The Scarlet Clue (1945)

Absolutely Brilliant!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Despite there being plot deficiencies all over the place, this is still fun. Once again, Charlie is called in because of goings on in the defense department. There is a murder early and the circumstances are confusing. It turns out there is some sort of central figure pulling strings as a group of gangsters carry out the instructions of this man. He communicates with a teletype machine so they don't recognize his voice. Anyway, it's the usual group of suspects, this time the cast of a radio show. We are also give a look at that new medium, television. Mantan Moreland and his vaudeville partner do their wonderful sketch where they finish each other's sentences. Tommy Chan is such a windbag and gets the full treatment from his father, although he does find some serious evidence. I liked this one quite a bit.

"The Scarlet Clue" is a Charlie Chan mystery from Monogram starring Sidney Toler, Benson Fong as number three son Tommy, and Mantan Moreland as the chauffeur Birmingham. In this one, from 1945, Charlie is looking into the theft of government papers involving a radar. In doing so, Charlie not only runs into murder but also actors on the radio, as for some reason, there's a lab in the same building.Delightful, often humorous Chan mystery, though incredibly dated today. Mantan Moreland is hilarious, and Chan has a great relationship with both son Tommy and Birmingham. Toler was a good Chan in very different, not very politically correct times.

Famed detective and government agent Charlie Chan is back again for this Monogram film where Charlie is trailing a suspect who may be involved with plans to steal radar equipment/secrets from our government for foreign spies and who has just killed aboard a ship. Chan and detective friend trace suspect back to a radio show and from there on Charlie helps at least three more people get killed with his investigation. This is an interesting Chan vehicle and gives Sidney Toler plenty of screen time to hone his Chan skills. Benson Fong and Mantan Moreland are back once again and lift the mundane to the amusing with their comic routines. Moreland, again, steals his scenes and gives the film a lot of vitality it would otherwise not have. I particularly like a couple of routines he does in the film with a guy he knows and neither one lets the other finish the sentence. The comic timing was first-rate! As for the mystery, it is not too terribly confusing though when the end is told no real explanation as to why and who did crimes is revealed fully. I enjoyed many of the characterizations of the show people. I thought the means of death were very inventive, and I loved the whole thing with the elevator. Very clever.

When I was little, my brother and I would stay up late at night any time Charlie Chan was on the midnight movie schedule on one of the local television stations. So I've been a fan for 35 years. And even though there are a few moments I enjoy, The Scarlet Clue has always been among my least favorite of the Chan series. Far too much time is spent on Number 3 Son and Birmingham Brown and not enough is spent on Charlie interviewing suspects and gathering clues. What clues Chan does find are so obvious that any detective should have been able to piece the mystery together. The script gives the killer too much leeway in the rigging of intricate electric devices used for murder. Surely someone would have noticed a trap door being installed in the elevator. And the whole Chan working for the government against the Nazis in WWII is not my cup of tea. Give me a big old house full of suspicious looking suspects, each with a motive for murder.To each his own though. I'm sure that my list of favorite Chan films would include some that fans of The Scarlet Clue would consider among the worst.