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"Most interesting case," it has roots in China during the Japanese bombing, a burned criminal bandaged like the Invisible Man leaps off the side of a police boat. Consequences extend to rain-slicked New York, where a clandestine rendezvous unfolds in a diner while a choice beef stew goes ignored and bank clerks keel over from a mysterious venom. Sidney Toler's Charlie Chan is a particularly grumpy interpretation, scowling at Number Three Son (Benson Fong) for putting his feet up on the office desk: "Rising generation sit too much." A radium MacGuffin just ahead of Notorious, an impregnable vault is the target, plenty of trap doors and subterranean explosions along the way. "In my business always expect to find something wrong." The mystery boasts a solid noir texture courtesy of Phil Karlson, whose deep-focus arrangements on a shoestring include a darkened chamber with guns drawn in the foreground and Mantan Moreland's trembling eyes in the background. Chan gets to the bottom of things while playing Cupid for the private detective (James Cardwell) and the bank secretary (Joan Barclay), "people don't fall in love that fast, except on the stage." The exotic menace of the title turns out to be a matter of homegrown technology, the poisoned fang belonging to a jukebox connected to a control room for requests and murders—a newfangled leisure gadget turned Mabusean death machine. "Even wise man cannot fathom the depth of woman's smile," declares the honorable sleuth, his slangy offspring has a motto of his own, "cherchez la peacherino." With Addison Richards, Arthur Loft, Janet Warren, Gene Stutenroth, James Flavin, Roy Gordon, and George Chandler. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |