Our film for Monday Night: "The Trap," as we fondly say goodbye to Sidney Toler...
FROM CHARLIE CHAN: “Puzzle always deepest near the center.”
THIS WEEK: We sadly have reached the end of the Sidney Toler era of the Charlie Chan fil series. “The Trap” would be Mr. Toler’s final film as Charlie Chan as well as the final film in his illustrious career, as he succumbed to cancer on February 12, 1947.
OUR PRESENTATIONS: “The Trap” (1946; 69 minutes) AND we continue our “extra” presentation with another cartoon episode of “The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan,” starring Keye Luke, who provides the voice of Charlie Chan: “The Eye of the Idol“ (1972; 20 minutes). (Unfortunately, with our online versions of our Chan Clan cartoons seen through YouTube, commercials are sometimes automatically inserted at the beginning and each 5 minutes.)
FILM SUMMARY: The members of Cole King's variety troupe occupy a Malibu, California beach house. One of the showgirls disappears, and her body is discovered by San Toy, a Chinese member of the troupe. Because Lois has been strangled, a murder technique said to be favored by the Chinese and the French, both San Toy and Adelaide, who is French, are under immediate suspicion. San Toy, who is a friend of Jimmy Chan, asks his father to investigate.
FILM NOTES: Working titles for “The Trap” were “Murder in Malibu Beach” and “Charlie Chan in the Trap.” This is one of two Chan films in the series proper to have been filmed in large measure on location, the other being “The Black Camel” (1931). “The Trap” marked the final film appearance for Sidney Toler, who died on February 12, 1947. Roland Winters assumed the role of Charlie Chan in the 1947 film The Chinese Ring.
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, “The Trap.”
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, and, happily, this week’s feature IS available for viewing at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9dXvS-qm9A
For our Charlie Chan cartoon, “The Eye of the Idol,” you may use this link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4203yt
(Unfortunately, with our online versions of our Chan Clan cartoons, seen through YouTube, commercials might be automatically inserted each 5 minutes.)
OUR MONTHLY POLL: Please take a moment to cast your vote in our October 2018 Poll, located at our Entrance Page (http://www.charliechan.info/index.html)!
NEXT WEEK: Join us on Monday, October 15, as we view two episodes of “The New Adventures of Charlie Chan” (“Death of a Don” and “Death at High Tide”). If you need a good copy of the “New Adventures of Charlie Chan” series, please see the information below. If you order now, you will probably still receive it in time for our showing!
THE COMPLETE 39-EPISODE COLLECTION OF “THE NEW ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE CHAN”…A BARGAIN ON EBAY: What I consider to be the best collection available of "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan" is now being offered at The Nostalgia Merchant Store on eBay for $25.98 with FREE POSTAGE! This is your chance to purchase all 39 episodes of this 1957 TV crime series starring J. Carroll Naish as Charlie Chan with James Hong as his Number One Son, Barry. That's just 65 cents per episode!
At different points during our yearlong tours through the entire Charlie Chan series, we share a pair of these half-hour-long adventures. (These are RARELY available for viewing online, and even then, perhaps one or two random episodes at best!) This is a great opportunity for anyone who lacks these adventures in their personal collections to pick up one of these nicely produced box sets, which is one of the two versions that I have.
Here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlie-Chan-Complete-Series-TV-Classics/123258830834?hash=item1cb2cc7ff2:g:UX8AAOSwAOdbT~Pk
SO, PLEASE JOIN US for our Monday Evening Chat and Film Viewing as we share Sidney Toler’s final film, “The Trap.”
