THE SCARLET CLUE
US, 1945, 63 minutes, Black-and-white.
Sidney Toler, Manton Moreland, Ben Carter, Benson Fong, Virginia Brissac, Jack Norton.
Directed by Phil Rosen.
By the time of The Scarlet Clue, the Charlie Chan films with Sidney Toler were nearing the end. After successful films featuring Warner Oland during the 1930s, Sidney Toler took over the role of Charlie Chan in 1939, making numerous episodes, becoming the embodiment of Charlie Chan in his appearance, manner, way of speaking, aphorisms and skill in detection.
As with many of the episodes, this film has the atmosphere of World War II, experiments with radar, with television, laboratories for testing radar.
The film opens with a murder and the identity of the murderer made known very quickly. He is an agent in league with groups wanting to get the secrets of radar and is well placed as a television executive in the same building. Charlie Chan was pursuing him for an arrest – but then has to solve the murder as well as the death of the murderer (and two subsequent murders of members of the radio broadcast cast).
The film shows the world of radio and the initial world of television, some actresses performing in plays, a Shakespearean actor down on his luck performing, a rather bland announcer. They are under the direction of Mrs Marsh, a harridan who is continually stopping her assistant from speaking when he actually hasn’t said a word, merely opened his mouth. There are various suspects, but with a Benson Fong as third son, Tommy, investigating along with the assistant, Birmingham Brown, Manton Moreland who appeared in quite a number of films – providing some by now politically incorrect presentations of African- American comedy. There are two entertaining sequences where he encounters Ben Carter and they have conversations, each interrupting the other’s intervention, those listening in having no idea of any detail, but the conversation ending satisfactorily.
There is a mysterious drug which combined with nicotine kills people. There is a floor in an elevator which gives way with people falling to their deaths. There are laboratories which examine the poisons and cigarettes, laboratories with different temperatures to test radar reactions.
As with some of the other episodes, and a feature of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, an irritating character who intrudes during the story turns out to be the archvillain, this time the very dominating producer of the radio programs who uses machines and words to disguise her voice.
The film is directed by Phil Rosen who worked with Edison, directed numerous short, small-budget films during the 1920s and 30s, and directed six of the Charlie Chan films with Sidney Toler.
