City in Darkness [Charlie Chan in City in Darkness] ** (1939, Sidney Toler, Lynn Bari, Richard Clarke) – Classic Movie Review 9052

Director Herbert I Leeds’s 1939 comedy crime mystery thriller City in Darkness [Charlie Chan in City in Darkness] is a moderate, rather disappointing series episode.

It wastes some top guest character actors and gets little mileage out of its interesting World War Two wartime spy plot about Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) in Paris tracking down the killer of a munitions-making bad guy (Douglass Dumbrille) trading in arms with the Nazis.

The main actors are Sidney Toler, Lynn Bari, Richard Clarke, Harold Huber, Pedro de Cordoba, Dorothy Tree, C Henry Gordon, Douglass Dumbrille, Noel Madison, Lon Chaney Jr, Leo G Carroll, Frederick Vogeding, Louis Mercier, George David and Barbara Leonard.

The limp screenplay is by Robert Ellis and Helen Logan, based on a play by Gina Kaus and Ladislas Fodor.

The 23rd of 47 Charlie Chan movies, it follows Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) and is followed by Charlie Chan in Panama (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9052

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