Moviecut—Charlie Chan at the Race Track

source: Charlie Chan at the Race Track

Charlie Chan at the Race Track

The title is a partial misnomer: about half of the movie takes place on a ship. The actual horse-racing scenes are well-filmed, but the movie in general is forgettable. The biggest issue is the anonymous supporting cast: it's hard to tell any of the characters apart, and none of them inspire any interest, sympathy, or even antipathy. The exceptions are, of course, Warner Oland, who is solid as Charlie Chan and whose aphorisms are the best quality of the film, and his Number One Son, likably played by Keye Luke. Oland has the single best moment in the film when he says to the culprit, with deadpan seriousness, "You convict self. Thank you so much"! My other favorite Chan line is probably "Suspicion often father of truth". ** out of 4.

The famed detective Charlie Chan(Warner Oland) is on board a steamer when a prominent horse breeder is found stomped to death and possibly by his own horse. When Chan investigates he discovers his friend may not have been killed by his horse after all, but actually a ring of ruthless gamblers. Number One Son Lee(Keye Luke)helps prove that the smallest clues lead to the biggest answers. Charlie and son will have to match wits with kidnapping gamblers. The races at Santa Anita make a busy backdrop for murder gone bad. H. Bruce Humberstone directs this caper that also features: Helen Wood, Paul Fix, Gloria Roy, Thomas Beck , George Irving and Robert Warwick.

Charlie Chan's old friend is murdered after he threatens to break up a racehorse gambling ring. Charlie investigates and finds lots of suspicious characters involved. Seems like every one of the popular movie detectives from the '30s and '40s eventually had a case involving horse racing. This one mixes the horse racing backdrop with that of an ocean liner mystery. This is a lesser but still enjoyable entry in the series. Possibly the "worst" of the Oland Chan movies, which says a lot about how good the series was. Keye Luke is still great fun as "Number One Son" Lee. Unfortunately there is also a cowardly stablehand character named Streamline that will be pretty offensive to modern audiences. Thankfully, he's not in the movie a lot. All of the suspects in this one are slimy. It was hard guessing who the killer was because they all seemed capable of it.

An interesting film with much in its favor, especially the team of Oland and Luke. I particularly like the scenes aboard ship en route from Honolulu to the mainland. Keye Luke has many funny scenes. A fair portion of the beginning of the film involves the other characters before Chan gets involved in the mystery. This makes it seem more like one of the Earl Derr Bigger's novels. This film makes a good double feature with the Marx Brothers' film, "A Day At The Races".

This is one of my favorites of the Chan series! Keye Luke as Lee Chan gave his funniest performance, in my opinion. His blabbering in Chinese when being led out of Charlie's stateroom; his antics while the fireworks are going off; notice how hard he hits one of the bad guys over the head with the bottle prop - really whacks him! Although I didn't care for the way the "Streamline" character was treated by some of the other cast members, this entry is entertaining! One of Charlie's great quotes - "Frequent spanking when young make rear view very familiar!"

Charlie Chan gets involved in this case when a good friend is killed. He moves into the horse racing world. In so doing, he becomes the target of a crime syndicate that is involved in illegal betting. Avalanche, the horse that is the favorite, acts erratically. All sorts of shenanigans take place on board the steamship bring the horses to Los Angeles. There are a number of possible suspects and this offering makes it hard for the viewer to figure things out. The one thing that is hard to swallow is that the two favorites are disguised and switched. I would be that anyone close to a race horse could tell merely from its gait that it is a particular horse. This stretches things quite a bit. Unfortunately, we once again have a black man acting in the stereotypical Stepin Fetchitt mode. His name is Streamline and he has a monkey. While the monkey is important to the plot, this man is made to look subservient and foolish.

I always enjoy the byplay between Charlie Chan and his kids. Warner Oland was more loving to them in the early Chans while Sidney Toler was more insulting (but not in a mean-spirited way.) In this episode, Oland lets Keye Luke get very involved in the case and Luke provides a number of laughs along the way. This was an interesting script and had a decent number of action scenes along with it during the 70 minutes. There are some inventive twists to the story, regarding the crooks, too. This is another Charlie Chan winner, and I am pleased to see it will be out on DVD in December.