City in Darkness (1939)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Why so much hype?

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Even after watching it a couple of times, this - admittedly unique - entry in the 'Charlie Chan' series still looks like a somewhat strange and a little bit inappropriate mixture of a 'usual' murder mystery and an early WWII flag waver. It starts like a Newsreel about the dramatical political developments in Europe; and it is announced that on September 28, the whole city of Paris has to remain in darkness because of the possibility of a German air strike.The next thing we see is a reunion party of secret agents from WWI, to which M. Romaine, the Prefect of Police, has invited his old friend Charlie Chan; and they drink a toast to peace, hoping there'll not be another war soon...But at the same time, there is a spy ring of an enemy country in full activity: Charlotte Ronnell arranges with sinister Belescu that a cargo full of French weapons manufactured by another enemy spy, Petroff, will sail out the same night to get into the enemy's hands before an embargo will be imposed; but Belescu tricks them, and they're left without the necessary papers. And in another part of Paris, Petroff's innocent former secretary Tony Madero wants to flee the country in order not to be accused as a member of the spy ring, and his wife Marie promises him to get him a ticket and a false passport from shady M. Santelle - but she's got to raise a lot of money, and her only hope is Petroff...... And a few hours later, Petroff is found shot, discovered by his butler Antoine, a veteran from WWI who has just sent his young son to the army; and so, while the soldiers are leaving for a possible war, Charlie and his friend's godson, dopey inspector Marcel (played once more by Harold Huber, who specialized in playing nervous, clumsy Frenchmen) investigate the Petroff murder, looking for clues like a camellia lying next to the body, a smashed window in the cellar, and so on...Somehow, this mixture doesn't work properly - solving a murder case (even if it's connected to a dangerous spy ring) amid the atmosphere of a city preparing for war is simply somehow like losing one's sense of proportion... And when the case is solved, the film takes us back to politics: Romaine proclaims happily that there will be NO war, because Hitler has just invited the French and British Premiers to a conference in Munich! BUT since the film was released in December 1939, the further developments were already known by that time; and so Charlie Chan can utter one of his wise 'foretellings': 'Beware of spider who invites fly into parlor'...

"Charlie Chan in the City of Darkness" was released three months after World War II broke out in Europe. The film takes place in Paris on the brink of war, and there isn't a heck of a lot of mystery here. The movie also seems long.Chan is in Paris for a reunion, as citizens scramble for gas masks and are warned to observe blackouts.Charlie is pulled into an investigation of the murder of a businessman at the behest of Marcel, the godson of the Paris Chief of Police. Eventually they uncover a conspiracy to sell a shipment of arms to the Germans though the manifest reads that it's fruit. Marcel is somewhat of a buffoon, and Roumanian, I assumed.Lynn Bari plays a woman trying to buy her husband's way out of the country after he is framed by one of the criminals; Leo G. Carroll plays a Frenchman who is milking the trouble for all its worth, selling passports and boat tickets for exorbitant prices.At the end, we get the news that there's not going to be a war, as there is to be a meeting with Hitler. Just give him Poland, France, Russia, and a few other places, I guess, and he would be quiet. Charlie isn't fooled. By the time this film was released, no one else was either.

"City in Darkness" is the worst film I have ever watched in its entirety. It makes "Killer Tomatoes," "Fargo," and John Ford look good. Nothing against Harold Huber, but his manic behavior in this film really grates on the nerves. The Sydney Toler "Chan" films are lighter than those starring Warner Oland, and many are quite entertaining. "City in Darkness," however, is not one of them. The lack of number (whatever) son does not help. I suppose that the film had a propaganda intent. There's no problem with that, but it is so bad that I think that any higher purpose might have been negated by the quality of the production. It is definitely not one I would recommend to Chan fans.

In my opinion, this has to be one of the worst Sidney Toler's Charlie Chan's. I say this for two reasons. This first is Charlie seemed to be a minor character in this movie. Somehow, the movie was taken over by Harold Huber's loud and chaotic character, Marcel. Somehow, someone, I suppose the director, Herbert I. Leeds, let him run wild spouting a lot of nonsense in a loud voice. Maybe the first "I see it all now!" was funny, but it was definitely overplayed. This movie could have been so much better if they had just allowed Paris to co-star with Charlie.