FROM CHARLIE CHAN: “Man without enemies like dog without fleas.”

THANK YOU SO MUCH! A heartfelt note of HUGE gratitude to everyone, especially Matt, GS, and Hounder, for helping out for the last several Monday evenings…you, ALL of our Chan community, are GREAT to but it very humbly! Our three-week family road trip has concluded, and we are all slowly “recovering” from our 6,459-mile drive to Michigan and back. First, Rachel is fine. You may remember that I had to duck out of last week’s Chat as she didn’t heed the warnings against running around the motel’s pool, thus falling and badly hurting her wrist. Fortunately, it turned out to be a sprained wrist, and she is fine a week later.

THIS WEEK: The curtain closes on the 20th Century-Fox era of the Charlie Chan film series as we watch and share “Castle in the Desert,” starring Sidney Toler and featuring Victor Sen Yung. As war raged around the world, and the United States entering the conflict just after the completion of our film, the overseas market for Charlie Chan movies became nonexistent, and, with that reality, the series came to a conclusion.

In our film, Charlie Chan is called to a mysterious castle located in the Mojave Desert of California, near Death Valley, at the request of the mysterious Mrs. Manderley, wife of an eccentric historian, Paul Manderley, who wishes to live his life in the manner of the Borgia family of the Middle Ages. Joined by his son, Jimmy, away on leave from Army duty, Charlie Chan suddenly finds himself investigating a case of apparent murder among a host of unusual suspects!
Preceding our Charlie Chan feature, our weekly “extra,” will be another chapter, episode 34) of the 1936 radio dramatization of “The Landini Murder Case,” an adaptation, of Earl Derr Biggers’ “Keeper of the Keys,” the only Biggers Chan Story never to have been made into a film, starring Walter Connolly.

OUR PRESENTATIONS: “Castle in the Desert” (1942; 63 minutes) …AND “The Landini Murder Case,” Episode 38 (Radio Drama: 1936; 15 minutes).

FILM SUMMARY: Charlie Chan and son Jimmy visit the exotic city of Rio de Janeiro in order to arrest nightclub singer Lola Dean for a murder committed a year earlier in Honolulu. Later, they find the singer has been stabbed to death in her home. Her jewels have been stolen and a number of clues have been seemingly planted at the crime scene. The suspects are numerous, and Chan must sift through the evidence to unmask the killer.

FILM NOTES: Although an August 15, 1941 ‘Hollywood Reporter’ news item stated that John Larkin would write the screenplay for this film based on an original story by producer Ralph Dietrich, no other contemporary source confirms Dietrich's contributions to the picture as a writer. According to a studio press release and another ‘Hollywood Reporter’ news item, Janis Carter was originally cast as Brenda Hartford. The Variety review erroneously lists the film's running time as 51 minutes. “Castle in the Desert” was the last Charlie Chan film produced by Twentieth Century-Fox. After Sidney Toler obtained the film rights to the character from the widow of Earl Derr Biggers, he continued to make Chan films at Monogram Pictures. It is interesting to note that Victor Sen Yung's life would soon share a parallel with that of Charlie Chan's Number Two Son, Jimmy, as he would soon be joining the U.S. Army Air Forces for the duration of World War II.

TIME: We begin with arrivals and greetings at 7:30 EASTERN TIME. Then, we share our special short “extra” which will be followed at exactly 8:15 when we roll our feature for this Monday evening, “Castle in the Desert.”

LOCATION: Our Charlie Chan Family Chat Room, which is accessed at http://www.charliechan.info/id17.html.

IF YOU LACK A COPY OF OUR FILM: Often our features can be found available online. Once again, good fortune nods affirmatively as our feature IS available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBtPu2qF2so
And, for our Charlie Chan radio drama, you may use this link: https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/crime/charlie-chan/charlie-chan-38-landini

OUR MONTHLY POLL: Please take a moment to cast your vote in our soon-to-conclude July 2018 Poll, located at our Entrance Page (http://www.charliechan.info/index.html)!

NEXT WEEK: Join us on July 23 as we share a viewing of “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service.”

SO, PLEASE JOIN US for our Monday Evening Chat and Film Viewing as we share “Castle in the Desert.”

Sincerely,
Rush Glick