FROM CHARLIE CHAN: “Guilty conscience like dog in circus - many tricks."

OUR CHAT ROOM: Our Chat Room can be accessed the same way that we accessed by going to our “Chat Room” link at charliechan.info, or use this direct link: http://www.charliechan.info/id17.html

THIS WEEK’S PRESENTATIONS: “Castle in the Desert” (1942; 63 minutes) AND we have as our “extra” presentation, the FINAL chapter of the well-produced movie serial, “The Green Hornet Strikes Again!“ (1940; 19 minutes), which features our Number One Son, Keye Luke, as the Green Hornet’s assistant, Kato!

FEATURE SUMMARY: A guest is murdered at Manderley Castle, a medieval reconstruction located in the middle of the Mojave Desert, which is owned by wealthy historian Paul Manderley and his wife, Lucy, who is a descendent of the notorious Borgia family. Charlie Chan, who was summoned to the castle earlier, and Number Two Son, Jimmy, away on leave from the U.S. Army, quickly get to work trying to unravel the mystery.

FEATURE 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 “extra” presentation which will be followed at exactly 8:15 when we roll our feature for our 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 online. Happily, both our feature as well as our extra are available online. Please use the links provided at our Chat Room.

THIS WEEK’S IMAGE: Paul Manderley and the Hartfords react to the sudden collapse of one of the guests during dinner at Manderley Castle.


OUR MONTHLY POLL: Please take a moment to cast your vote in our JULY 2019 POLL, found as you scroll down our Entrance Page (http://www.charliechan.info/index.html)!

OUR CCF CHAT ARCHIVE: Please take a look at our growing collection of CCF Chat Texts from previous years and this year: http://www.charliechan.info/id630.html

NEXT WEEK: Please join us on Monday, July 22, as we move forward along our Charlie Chan Film Tour as we arrive at the beginning of the Monogram Pictures chapter in the Charlie Chan film series with “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service.” Also, for our “extra presentation,” we will begin a NEW serial: “Secret Agent X-9” (1945) featuring our Number One Son, Keye Luke, plus our Number Three Son, Benson Fong!

A NEW CHARLIE CHAN BLOG!: A NEW blog site, The Postman on Holiday, offered by our own Lou Armagno which is: "A place to explore all things surrounding Detective Charlie Chan, his creator Earl Derr Biggers, and their connection with Hawaii, Cleveland, and mystery fiction." It can be found at this address: https://thepostmanonholiday.com/

DO YOU HAVE A POLL QUESTION? Please feel free to suggest a Monthly Poll question! Send your ideas to: charliechanfamily@lycos.com!

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

Sincerely,

Rush Glick