The Shanghai Cobra (1945)

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Theft of radium from a bank vault, a jukebox containing a camera, and a switchboard supervisor that understands Morris code figure into this murder mystery featuring Sidney Toler as the inimitable Charlie Chan. The story follows the same whodunit theme as other Charlie Chan mysteries. And I wish I could recommend this film; but I can't.The script is poorly written. I about tore my hair out trying to figure out who's who with these various story characters and how they related to each other, if at all. Suspects are poorly defined. There's very little suspense here. The plot is somewhat mangled with unexplained occurrences. Some unnecessary scenes could have been either shortened or deleted.The B&W lighting also is not high quality. Though the noir atmosphere at the very beginning is atmospheric, the lighting is so dark the viewer can hardly distinguish character faces in outdoor scenes. High contrast lighting is also too severe in underground segments.The "cobra" is actually a person that inflicts a small cigarette lighter device containing poison into the victim. It's an imaginative plot hook, but hardly realistic. Beyond that story hook and a couple of funny Birmingham character scenes, the poor script and outdoor lighting render "The Shanghai Cobra" below average in the Charlie Chan series of whodunits.

If you're volunteering to watch a Charlie Chan movie, you already have some idea of what's in store, and as this is one of the late ones done at the Poverty Row Studio, Monogram, you may also know it's not heavy on either production values or a complex script.That said, director Phil Karlson sets up the first five minutes as if this were a dynamic, lurking-in-the-shadows film noir, and immediately slips from dark, shadowy streets into a brightly-lit diner where the juke-box is also a one-way television which connects to a secret room somewhere else in the city; what's not to like? Sounds like the start of a fascinating mystery! Unfortunately, the remainder of the film doesn't develop many more startling innovations or follow up much with the television, getting lost somewhere as the script pages went missing, perhapsThere are, however, character treats along with way, such familiar folks as George Chandler as a cynical soda jerk and familiar-face Addison Richards as a suspicious bank guard; the 64 minutes are well-spent for the average "B" movie fan--but this ain't The Maltese Falcon although almost any hour spent with Charlie Chan can be unadulterated escapism.

This Charlie Chan entry was more mystery-oriented than most of the Monogram Pictures versions, which tended to rely more on humor. The earlier Warner Oland-Chan films were like this one with the emphasis more on serious issues. I liked both Oland and Sidney Toler in the role of Charlie Chan, so I have no complaints either way.As usual, it's Charlie's assistants: "Birmingham Brown" (Mantan Moreland) and "Number Three Son Tommy" (Benson Fong) who need to be rescued. They also try to help but usually wind up in trouble. Charlie has to solve the murder and help his buddies. It's a good thing because "Tommy" and "Brimingham" are the ones who add spice to this story, which was flat until the halfway mark.This is kind of strange story and nothing was stranger than this jukebox that was rigged as a camera, with somebody behind it. It's hard to describe but it very cool, and something - technology-wise, that seemed to be way ahead of its time.None of the Monogram Chan movies in the 1940s were "classics" but they all were entertaining and offered something different. This movie is typical: boring for some viewers, fascinating for others, lulls that shouldn't be there, but a good mix of humor, suspense and mystery. In a nutshell, Charlie is called to Washington to help a Federal guy with a baffling case. Charlie owed him a favor so he is cashing in. It seems three people have been killed with cobra venom and the prime suspect is a guy that got caught in Shanghai eight years ago but now is not recognized. Only Charlie would know who the guys is, hence, they need him. (The suspect, "Jan Van Horn" was badly burned when the Japanese bombed the city, as the time of his arrest.)Anyway, all three recent victims of the cobra bite worked for Sixth National Bank but the police have no clue. No wonder they always need Chan's assistance. Most of the officers shown in these movies are clueless about anything.The story, even at a little over one hour in length, is slow in the first half hour and could use some punching up, but once Charlie's kid and "Birmingham Brown" go down to the sewers to investigate, the film is fun. Anyway, it's not like you waste half the day watching it. Charlie Chan movies are usually a fun way to spend a little over an hour.

In 1937, Dan Van Horn was arrested in Shanghai for a murder in which the bite of a cobra was implicated. Van Horn escaped, never to be heard from again, although it's known that his face was badly burned in an accident.It's now eight years later, and three employees of the Sixth National Bank have turned up dead, all identified as victims of the "Cobra Killer". The bank contains stores of radium for laboratory and hospital use, and is the center of all the skullduggery. As we've seen before, Inspector Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is alternately aided and confounded by his assistants, Number #3 Son Tommy (Benson Fong) and chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) - "You remain here until I find doghouse big enough to hold both of you". There are just enough characters and victims here to need a scorecard, and truthfully, that's about the only way one can follow the action. Add to that the device of moving a laundry storefront one door down from it's original location to further confuse the investigation. Van Horn (alternately referred to as "Dan" and "Jan"), is eventually revealed to be bank guard John Adams, who with his undercover daughter Paula Webb, have trailed the real Cobra Killer to the United States in an attempt to clear his name. The cobra device turns out to be not one, but two different gimmicks - a poisoned needle on the knob of a coffee shop juke box, and a similar set of needles on a cigarette lighter used to dispatch a detective working the bank building. The real Cobra Killer is a chemical engineer with an office at the bank, but as usual, his identity is only revealed at the end of the film, with only his profession providing a clue to the mystery. The Shanghai Cobra is a nifty entry into the Charlie Chan series at Monogram (this is the 6th film), but view it with some suspension of belief, as any number of the scenes and elements in the film rely on a stretch of the imagination.