Watch Charlie Chan in The Chinese Cat For Free

Sadly Over-hyped

i must have seen a different film!!

A Masterpiece!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Tommy Chan, Number Three Son, promises a young woman that her stepfather's killer will be apprehended by his father. The police have listed it as an unsolved crime and there seems little hope. We, of course, know better. Once again, Mantan Moreland, who is a cab driver in this one, assists out of fear for his safety. There seems to be something going on with Chinese cat statues and diamonds. A police detective, sort of a Neanderthal, who really knows nothing, has been demoted. He fell in love with the young woman in question and was seen as a liability. Actually, it turns out that he is. He knows nothing and contributes nothing to the solution. Charlie also gets into it with a mystery writing who thinks he can outdo the great Asian detective. Maybe a little too much funny stuff and some really stupid criminals. Kind of par for the course.

***SPOILERS*** Charlie Chan's, Sidney Toler, bumbling and skipping classes from UCLA #3 son Tommy, Benson Fong, gets his dad involved in the unsolved murder case of Thomas Manning in promising his step daughter Leah, who mistook him for Charlie, that he'll get on it right away. With tickets for a Cleveland Indian New York Yankee double-header at stake, thats to take place over the weekend at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, Charlie has to solve the case in 48 hours something the LAPD couldn't do in six months. Which as we on see turns out to be child's play for the great Hawaiian master detective Charlie Chan. It soon turns out that Manning's murder had to do with a stolen jewelry ring that his partner Harvey Dennis, Weldon Hayburn, was involved in. The fact that Charlie took on the case lead to Dennis himself being murdered which lead to a number of major complications.Charlie also gets himself roughed up by this gang of hoods lead by Bud Kaplan who wanted to get his hands on the diamond shipments that have been hidden, in mostly Chinese novelty shops, all over L.A proper. This lead to not only Dennis' murder but also the person who the police as well as Charlie felt was responsible for it the creepy looking Karl or was it Kurt Karzos, John Davidson. Helping Charlie in this case is the goo-goo eyed and overly hyped up taxi driver Birmingham Brown, Mantan Morland, who's only reason for being there was the $5.00 or better yet, without a tip, $4.80 that he forgot to take from Charlie in him stepping on the gas and taking off with his cab before he could pay him. Who from his previous experience, in Washington D.C, with Charlie wanted nothing to do with his any of his future murder investigations!***SPOILERS***As complicated as the plot was Charlie in the end, despite a few bumps and bruises, prevails as usual by not only solving Manning's murder but the two other murders, of Dennis & Karzos, that it lead to. Working against the clock with the Yankee-Indian double-header on the line Charlie was at his best in solving this very confusing multi murder case with the local police as usual providing the muscle. With Charlie doing all the brain work and by Charlie's #3 son Tommy by keeping his mouth shut, despite being brutally worked over by Kaplan's hoods, about his dad's plan of action until the police came to their rescue!

The second of the Monogram 'Charlie Chans' is a pure 'old-fashioned' murder mystery again, without spies (although the War was still going on, as Charlie reminds us when he accepts a bet and offers to pay the money to the Chinese War Relief Funds if he loses), but a classic 'murder behind locked doors' - with the exception of a secret panel which leads to the room of the murdered man's wife, so she's the only suspect, but due to lack of evidence and motive the case is dropped. But then, months later, a criminologist writes a novel about the murder, clearly pointing out the wife of businessman Manning as his murderer.Manning's stepdaughter in her despair calls on the unique abilities of Charlie Chan to find the real murderer; during the investigations, she'd fallen in love with Detective Dennis and wants to marry him, but now the shadow of murder keeps hanging over her family... And since son Tommy once again beat his Pop to accepting the case, Charlie can't break a family promise, of course, and starts recreating the whole case - which very soon leads him to a whole collection of diamonds hidden in various Chinese decoration figures, and to the conclusion that Manning and his business partner Deacon were crooks involved in a big diamond theft months earlier. But when Charlie and Tommy, accompanied again by Birmingham (who's become a cab driver now, and just happened to get Charlie as a passenger - which made him feel immediately that he's in for murder again...), enter the 'lion's den' disguised as a fun house, the 'fun' very soon stops, and they're being treated just like any other detective in any Film Noir of the time...Monogram's 'new Charlie Chan style' unfolds here in a most effective way: this movie actually manages to combine successfully murder mystery (complete with hints for crime solving fanatics, like the lone chess figure) with tough, gloomy and foggy Noir elements - and of course comedy! One example: there are twin brothers involved in the gang, and one of them is murdered - and every time the other identical twin brother turns up, Birmingham and Tommy think they're seeing ghosts...!High-quality crime entertainment, providing fun as well as suspense, and at the same time certainly NOT to be overlooked for its cinematic value!

Son Tommy replaces his brother Jimmy, and for the better. Jimmy's bug-eyed, constantly interrupting persona was somewhat over the top, and Benson Fong's Tommy plays the role of sidekick just straight enough to take the cringe out of the character. Much of the comic relief is transferred to Mantan Moreland's Birmingham Brown, and Moreland was the man to carry it off. Unlike most of the Chan comic relief characters, Birmingham's antics are generally set apart from Charlie's detective work, and don't interfere so much with the unfolding of the mystery. And Moreland himself was just a better actor than the Chan sons or the various other characters who played the role.The fun house is a classic crime setting, and its use here - though done on the cheap - fits right in to the series. The plot doesn't play out like many Chan movies - a good guy isn't revealed to be a bad guy, As a result, the end is less a reveal than a long action/danger scene. Nice change-up from the usual Chan. And while many prefer Warner Oland, Sidney Toler is Chan to me in this episode - one step ahead, as always.