City in Darkness (1939)

Charlie Chan in City in Darkness (1939) certainly ranks as one of the oddest movies in the series. Although it was palmed off on the public as "Charlie Chan in City in Darkness" and sold as a mystery thriller, this entry is actually a knockabout comedy. Chan is a subsidiary character whose principle job is to feed lines and bits of business to Harold Huber, who not only has more lines than Toler (and more than twice as many words) but more scenes including that delightful episode in which Harry Fleischmann picks him up and then throws his double down the stairs, not once but twice! Chan is not only forced to stand on the sidelines while Huber runs rings around him, but is up-staged by three comic thieves as well. True, Chan has a few timely words, does a bit of detecting and even foolishly dispenses with Huber's assistance for a scene in which he is nearly killed by Leo G. Carroll and Lon Chaney. All the same, Charlie Chan in City in Darkness will certainly disappoint Chan fans.

Even after watching it a couple of times, this - admittedly unique - entry in the 'Charlie Chan' series still looks like a somewhat strange and a little bit inappropriate mixture of a 'usual' murder mystery and an early WWII flag waver. It starts like a Newsreel about the dramatical political developments in Europe; and it is announced that on September 28, the whole city of Paris has to remain in darkness because of the possibility of a German air strike.The next thing we see is a reunion party of secret agents from WWI, to which M. Romaine, the Prefect of Police, has invited his old friend Charlie Chan; and they drink a toast to peace, hoping there'll not be another war soon...But at the same time, there is a spy ring of an enemy country in full activity: Charlotte Ronnell arranges with sinister Belescu that a cargo full of French weapons manufactured by another enemy spy, Petroff, will sail out the same night to get into the enemy's hands before an embargo will be imposed; but Belescu tricks them, and they're left without the necessary papers. And in another part of Paris, Petroff's innocent former secretary Tony Madero wants to flee the country in order not to be accused as a member of the spy ring, and his wife Marie promises him to get him a ticket and a false passport from shady M. Santelle - but she's got to raise a lot of money, and her only hope is Petroff...... And a few hours later, Petroff is found shot, discovered by his butler Antoine, a veteran from WWI who has just sent his young son to the army; and so, while the soldiers are leaving for a possible war, Charlie and his friend's godson, dopey inspector Marcel (played once more by Harold Huber, who specialized in playing nervous, clumsy Frenchmen) investigate the Petroff murder, looking for clues like a camellia lying next to the body, a smashed window in the cellar, and so on...Somehow, this mixture doesn't work properly - solving a murder case (even if it's connected to a dangerous spy ring) amid the atmosphere of a city preparing for war is simply somehow like losing one's sense of proportion... And when the case is solved, the film takes us back to politics: Romaine proclaims happily that there will be NO war, because Hitler has just invited the French and British Premiers to a conference in Munich! BUT since the film was released in December 1939, the further developments were already known by that time; and so Charlie Chan can utter one of his wise 'foretellings': 'Beware of spider who invites fly into parlor'...

One of the few Charlie Chan movies that does not have one of his eager beaver sons trying oh so earnestly to help, Charlie Chan In The City Of Darkness refers to the fact that the well known city of lights is actually in darkness due to blackout regulations. During the course of the film, a breach in those regulations actually saves Sidney Toler's life.Harold Huber takes the place of the sons here and provides us some comic relief. Huber who normally played oily villainous types must have welcomed a change in casting. Toler is in Paris ironically celebrating a reunion of intelligence service officers from the last World War as a new one beckons. The film, released in 1939 after war had been officially declared was set in that period in 1938 when the United Kingdom and France went to the brink before capitulating to the Nazis at Munich.During the first of a Parisian blackout the French prefect of police in Paris is up to his ears in work and just can't get to the murder of Douglass Dumbrille in a timely fashion. This provides his loyal secretary who wants to make his bones as a detective an opportunity. Good thing Huber had Sidney Toler around to show him the ropes.Dumbrille was one of those international men of mystery and intrigue and being that has a host of enemies who would like to do him in. There's a nice array of suspects including a couple of sneak thieves played comically by Louis Mercier and George Davis who might look good for it as well. In fact with regularity Huber keeps declaring he's solved the case only to have Toler give him another Confucian aphorism about staying cool.During the course of the film an international smuggling and spy ring is broken up. As for the murderer, a rather different fate awaits him than that of the normal course of perpetrators that Charlie Chan usually brings in.Toler and Huber keep this film entertaining at all time, a good entry among the Charlie Chan features.

"City in Darkness" is the worst film I have ever watched in its entirety. It makes "Killer Tomatoes," "Fargo," and John Ford look good. Nothing against Harold Huber, but his manic behavior in this film really grates on the nerves. The Sydney Toler "Chan" films are lighter than those starring Warner Oland, and many are quite entertaining. "City in Darkness," however, is not one of them. The lack of number (whatever) son does not help. I suppose that the film had a propaganda intent. There's no problem with that, but it is so bad that I think that any higher purpose might have been negated by the quality of the production. It is definitely not one I would recommend to Chan fans.