Complete credited cast: | |||
Roland Winters | ... | Charlie Chan | |
Warren Douglas | ... | Police Sgt. Bill Davidson | |
Mantan Moreland | ... | Birmingham Brown | |
Louise Currie | ... | Peggy Cartwright | |
Victor Sen Yung | ... | Tommy Chan (as Victor Sen Young) | |
Philip Ahn | ... | Captain Kong | |
Byron Foulger | ... | Armstrong | |
Thayer Roberts | ... | Captain James J. Kelso | |
Jean Wong | ... | Princess Mei Ling | |
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Dimples Cooper | ... | Lillie Mae Wong (as Chabing) |
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George Spaulding | ... | Dr. Hickey (as George L. Spaulding) |
Princess Mei Ling pays a visit to the Chan residence, where upon being admitted by man-of-all-work Birmingham Brown she refuses to give her name, but hands Birmingham her ring to show to Charlie. While Chan is being summoned, a mysterious figure shoots a dart at the beautiful Princess who manages, before she dies of poison, to scrawl the name "Captain K" on a handy piece of paper. When the police arrive, Charlie has to admit that he does not know the identity of his murdered visitor, but that he means to find out. What he learns is that Mei Ling has brought with her to America the sum of one million dollars, in order to buy airplanes for the Chinese struggle for freedom. Someone has stolen the money, and someone may be trying to divert the planes into enemy hands. Can the famous detective, despite the fact that his Number Two Son has unaccountably changed his name from Jimmy to Tommy, who used to be his Number Three son, and despite the fact that Charlie, who used to be a Honolulu ... Written by Jim Knoppow
As Charlie Chan, Roland Winters seems to be struggling to get a handle on the character. His delivery of the Pidgin English seems really forced, even more so when most the Chinese actors in the movie speak English fluently.
As others on here have said, this movie is basically a cookie cutter version of "Mr. Wong in Chinatown", a better movie, in my opinion. All in all it's an OK Charlie Chan movie. It doesn't compare well with some of the early Chan movies.....but it's still Charlie Chan and therefore definitely worth watching.