Murder Over New York came out in December 13 1940. Sidney Toler is still Charlie and Victor Sen Yung is still Jimmy. Charlie is in New York for a police convention and Jimmy is going to school in the area. When a Scotland Yard Inspector is murdered Jimmy spots the made up poisonous gas that did him in. Charlie gets to nosing around and that leads him to some people involved in the military aviation business. There's a Hindu mixed in there somewhere and the police round up all the ones in New york. Shemp Howard turns up as a fake faquir. He's really a crook who specializes in religion scams. In fact most of the Hindu's were played by white people. Trevor Burdette is in there too. There probably weren't many people of Indian descent in Hollywood in the 1940's. Eventually Charlie springs a trap and snags the murderer. Cast does a good job with the ok script. Some fun jokes and some lame ones too.
Dead Men Tell came out March 28 1941. This time we have Charlie in Los Angeles. Most of the movie's action takes place on board a ship that never leaves port. Jimmy is trying to sneak on board that ship, he's interested in going on a sea voyage for the adventure. Charlie is chasing after Jimmy and on the ship he meets Miss Nodbury. She's organizing a treasure hunt. She's got a map and that's what leads to her death. Someone scared her to death. Charlie takes on the case and Jimmy falls into the water a lot. At least he hasn't been arrested much lately. There are the usual cast of characters, some look suspicious and some look innocent, no matter, Charlie gets his man. Future Superman George Reeves is in the cast with a silly little mustashe. It's a fun one and well directed and shot in and about the ship.
Charlie Chan In Rio was released September 5 1941 and it puts Charlie and Jimmy in the South America city after a woman murderer named Lola Dean. Harold Hurber is the local chief of police. Victor Jory is a psychic who has a drug which when mixed with tobacco and coffee will put the user under a trance like state where they speak the truth. He has a recording of Lola, while under a trance, that has her admit to the killing. Before Charlie can get the cuffs on Lola she is murdered. Bummer for her, huh. Oh, well now Charlie has a new case to work on and Jimmy has the pretty Chinese maid to work on. Charlie won't let him bring her back to Honolulu though. He hands Jimmy his draft notice in the closing scene. It's another fun one.
The movies all score a 7.2 on the IMDb and that's a bit high. They aren't that great but they are fun. I'm still enjoying them and will be back in Charlie's world soon enough.
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