Docks of New Orleans * (1948, Roland Winters, Virginia Dale, Mantan Moreland, Victor Sen Yung) – Classic Movie Review 9060

Director Derwin Abrahams’s 1948 murder mystery thriller Docks of New Orleans is Roland Winters’s second outing as Earl Derr Biggers’s wily oriental detective Charlie Chan.

With Winters weak and disappointing as Charlie Chan, it is the whole series’s weakest. most disappointing entry to date at that time.

The complicated but dreary mystery story has the bad guys chasing a consignment of chemicals as murder ensues after partners in the LaFontaine Chemical Company sign a law agreement leaving their share in the company to their survivors.

Also in the cast are Victor Sen Yung as Tommy Chan and Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown, John Gallaudet as Capt. Pete McNalley, Virginia Dale, Carol Forman, Douglas Fowley, Harry Hayden, Howard Negley, Stanley Andrews, Emmett Vogan, Boyd Irwin, Rory Mallinson and George J Lewis as Police Sergeant Dansiger.

Docks of New Orleans is directed by Derwin Abrahams, runs 64 minutes, is made and released by Monogram Pictures, is written by W Scott Darling, is shot in black and white by William Sickner, is produced by James S Burkett and is scored by Edward Kay. It is shot at Monogram Studios.

The 43rd of 47 Charlie Chan movies, it follows The Chinese Ring (1947) and is followed by Shanghai Chest (1948).

Roland Winters made his debut as Charlie Chan in The Chinese Ring (1947), starring in six movies. He took over as Charlie Chan after cancer-stricken Sidney Toler’s final film, The Trap (1946).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9060

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