Charlie Chan is in New York City with Scotland Yard Inspector Fife to "learn big city police methods" from NYC Inspector Flannery (sounds a bit like the set-up for McCLOUD, doesn't it?). While there, a fellow Scotland Yard inspector is murdered-- and the 3 detectives join forces to find out what case he was working on, and bring his murderer to justice. As is usual with any case Chan gets involved in, there's a list of suspects to be investigated, an endless stream of poetic proverbs, numerous references to his ever-growing family (his wife just gave birth to their 11th child, and he misses the boy he hasn't set eyes on yet). And of course, there's enough plot twists to hold your interest.
Apparently this was the 2nd adaptation of Earl Derr Biggers' 1928 novel, "Behind That Curtain", but may have been much closer to the book than the first version was, as Chan is in this all the way from the beginning, trying to solve a murder that took place several years earlier. While the 1st film version made in 1929 hardly had Chan in it at all, this version, tragically, was one of countless Fox films destroyed in the infamous 1937 vault fire in New Jersey that wiped out pretty much all of Fox's silents and many of their earliest sound films as well. Apparently, the first 7 CHARLIE CHAN films from Fox were all destroyed in that fire-- but, over the decades, prints of BEHIND THAT CURTAIN (1929), ERAN TRECE (1931, the Spanish version of CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON) and THE BLACK CAMEL (1931) were all found elsewhere, as well as CHARLIE CHAN IN PARIS (1935) which was found sometime in the late 70s or early 80s.
In the case of CHARLIE CHAN'S CHANCE (1932) and CHARLIE CHAN'S COURAGE (1934), audio "reconstructions" with still photos were created, to at least allow fans to experience some versions of the stories. The first time I saw such a thing was LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927, destroyed in 1965). I must say, I enjoyed this quite a bit more than that one, no doubt because so much of any typical CHAN film is dialogue, and this is pretty much like listening to a RADIO show, only with still photos accompanying it. I've listened to so many radio shows, especially in recent years, that I'm afraid I wasn't really impressed by ANY of the voice-actors employed on this (I'm pretty sure I could have done a better Warner Oland impression than the guy they used here)... but somehow, that didn't get in the way of me really enjoying the STORY. There were quite a few times where I found myself LAUGHING out loud at some of Chan's sayings, and some of the plot twists, such as when he explains that a now-dead suspect saved him the trouble by killing himself.
I knew I recognized Ralph Morgan in the photos. I somehow wasn't sure which character he was playing, but, based on the cast list at the IMDB, it appears he was the main bad guy-- something he was regularly typecast as, particularly in several different CHAN films over the years. I guess we can only continue to hope that maybe, someday, copies of more of the missing films may turn up somewhere. It sure would be nice.
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