Saturday, August 10, 2013

Movie review - Chan#26 - "Charlie Chan in Rio" (1941) **

Charlie goes on the road again, this time to Rio, which was a popular destination for Hollywood movies at the time. So it starts off in that Rio standby - a nightclub, with a Carmen Miranda type performing a number while Charlie and Number Two watch on. However it's as if the budget was blown by that one sequence because the rest of it mostly takes place in a hotel.

There's a murder, various suspects, and Charlie gathers them all in a room at the end. The Rio setting isn't really used (cf Panama in Charlie Chan Goes to Panama) but there is some different in a key plot point turns around hypnosis. There's also some romance for Number Two Son who flirts with a Chinese maid. (He wants to bring her back to Honolulu at the end but dad refuses because Number Two has been drafted - nice cockblocking, dad).

The support cast includes Victor Jory and B movie fave Mary Beth Hughes. Not bad - done professionally enough but really it all may as well have taken place in Honolulu.

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