Nelson, quick to jump to conclusions based on partial evidence. It's this somewhat annoying aspect of Huber's character that makes one wonder how he became an inspector in the first place. Quite a few characters are placed at the center of the mystery, including newspaper reporter Speed Patten (Donald Woods), photographer Joan Wendall (Joan Marsh), and New York Bulletin Editor Murdock (J. Edward Bromberg). Of course, Burke is a prime suspect, along with henchman Buzz Moran (Leon Ames), but editor Murdock arouses suspicion when he arrives early for an appointment with the murdered Billie, as his newspaper would have the inside scoop on the diary's secrets.With crafty precision, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) unravels the case based on evidence provided at the Bronson crime scene in mobster Burke's office - a photograph of the murder victim's location with it's effects, and the subsequent discovery of missing elements from the photo. They include a napkin and the key to the Chan hotel room! All of this sleight of hand casts suspicion on the main suspects - both Burke, and his current girlfriend and nightclub dancer Marie Collins (Joan Woodbury), who believes Billie's return from self imposed exile is a threat to her relationship with Burke.The final revelation of the killer's identity is typical of Chan films - reporter Speed Patten is involved in the mob rackets, and his access to the other suspects places him at the center of the action. The diary has enough information to put him and his cronies away for a long time, and ultimately, it does, as the Oriental Detective lays out the missing pieces of the case for the viewer.Warner Oland would go on to portray Charlie Chan only one more time for an adventure in Monte Carlo, before his untimely death shortly after from bronchial pneumonia. His health problems appear to have taken their effect on Oland's performance in this film, in which he appears less animated and jovial than in some of his prior efforts.

Warner Oland, the Swedish-born actor famous for his Asian portrayals and in particular his portrayal of the famous Charlie Chan, gives a fine performance as Chan in this, one of his last screen performances before his untimely death. This time out, Charlie and #1 son, played as affably as ever by Keye Luke, are aboard a ship soon to dock in New York. A woman aboard stows something in #1's luggage and tries getting it later in Chan hotel room. Woman who mess with Charlie like fly that play in spider's web. OK, enough of that. Anyway, you get the usual good stuff you would find in most Chan films: a good mystery(I didn't figure this one out), some nice comedic touches with Chan's sayings and his by-play with his son, solid character acting from the likes of Luke, Donald Woods, Joan Marsh, etc..., and a look back at what New York was like in the late 30's. I enjoyed the film a good deal. It doesn't creak either like some of the earlier Chan films. It has a lively pace throughout.