CHARLIE CHAN AT THE WAX MUSEUM (1940)

Based on the testimony of detective Charlie Chan, Steve McBirney is sentenced to death for murder, but he manages to shoot his way out of the courthouse and vows to get revenge against Chan. He heads for Dr. Cream's Museum of Crime, a wax museum with statues of infamous criminals, because Dr. Cream has a secret career: performing plastic surgery to give new faces to fugitive criminals. Meanwhile, for a radio show broadcast from the museum, Chan meets with Dr. Von Brom to debate the Rocke case. Rocke was put to death for a poison dart murder based on testimony from Von Brom, but Chan maintains that Rocke was innocent and the real killer was his partner Butcher Dagan, who was supposedly killed but might still be around. As the time of the late night broadcast nears, folks gather at the museum joining Chan, Von Brom and Dr. Cream, including Lily Latimer, Cream's assistant; Tom Agnew, the radio host and director; Edwards, an engineer; Mary Bolton, a reporter who is also dating Agnew; Carter Lane, a lawyer for Rocke's widow; and a simpleminded old watchman. We see a mysterious woman sneak in whom we suspect is Mrs. Rocke, perhaps come to see justice done for her husband. Finally, Chan's snooping #2 son Jimmy shows up to help his dad, though he mostly just gets in trouble. We see that Chan is being set up to be electrocuted at the debate table but Von Born gets it instead—except that on investigation, it's discovered that his death was actually caused by a poison dart. Could Butcher Dagen be among them?

This entry in the Chan series from 20th Century Fox is a notch above the norm. One reason is the effective setting of the shadowy wax museum at night. After the courtroom opening, the rest of the film is set solely in the museum and plays out mostly in real time. As in most wax museum movies, the statues provide a nicely creepy atmosphere and can also be mistaken for real people, and vice versa. A storm outside and flickering lights inside add to the eerie ambience. The dark single setting also helps hide the B-movie budget. This was the first Chan film with a running time of about one hour, and most of the rest would follow suit, indicating lower budgets and lower exhibition expectations. Sidney Toler and Victor Sen Yung are old hands by now as Chan and Jimmy, though Jimmy is an exceptional doofus here, and the supporting cast is so-so, the standouts being C. Henry Gordon as Dr. Cream and busy character actor Marc Lawrence (who kept acting into the 21st century) as McBirney. Marguerite Chapman and Ted Osborn are adequate as the romantic couple, as is Michael Visaroff as Von Bron. Hilda Vaughn doesn't have a lot of dialogue but has the right look for the mysterious lady trespasser. The exposure of the ultimate villain was a surprise to me, but the Chan films were not known for truly playing fair with clues or background information. As you might predict, there is a wax statue of Chan which, of course, gets mistaken for the real person at least twice, including in a fun final shot in which Jimmy gives his dad a good swift kick in the rear, thinking he's kicking the statue. Pictured are Gordon and Toler. [DVD]