Charlie Chan in The Chinese Cat (1944)

***SPOILERS*** Charlie Chan's, Sidney Toler, bumbling and skipping classes from UCLA #3 son Tommy, Benson Fong, gets his dad involved in the unsolved murder case of Thomas Manning in promising his step daughter Leah, who mistook him for Charlie, that he'll get on it right away. With tickets for a Cleveland Indian New York Yankee double-header at stake, thats to take place over the weekend at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, Charlie has to solve the case in 48 hours something the LAPD couldn't do in six months. Which as we on see turns out to be child's play for the great Hawaiian master detective Charlie Chan. It soon turns out that Manning's murder had to do with a stolen jewelry ring that his partner Harvey Dennis, Weldon Hayburn, was involved in. The fact that Charlie took on the case lead to Dennis himself being murdered which lead to a number of major complications.Charlie also gets himself roughed up by this gang of hoods lead by Bud Kaplan who wanted to get his hands on the diamond shipments that have been hidden, in mostly Chinese novelty shops, all over L.A proper. This lead to not only Dennis' murder but also the person who the police as well as Charlie felt was responsible for it the creepy looking Karl or was it Kurt Karzos, John Davidson. Helping Charlie in this case is the goo-goo eyed and overly hyped up taxi driver Birmingham Brown, Mantan Morland, who's only reason for being there was the $5.00 or better yet, without a tip, $4.80 that he forgot to take from Charlie in him stepping on the gas and taking off with his cab before he could pay him. Who from his previous experience, in Washington D.C, with Charlie wanted nothing to do with his any of his future murder investigations!***SPOILERS***As complicated as the plot was Charlie in the end, despite a few bumps and bruises, prevails as usual by not only solving Manning's murder but the two other murders, of Dennis & Karzos, that it lead to. Working against the clock with the Yankee-Indian double-header on the line Charlie was at his best in solving this very confusing multi murder case with the local police as usual providing the muscle. With Charlie doing all the brain work and by Charlie's #3 son Tommy by keeping his mouth shut, despite being brutally worked over by Kaplan's hoods, about his dad's plan of action until the police came to their rescue!

Son Tommy replaces his brother Jimmy, and for the better. Jimmy's bug-eyed, constantly interrupting persona was somewhat over the top, and Benson Fong's Tommy plays the role of sidekick just straight enough to take the cringe out of the character. Much of the comic relief is transferred to Mantan Moreland's Birmingham Brown, and Moreland was the man to carry it off. Unlike most of the Chan comic relief characters, Birmingham's antics are generally set apart from Charlie's detective work, and don't interfere so much with the unfolding of the mystery. And Moreland himself was just a better actor than the Chan sons or the various other characters who played the role.The fun house is a classic crime setting, and its use here - though done on the cheap - fits right in to the series. The plot doesn't play out like many Chan movies - a good guy isn't revealed to be a bad guy, As a result, the end is less a reveal than a long action/danger scene. Nice change-up from the usual Chan. And while many prefer Warner Oland, Sidney Toler is Chan to me in this episode - one step ahead, as always.

A man is shot in a locked room. The police are completely stumped and cannot solve the case. When a book is written that insinuates the wife was the murderer, the man's stepdaughter enlists the help of Charlie Chan to find the real killer. Chan is only in town for 48 hours, so he's got to be quick if he's to solve a six-month old murder.The Chinese Cat is one of the better of the Monogram Chan films. Sure, it's far from perfect, but I enjoy it each time I get the opportunity to watch. It's always fun to watch Chan investigate a crime scene while spitting out a few of the Chan style proverbs. Mantan Moreland is back as Birminham Brown and he has more than a few moments that bring at least a smile to my face. A few other things The Chinese Cat has in its favor include: a well paced plot, some trickery involving twins, and the fact that Number 3 son isn't as annoying as he is in some of the other Chan films. While I doubt the average movie fan would enjoy The Chinese Cat very much, fans of Chan will find something to enjoy.But, as with the other Monogram films, there are problems in The Chinese Cat that are hard to overlook. Monogram made these films with very little in the way of a budget and it shows. The sets look cheap, some of the acting is stilted, and action scenes have taken the place of Chan questioning suspects. The Fun House scenes are the perfect example of the budgetary limitations as characters walk past the same three sets over and over and over...

The Monogram Chan's, apart from falling production values, were also marked by more and more action scenes with or without cliffhanger music and less on the explanatory dialogue so necessary with the Fox's. With the action came more non-sequiteurs or simply incongruous scenes - in this one take Tommy Chan being beaten to a pulp before his respected father's calm eyes! Great stuff for teenagers in 1944 but surely something of which the Charlie we know should have been thoroughly ashamed?!Rich amateur chess player murdered six months previously, at the time to the utter bafflement of the police - Charlie has less than two days to research the case and solve it. And does he bring the rather impotent detective and the daughter of the murdered man together, and give the detective a promotion for doing nothing? I ain't saying! The climax in the Fun Two Corridors Cupboard And Room brings a baddies Wild West hideout suspiciously to mind, but what the Heck!Well made (for Monogram) and enjoyable entry in the series.