everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A very good Charlie Chan movie marred by the unfortunate inclusion of the dated comic relief Stepin Fetchit ( "Mr. Tom won me in a card game"). Despite being introduced in the previous film, Keye Luke's "Number One Son" Lee doesn't appear here. The story sees Charlie coming to Egypt to investigate the theft of Egyptian relics and a missing archaeologist. Most notable today for the early appearance of a young Rita Hayworth (billed as Rita Cansino). This is generally considered to be one of the best of the Charlie Chan series. The mystery is nicely done. The Egyptian trappings provide for a nice horror-movie atmosphere. Lots of great Chan aphorisms that we all love. It's a good film for fans of old detective stories. Just be prepared to grit your teeth through the scenes involving Stepin Fetchit's character Snowshoes.

A tomb is opened in the Valley of Kings, an archaeologist dies quickly, another disappears, and artifacts from the tomb begin appearing mysteriously on the black market. Charlie Chan is called in to investigate the whole business by the French archaeological society. Everybody looks suspicious except the pretty young woman and Stepin Fetchit as "Snowshoes", who claims to be descended from Ameti, the recently disinterred King.Actually, what the French Archaeological Society has to do with anything is just as big a mystery. Egypt was in British hands at the time, and they shouldn't have been fiddling around with three-thousand year-old tombs either without the most careful supervision, which was never provided.I lost the thread of the narrative once or twice because my attention drifted and the plot is a little convoluted, but I enjoyed the mumbo jumbo and the fake ghosts and the violin with the deadly gas concealed in its belly, encased in thin glass designed to shatter when the instrument emits sound of a certain frequency.Stepin Fetchit wasn't very amusing. The stereotype wasn't bothersome. Mantan Moreland appeared in some of the later episodes and was often quite amusing. It's just that Fetchit has little to do and nothing funny to say. Rita Hayworth appears in a secondary role but you'd never recognize her if you didn't know who it was. Her hairline was far lower at the time. Not as bad as the wolfman's, but you know what I mean. It peaked down the middle of her brow and had yet to be electrolyzed or electrocuted or whatever it is that Hollywood does to permanently remove hair and restore its line to where they believe Nature intended it to be. I kind of like stories like this about ancient Egyptian tombs -- the narrow passageways, the confusion of multiple rooms, the profusion of hieroglyphics, the fake ghosts gleaming in the darkness, the underground streams. I wish they'd worn pith helmets.The pyramids had uncountable numbers of corridors and shafts going this way and that like a carnival maze. Some years ago, after the invention of fiber optic photography, an investigator ran a tube a few dozen yard up a dead-end shaft that was square and about a foot in diameter. Of course there was nothing IN the tiny shaft -- except a few dangling threads of an old spider web. No one has explained what the spider was seeking at that depth, or why the spider was stupid enough to look for anything at all in a dead-end three-thousand-year-old granite-lined shaft.

Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) finds mystery and murder, naturally, in the secret chambers of an Egyptian tomb, amid lots of hocus-pocus about figurines and ornaments with mysterious powers. With a runtime of just 73 minutes the story is rather thin, and the whodunit puzzle isn't very good. But I suspect the film's appeal in 1935 had more to do with the novelty of Egyptian decor and production design than with the film's plot, some of which is not explained. And I did not like the Snowshoes character, at all. He may have been included as comic relief, but there is nothing about him that is funny, and the character is irrelevant to the whodunit puzzle. The actor playing the part whines and mumbles in a most disagreeable manner. I found him truly annoying.The film's B&W cinematography is marginally acceptable. However, in the copy I watched the images were grainy. At the film's beginning, they used stock footage of Egyptian sites to foster the illusion of being in Egypt. Acting ranges from acceptable to laughably melodramatic. The man playing Barry Arnold, in particular, dreadfully overplays his role, with those bug-eyed histrionics.Although "Charlie Chan In Egypt" is not a complete waste of time, there are other films in the Charlie Chan series that are much better.

This was one of the best of the early Warner Oland Chan films for me, though I'm partial to it because I love old horror movies and "Charlie Chan in Egypt" felt very much like an old mummy picture. In this one, the great detective travels to the historical pyramids to unravel the mystery behind a missing archaeologist and the treasure he unearthed from an ancient mummy's tomb. Very atmospheric and dark, with many strange events on display to perk up the interest.It must be mentioned that the black "comical" actor Stepin Fetchit appears in this film, and back in the day he used to make a career of undermining black people. It's easy to see why some African American viewers might find his character offensive here. Even if you feel that there's a tendency for some modern-day viewers to over-react to political incorrectness in some films of those old days, it's hard not to take notice here and wince. Stepin plays a muttering servant called "Snowshoes" whose speech is difficult to understand and who is portrayed as utterly lazy, fearful and ignorant. His boss - who's the young hero of the film and whose side we're supposed to be on - constantly berates him and scolds him ("do as you're told!") and physically shoves him around.