Charlie Chan in Rio ** (1941, Sidney Toler, Mary Beth Hughes, Cobina Wright) – Classic Movie Review 9042

Director Harry Lachman’s 1941 thriller Charlie Chan in Rio brings back Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan and offers low-budget crime mystery fun in Rio de Janeiro, with Charlie Chan prompting the cops to fathom a double homicide, after he pursues a nightclub singer who killed the man she loved in Honolulu and visits an exotic Rio nightclub to have her arrested.

It features one of Charlie Chan’s strangest aphorisms (‘Pretty girl like lap-dog – sometimes go mad’), a short exchange in Chinese (with subtitles), and clues like a floor scratch from a shoe with a pin-head from a crushed brooch embedded in the sole.

Though it is a pity more use was not made of Latin-flavoured music, Charlie Chan in Rio is quite atmospheric, entertaining and jolly, and Toler’s sombre Chan holds it together.

It is a remake of the 1931 The Black Camel with Warner Oland.

Also in the cast are Mary Beth Hughes (as Joan Reynolds), Cobina Wright Jr, Ted North, Victor Jory, Harold Huber (as Rio police Chief Souto), Victor Sen Yung (as son Jimmy Chan), Richard Derr (as Ken Reynolds, in his film debut), Kay Linaker, Ann Codee, Eugene Borden, Iris Wong, Leslie Denison, Hamilton McFadden (as Bill Kellogg), Jacqueline Dalya (as nightclub singer Lola Dean) and Truman Bradley.

Charlie Chan in Rio is directed by Harry Lachman, runs 61 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Samuel G Engel and Lester Ziffren, is shot in black and white by Joseph P MacDonald, is produced by Sol M Wurtzel, and is scored by Emil Newman.

The 29th of 47 Charlie Chan movies, it follows Dead Men Tell (1941) and is followed by Castle in the Desert (1942).

Hamilton MacFadden directed The Black Camel (1931), Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) and Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case (1933) and also appears in Charlie Chan in Reno (1939).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9042

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