The Feathered Serpent (1948)

Here, Charlie and crew (Mantan Moreland; Keye Luke & Sen Yung), are on vacation in Mexico. They stumble upon a man, who is in terrible condition, walking in a nearby field. Charlie takes him into his auto and heads quickly to the nearest city for help. The man is delirious so Chan can get little information out of him other than the fact he was held prisoner and he was on an expedition hunting for a lost Aztec treasure.Chan arrives in a nearby city and soon meets members of an expedition who are also hunting for this lost treasure. In fact the sick man is a member of their group. The ailing man and another archaeologist went missing during their search. Before the ill man can explain what happened he is murdered.Charlie and company join the expedition with the purpose of finding the missing archaeologist and perhaps the lost treasure. Much is made out of the fact that this film features the return of Charlie's son Lee (Keye Luke) and the only teaming of Charlie's Number One and Number Two sons. It's interesting but the screenwriters don't pull off the union effectively. Lee is much more domineering here than he ever was in the Fox films. So it is a bit of a miss, but still of interest to a long time Chan fan.Lastly, I'll comment on the other reviews who need to call the Monogram Winter's films garbage. Yes, they don't have the skilled writers of the Fox series. Yes, the production values don't match Fox, and the plots can be a little oddball. But these are solid little mysteries and quite good compared with other independent studios.

A very late entry in the long-running Charlie Chan series, "The Feathered Serpent" is cheap, dull and instantly forgettable. For some reason, it shows you who the bad guy is somewhere in the middle, thereby removing the element of mystery from a mystery movie! (although they do throw in a - literally - last minute surprise, for those who stick with the movie until the end, who I suspect are always fewer than those who start watching it). Another problem, which I have had with a couple of other Chan films I've watched, is that the supporting characters (outside of Chan's family and Birmingham) are not distinct enough for the viewer to tell them apart; and yet another is that the sound recording quality is poor and sometimes the lines sound garbled. When you can hear them clearly, admittedly there are a couple of great ones, my favorite being "Number One Son very clever now and then. Must be then!" *1/2 out of 4.

Oriental detective Charlie Chan(Roland Winters)with chauffeur Birmingham Brown(Mantan Moreland)and both #1 son Lee(Keye Luke)and #2 son Tommy(Victor Sen Yung)is on vacation headed to Mexico City when a struggling man collapses in their view. The man is Prof. Farnsworth(Leslie Denison), who has been missing since his search for fabled Aztec treasures. Before being stabbed to death he reveals his son is held hostage and his daughter Joan(Beverly Jons)hires Chan to now find him. Since Winters signed on as the revered Chan the franchise has rapidly lost enthusiasm and popularity. You would think that the one positive thing being the first movie with Luke and Yung together would save face; but the predictable script only have the brothers providing some comic relief with Brown. Other players: Robert Livingston, Carol Forman and George J. Lewis.

Dreadful Monogram Chan film with weak Roland Winters starring. The only item of interest is the paring of both Keye Luke (as Lee Chan) and Victor Sen Young (as Tommy Chan.) Set amidst Mexican pyramids, this is a boring poorly done film. It is sad that Luke and Young together didn't have a better script or budget.