Dangerous Money (1946)

Director:

Terry O. Morse

Writers:

Miriam Kissinger (screenplay)
Earl Derr Biggers (character)

Release Date:

12 October 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

THE RIDDLE OF THE "KNIVES OF DEATH!" (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

A treasury agent on the trail of counterfeit money confides to fellow ocean liner passenger Charlie Chan that there have been two attempts on his life.

Plot Keywords:

Ocean Liner | Treasury Agent | South Pacific | Salesman | Ship's Steward

Cast

Sidney Toler	...	Charlie Chan
Gloria Warren	...	Rona Simmonds
Victor Sen Yung	...	Jimmy Chan (as Victor Sen Young)
Rick Vallin	...	Tao Erickson (as Richard Vallin)
Joseph Crehan	...	Captain Black
Willie Best	...	Chattanooga Brown
John Harmon	...	Freddie Kirk
Bruce Edwards	...	Harold Mayfair
Dick Elliott	...	P.T. Burke
Joseph Allen	...	George Brace - Purser (as Joe Allen Jr.)
Amira Moustafa	...	Laura Erickson
Tristram Coffin	...	Scott Pearson
Alan Douglas	...	Joe Murdock aka Mrs. Whipple
Selmer Jackson	...	Ship's Doctor
Dudley Dickerson	...	Big Ben
Rito Punay	...	Pete the Steward
Elaine Lange	...	Cynthia Martin
Emmett Vogan	...	Professor Martin
Leslie Denison	...	Reverend Dr. Whipple
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ted Billings	...	Barfly (uncredited)
Kit Carson	...	Seaman (uncredited)
Helen Dickson	...	Ship's Passenger (uncredited)
Herbert Evans	...	Man at Island Bar (uncredited)
Gerardo Sei Groves	...	Polynesian (uncredited)
Don McCracken	...	Junior Officer (uncredited)
Mavis Russell	...	Kirk's Assistant (uncredited)

Directed by
Terry O. Morse		(as Terry Morse)

Writing credits
Miriam Kissinger		(screenplay)
Earl Derr Biggers		(character)

Produced by
James S. Burkett	....	producer

Cinematography by
William A. Sickner		(as William Sickner)

Film Editing by
William Austin

Makeup Department
Harry Ross	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Glenn Cook	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Wesley Barry	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Tom Lambert	....	sound

Editorial Department
Richard C. Currier	....	supervising editor (as Richard Currier)

Music Department
Edward J. Kay	....	musical director

Other crew
Dave Milton	....	technical director

Production Companies

• Monogram Pictures

Distributors

• Monogram Pictures (1946) (USA) (theatrical)
• Teakwood Video (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2010) (USA) (DVD) (Included in "TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection")
• Alive Vertrieb und Marketing (2013) (Germany) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Warner Home Video  DVD package design

Also Known As:

Runtime:

66 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Monogram Studios - 1725 Fleming Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Monogram Pictures

Trivia:

The thirty-ninth of forty-seven Charlie Chan movies.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Charlie fires three times at Erickson, his gun is pointed at the floor, but Erickson grabs his wrist, where he has presumably been hit.

Quotes:

Scott Pearson:[talking confidentially] I'm under strict orders to remain undercover, but ever since I came aboard this ship...
[He stops when he hears a young couple walking by]
Charlie Chan:[after they are out of earshot] Yes...
Scott Pearson:Since I've been aboard, two attempts have been made to kill me.
Charlie Chan:You work for government?

Movie Connections:

Followed by Shadows Over Chinatown (1946)

Shadows

Storywise, this is yet another disposable Chan story, industrialized movie-making.

There are two things of interest here.

One is how the needs of the Chan franchise ferret out peculiar corners of the American national story. In this case the US was well into the beginning of administering regions in the Pacific. This gave opportunities for new kinds of crime and the novelty of the crime was one of the attractions of the series at this point. So we have the smuggling of colonial currency, an esoteric illegality — and the use of new weapon, a "knifethrowing" pistol.

Ho hum. I suppose that will be interesting to historians. But for students of film there's a lesson here too. What do you do if your story depends on matters of race and you want to exploit that but also want to bury it? You fold it into other narrative elements of race.

For those who don't know the franchise, it was very long and successful. It stars a white guy pretending to be a Chinese master detective, the acting mostly through a halting English and a few phrases like: "a hasty man can drink tea with a fork." Incidentally, this fits in an odd place in the detective genre because we never really see any detecting, any real wisdom. The only thing we see is him setting traps with the trap revealing the hidden crook. He never figures it out directly.

Back to race. Chan's race is hidden twice. First, we have one of his sons as "assistant," a comic, bumbling idiot. This truly is racist and deliberately so. The contrast between the son (played by a real Asian) and his lack of insight and his father is amplified by the physical appearance and the obvious appearance.

And this is further folded or shadowed (an appropriate term) by the black guy. He is placed as far from the son in all dimensions as the son is from the father. He is that much more comic, and independently clueless, and also independently "ethnic." Its a vile notion to exploit by today's standards, but the method of shadowed folding is clear.

Its a device used in literature, but much more common in film because you can link so many more qualities in parallel, here all aligned to "detection" qualities. That Africanamerican's name is Chattanooga, derived probably from Jack Benny's "man" Rochester.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.