Charlie Chan in The Shanghai Cobra | Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland

Charlie Chan in The Shanghai Cobra | Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland | One of Toler's Best Performances as Charlie Chan

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Charlie Chan in Th...

	Charlie Chan in The Shanghai Cobra Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland MGM (Video & DVD), 2004 average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From the director of Kansas City Confidential and The Silencers comes this unusual Chan mystery. Containing a number of film noir elements unique to the series (such as a weary young detective stark urban sets and a grown-up romance) The Shanghai Cobra is one of the most striking Chans of all!Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is called in to investigate a strange and complicated series of mysterious murders by cobra venom. Soon Charlie Number Three Son Tommy (Benson Fong) and ever-present assistant Birmingham Brown are on the trail of an escaped con from Shanghai who s out to rob a government vault of its valuable contents: highly toxic radium!System Requirements: Running Time 64 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: NR UPC: 027616908360 Manufacturer No: 1006675

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Classic Charlie Chan

Wonderfully written and acted by Sidney Toler. A great movie for all Charlie Chan fans.

One of Toler's Best Performances as Charlie Chan

Obviously the Chan movies made at Monogram could never compare to those made at Fox with Warner Oland, but of these, The Shanghai Cobra is one of the best. Several employees of a bank have been murdered by a killer dubbed "The Cobra Killer" for his use of cobra venom in dispatching his enemies. Chan is called in to solve the murders.

Director Phil Karlson really gets the most out of the limited budget he had to work with and this film looks much better than most Monogram films with better production values and superior acting. The mystery is also very well done and keeps your interest in trying to figure out who the murderer is. Benson Fong and the always enjoyable Mantan Moreland provide the comic relief as #3 son Tommy Chan and Birmingham Brown respectively. Moreland brings life to every role he is in.

As a kid I would love staying up late and watching these with my dad who was a huge fan. We watched several together when Turner Classic was running them a couple of years ago or so and I was so disappointed when they decided to pull them off the air. These were always very entertaining.

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A Clever Murder and a hidden Murderer...

1945's "The Shanghai Cobra" is a better than average Charlie Chan movie of those featuring Sidney Toler as the famous Honolulu Detective, here seconded to U.S. Government duty for the war. Benson Fong as Number Three Son Tommy and Mantan Moreland as driver Birmingham Brown co-star and provide comic relief.

The movie opens with a noir-like sequence in which three people seem to be following each other around a darkened street. They have a brief confrontation in a cafe, then one drops dead rather suddenly on the sidewalk outside.

Charlie Chan is asked to assist the New York police on the case. The man who died on the sidewalk is one of three people to die of cobra venom poisoning, a signature Charlie Chan associates with a pre-war killer in Shanghai named Jan Van Horne. Van Horne, facially disfigured in a Japanese bombing raid before escaping custody, has not been seen since.

Charlie Chan begins his investigation, assisted, more or less, by Tommy and Birmingham Brown. They soon discover that a mysterious gang is planning to break into a bank vault and steal a million dollar supply of radium. The evidence suggests that the gang has an insider in the bank, whom they suspect might be the missing Jan Van Horne.

This Charlie Chan episode comes up with a complicated plot whose threads are not all immediately apparent. Director Phil Karlson weaves in a romance between a private eye and a bank secretary while Charlie and his cohorts explore sewer tunnels and a mysterious disappearing laundry. In a thrilling ending, Charlie, Tommy, and Birmingham must survive a cave-in to trap the missing "Shanghai Cobra."

"The Shanghai Cobra" is recommended to Charlie Chan fans as a entertaining entry in this series.

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Among the Best of the "Monogram" Chans--But That Isn't Saying Much

Loosely based on novels by Earl Derr Biggers, 20th Century Fox's Charlie Chan series proved an audience favorite--but when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the studio feared audiences would turn against its Asian hero. This was a miscalculation: actor Sidney Toler took the role to "poverty row" Monogram Studios, where he continued to portray the character in eleven more films made between 1944 and his death in 1947.

20th Century Fox had regarded the Chan films as inexpensive "B" movies, but even so the studio took considerable care with them: the plots were often silly, but the pace was sharp, the dialogue witty, and the casts (which featured the likes of Bela Lugosi and Ray Milland) always expert. The result was a kindly charm which has stood the test of time. Monogram was a different matter: Chan films were "B" movies plain and simple. Little care was taken with scripts or cast and resulting films were flat, mediocre at best, virtually unwatchable at worst.

Thanks to an adequate cast and a few interesting plot devices, THE SHANGHAI COBRA is among the best of the Monogram-made Chan films--but even so it barely manages to acheive a consistent mediocrity. In this particularly entry, Chan (Sidney Toler) is called upon to investigate a murderer who kills with what appears to be a cobra-like bite; at the same time, he decides to make certain that a government supply of radium tucked away in a bank vault, of all places, remains secure. Do these two seemingly unrelated plot lines come together? Well... could be!

Sidney Toler is always enjoyable as Chan, but most of his Monogram performances seemed "phoned in"--and that is as true of COBRA as it is of any Monogram Chan film. As usual, the really enjoyable performer is Mantan Mooreland. Changing times have led us to look upon Moreland's brand of comedy as demeaning to African-Americans, but he was an expert actor and comic, and taken within the context of what was possible for a black actor in the 1940s his work has tremendous charm and innocence.

Fans of the 20th Century Fox series are likely to find Monogram's Chan a significant disappointment and newcomers who like the Monogram films will probably consider them third-rate after encountering the Fox films. Like other Monogram Chan films, THE SHANGHAI COBRA is best left to determined collectors. Three stars, and that's being generous.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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Sidney Toler Plays Tough and Soft

After Warner Oland died, Sidney Toler took over the role of Charlie Chan. Oland brought a natural dignity to the role that made Charlie seem like a beloved, rotund uncle. Toler inherited scripts that required him to be gruff and uncompromising, rather than charming. The films were now produced at Monogram which didn't want to spend much money.

The Shanghai Cobra was filmed on a B budget but the script made an attempt to retain some of the better elements of the Oland movies. For example, I've always been a sucker for the "gee whiz" science in the Charlie Chan movies. The Shanghai Cobra is filled with cutting edge technology for its day from radium used in diagnostic work to a juke box that operates in part by television.

Cobra also added two humorous sidekicks, number three son Tommy (played by Benson Fong) and driver Birmingham Brown (portrayed by Mantan Moreland). Fong and Moreland play their roles in a more restrained way that Keye Luke and Stepin Fetchit did in the Oland films, and I think the restraint works well.

The story involves an escaped murderer who had killed a man in China by using cobra venom. When bank employees in the U.S. start dying from cobra venom as well, it's obvious that the same man may be involved. There's a problem though; the convicted murderer was badly burned and may have changed his appearance through plastic surgery. Only Charlie Chan may be able to recognize him.

The plot is very complex and will definitely challenge you to identify the murderer. I didn't detect any early clues to point out who it was. There's plenty of misdirection though to keep you guessing in all directions.

The strength of the film is its noir style which takes good advantage of subterranean adventures, secret passages, dark nights, lurking strangers, and drenching rain.

Don't expect this to be your favorite Charlie Chan film, but I think you'll have fun.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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