THE GOLDEN EYE
US, 1948, 69 minutes, Black-and-white.
Roland Winters, Wanda Mc Kay, Mantan Moreland, Victor Sen Yung, Bruce Kellogg, Tim Ryan, Evelyn Brent, Ralph Dunn.
Directed by William Beaudine.
This is one of the last Charlie Chan feature films. There were many in the 1930s with Warner Oland making his mark and setting a tone for Charlie Chan, his appearance, his manner, his skills into detection. There is also his background, his marriage, family in Hawaii, the number of sons who assisted (and hindered) his investigations. With Oland’s death, Sidney Toller took on the role and was successful in a wide range of Charlie Chan films, stories topical, even entering into the atmosphere of America at war. There are some films after the war but the final films starred Roland Winters.
This is one of those films. It is a fairly standard detective story in the Chan style. Mine owner feels he is being under threat and ask for chance help. The man is killed. Chan and his son, Tommy, with the chauffeur, Birmingham (Manton Moreland who had taken this role for quite a number of the films, bringing his humour, an African-American-presence?, to the series).
There are scenes at a resort and, seemingly, some delay with an alcoholic visitor with his eye on the ladies – and a twist revealing him to be a San Francisco detective! The owner who had engaged Chan has fallen down a mine shaft and is unconscious, completely swayed.
There is a variety of suspects: the manager of the mine and his wife, the friendly metal essayist, who turns out to be the mastermind and villain. There is also a pseudo-nun in the action.
Gold is being brought in from Mexico by secret means and sold from the American mine at a great profit. There are some sequences in the minds, Birmingham discovering dead bodies, the false nun unmasked, the swathes body the wife of the manager while the owner is actually dead in the mine.
Revelations, exchanges of guns, Charlie Chan, with Roland Winters emulating the style of his predecessors, saves the day.
One of the least effective of the Charlie Chan films.
