
“DEATH AFLOAT...striking swiftly. suddenly...leaving on each strangled victim a calling card of crimson coin...thirty pieces of silver!”
On a cruise ship from Honolulu to San Francisco, the famous Chinese detective encounters four more murders while trying to figure out the murder of a Scotland Yard friend.
Release Date: 5/2/1940
Runtime: 77 minutes
Languages: English, Italian
Director: Eugene Forde
00Companies: 20th Century Fox
Countries: United States of America
CinemaSerf
When his British pal "Insp. Shaw" is killed, our eponymous sleuth must join the passengers on a cruise to find the culprit not just of this, but of another murder too! It has a sort of "Murder on the Orient Express" feeling to it, this, as the fellow travellers are introduced to us, and to "Mr. Chan" (Sydney Toler) and we very quickly ascertain that they are a pretty disparate bunch any of whom might, just, be responsible. It helps the mystery that the there is no obvious character - neither by virtue of their role or their billing - to give it away. It's down to some shrewd detective work from "Chan", aided by his rather hapless, but well meaning No 2 son "Jimmy" (a lively effort from Victor Sen Yung) to work it out. Lionel Atwill, Leo G. Carroll, Charles Middleton and an engagingly ditzy Cora Witherspoon ("Susie") all help keep us guessing until quite an exciting denouement with plenty of red herrings and cleverly staged machinations to trap our strangler. The Confucian-style expressions grate after a while, they are just too contrived - but there is lots going on here to kill 75 minutes well.

Sidney Toler
Charlie Chan

Victor Sen Yung
Jimmy Chan

Leo G. Carroll
Professor Gordon

Lionel Atwill
Dr. Suderman

Robert Lowery
Dick Kenyon

Marjorie Weaver
Paula Drake

Cora Witherspoon
Susie Watson

Don Beddoe
Frederick Ross

Leonard Mudie
Gerald Pendleton

Charles Middleton
Jeremiah Walters

Claire Du Brey
Sarah Walters

James Burke
Wilkie, house detective
1987