THE SCARLET CLUE (1945)

On a dark city street, detective Charlie Chan, doing wartime work for the government, meets up with his police contact Captain Flynn, an old friend, who has been trailing a suspect named Rausch who is after some radar secrets. Flynn was obvious in his tailing, spooking the guy on purpose, but Rausch's bosses discover the surveillance and kill Rausch on a tugboat. Clues lead Chan, his son Tommy and valet Birmingham Brown to the Cosmo Radio Center where a radio soap opera, sponsored by a waffle mix company run by cranky old Mrs. Marsh, is being rehearsed. Among those present: Brett, the studio manager; Diane Hall, an actress whose stolen car was seen near the site of Rausch's murder; other actors including Horace Karlos, an old Shakespearean ham whom we learn loves to wear costumes and disguises; and a "janitoress" named Swenson with a suspiciously thick Swedish accent. We soon find out that Brett is the man who stole Diane's car and killed Rausch, but he has never seen his boss—he gets his orders by phoning someone who then phones someone else who then replies to Brett via teletype machine. (Though a good gimmick, this also allows the viewer to guess the identity of the boss fairly quickly.) Also in the Cosmo Radio building is the Hamilton Laboratory where radar research is ongoing, and where a large and elaborate weather tunnel, which can produce cold, heat, wind and rain, is located. Following is a death in an elevator in which, by remote command, the bottom drops out (and Birmingham barely survives such an occurrence), and deaths by poisonous gas initiated by the lighting of a cigarette. After the weather tunnel wreaks some havoc, Chan soon dopes it all out with some help from a surprising source. This fifth entry in the Monogram run of Chan films (I have no idea what the title refers to) is a bit of an uptick in the series. Though the supporting cast is still mostly composed of lesser known talents, they do decent jobs, with special notice going to I. Stanford Jolley (Brett), Helen Deverell (Diane), Virginia Briassic (Mrs. Marsh), and Robert Homans (Flynn) who played cops, bartenders and watchmen in literally hundreds of 30s and 40s movies. Horace Karlos seems intended to conjure up images of Boris Karloff, but the character is largely a red herring. Sidney Toler, Benson Fong and Mantan Moreland repeat as the central trio of Charlie, Tommy and Birmingham, and Moreland has some fun engaging in an old vaudeville routine with fellow comic Ben Carter in which they converse by not letting each other finish their sentences. Having said that, the comic relief is at times a bit too much. Luckily, between the various characters, the plot strands, and the bizarre methods of murder, this one kept my interest throughout. In the picture above, Moreland is on the far left with Toler and Fong at far right. [DVD]