Shadows Over Chinatown * (1946, Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Victor Sen Yung) – Classic Movie Review 9067

Director Terry Morse’s 1946 thriller Shadows over Chinatown is an especially feeble Charlie Chan entry as Earl Derr Biggers’s oriental detective Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) searches for a missing young woman, Mary Conover (Tanis Chandler), and investigates an insurance swindler, who heads a murderous gang collecting the life policy pay-out money of its victims, in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

A fairly dreary story receives the most plodding handling, with cursory work all round in a cheap-looking production, though Toler is still a welcome presence.

Also in the cast are Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown, Victor Sen Yung as Jimmy Chan, Tanis Chandler, Bruce Kellogg, John Gallaudet, Paul Bryar, Mary Gordon, Alan [Al] Bridge, Dorothy Granger, George Eldredge, Tyra Vaughn, Lyle Latell, Mira McKinney and Jack Norton.

Shadows over Chinatown is directed by Terry Morse, runs 61 minutes, is made and released by Monogram Pictures, is written by Raymond Schrock, is shot in black and William Sickner, and produced by James R Burkett.

Victor Sen Yung debuts here as Jimmy Chan in the Monogram series, his previous Charlie Chan being 1942’s Castle in the Desert, the final Fox entry.

The 38th of 47 Charlie Chan films, it follows Dark Alibi (1946) and is followed by Dangerous Money (1946).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9067

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