Sidney Toler as "Charlie Chan in The Shanghai Cobra" (1945) - feat. Mantan Moreland & Benson Fong

When three bank employees are killed with cobra venom, Detective Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) recalls an oddly similar case ten years earlier in Shanghai. In Shanghai in 1937, criminal Jan Van Horn was badly burned when the Japanese bombed Shanghai. After plastic surgery, he escaped custody and nobody knows what he looks like today. Inspector Davis (Walter Fenner), an old friend of Chan's, calls him in. Chan has a second reason to be interested...the bank is the central depository for radium distribution for a good part of the United States. The special vault holding the radium is a monster that seems impregnable from street level. But Charlie discovers a network of underground tunnels and sewer pipes beneath the bank. Chan's son Tommy (Benson Fong), and Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) discover a fourth body. Detective Larkin, an undercover officer posing as the bank's janitor, apparently found out too much. Another puzzle is how the murders were committed. There was no actual snake, and all the victims died out of reach of the nearest human being. Charlie discovers the first three victims all favored the same inexpensive restaurant. When he learns their expensive jukebox came from "an anonymous donor", he tracks down the control room booth for the jukebox. Oddly, it is concealed behind a bookcase on the second floor of the bank building...in an office housing a full chemical laboratory. The woman running the booth is arrested, but she has never seen her boss. Charlie discovers that when you touch the coin return button on the jukebox, a poisoned needle pops out. Charlie plants a false rumor that the radium will be moved to a safer location the next day. This forces the criminals to strike that night. But Chan hadn't counted on the use of explosives. Chan, Tommy, and Birmingham are trapped in an underground cave-in. Charlie taps into the underground phone lines and sends a morse code message. Police swarm the underground tunnels and arrest the robbery gang. Freed from the cave-in, Charlie exposes two identities. Chief Bank Guard John Adams (Addison Richards) is revealed to be the escaped Jan Van Horn. But it turns out he really was innocent. The detective who framed the case against Van Horn also disappeared from Shanghai at the same time. He is revealed to be Mr. H. R. Jarvis (James Flavin), owner of the chemical laboratory. And on his person is a cigarette lighter with a poison needle attachment, which he used to murder Detective Larkin. A 1945 American Black & White crime mystery film directed by Phil Karlson, produced by James S. Burkett, screenplay by George Callahan and George Wallace Sayre, story by George Callahan, based on the "Charlie Chan" character created by Earl Derr Bigger, cinematography by Vincent J. Farrar, starring Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Benson Fong, James Cardwell, Joan Barclay, Addison Richards, Arthur Loft, Janet Warren, Gene Stutenroth, Cyril Delevanti, George Chandler, James Flavin, John Goldsworthy, Walter Fenner, Mary Moore, and Stephen Gregory. Final screen appearance of Joan Barclay. Released by Monogram Pictures. Mantan Moreland (1902-1973), born in Monroe, Louisiana, was an American actor and comedian most popular in the 1930s and 1940s. He starred in numerous films. His daughter Marcella Moreland appeared as a child actor in several films. Moreland began acting by the time he was an adolescent. He ran away to join a minstrel show in 1916, at age 14. By the late 1920s, Moreland had made his way through vaudeville, working with various shows and revues, performing on Broadway and touring Europe. In 2004, Moreland was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum Hall of Fame. The shots of the building from which Chan exits and of him entering taxi cab #610 are from "Charlie Chan in the Secret Service" (1944). Actual footage of the Japanese bombing of Shanghai is used in the flashback sequence. The thirty-fourth of forty-seven Charlie Chan movies. The only Toler Chan picture produced by "Pathe' Pictures, Ltd." After Fox gave Chan away, Sidney Toler purchased the screen rights to the character and made a deal with Monogram, Hollywood's leading Poverty Row producer. CHARLIE CHAN’S APHORISMS: "In my business, always expect to find something wrong." "Rising generation sit too much." "Ancient ancestor once say, “Even wise man cannot fathom depth of woman’s smile.”" "Cannot sell bearskin before shooting bear." "Police do not read Emily Post." "Mice will never play so long as cat is in house." "Too many hands sometime spoil pudding." A slow-paced whodunit. Intrigue, murders, tunnels, trap doors, secret passageways, and in the end there is a surprise. Charlie Chan works the clues expertly with a touch of noir, from dark, rainy streets to a ruthless gang of killers to a tough private eye. Monogram's usually cheap production values (by Poverty Row standards) are remarkably high. Classic Chan escapism. Another enjoyable Monogram Charlie Chan entry.