THE JADE MASK (1945) / THE SHANGHAI COBRA (1945)

Here I cover two more Charlie Chan mysteries from Monogram Studios. In The Jade Mask, Harper, a scientist, lives in a spooky old house and, with help from Meeker, his assistant, is developing a formula that can make wood as hard as metal. The formula is kept in a secret vault that can be filled with poisonous gas and can only be unlocked by saying a 2-word password. Harper is found murdered with a poison dart in the back of his throat, and Charlie Chan is called in on the case, with his #4 son Eddie and valet Birmingham Brown tagging along. Pretty much everyone else in the house didn't like Harper including his sister Louise and niece Jean, both of whom Harper made work as maids in the house. There are creepy life masks of the house's inhabitants on the walls, and a room of ventriloquist dummies (Stella, an assistant, can throw her voice). A new arrival, Lloyd Archer, claims that Harper stole the formula from his father. There are more deaths before Chan fingers the killer; the solution involves the masks and the puppets. In The Shanghai Cobra, New York police officer Davis calls on Chan to help solve a series of murders that seem to be caused by cobra bites. Back in 1937 Shanghai, Chan had tracked down a killer named Van Horn who used the same method—Van Horn was badly burned in a Japanese bombing and escaped. With some plastic surgery, it's possible that he is behind the recent rash of deaths, most of which have claimed workers at the Sixth National Bank, people who also frequented a nearby diner which has a remote jukebox—the patron inserts money and talks to a woman in remote office (who can see them on a TV screen) who plays their song. #3 son Tommy and Birmingham are along for the ride.

The fourth and sixth films in the Monogram Chan series show how the lower budgets were hurting these films. Sidney Toler is fine as Chan (though his age was slowing him down a bit) as are Benson Fong (Tommy) and Mantan Moreland (Birmingham). Edwin Luke, Keye Luke’s brother, is good as he makes his only appearance in the series as bookworm brother Eddie in The Jade Mask. As is becoming par for the course, the supporting players are generally weaker than in the Fox films. Hardie Albright (Meeker in Jade Mask) was an experienced character actor and stands out, as do James Cardwell and Joan Barclay in Shanghai Cobra, but that’s about it for the secondary actors. Though both films drag quite a bit, they both have their moments, often having to do with gimmicks, like the gas chamber and the masks in Mask (though there is no 'jade mask' in the movie), and the non-snake snake bites in Cobra. The remote jukebox in Cobra is fun, and it may have really been a thing as it's also featured in a 1942 mystery, X MARKS THE SPOT. The way the snake bites occur is clever. The first scene in Cobra has a nice film noir look, perhaps due to the director, Phil Karlson, who made his name in crime films, though that atmosphere is not carried over for the rest of the film. Most of the Toler films from here on out are similarly low-energy, though they are always watchable for Chan fans. Those new to Chan should probably start with some of the pre-1944 films, though I think the later Roland Winters movies got some of the old energy back. Pictured at top left are Edwin Luke and Mantan Moreland from The Jade Mask; pictured at right are James Cardwell and Joan Barclay from The Shanghai Cobra. [DVD]