SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Purely Joyful Movie!

Better Late Then Never

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I liked the sound the plot, mystery house movie People were being killed one by one but we had to figure out who the killer is The movie was a lot more funny then scary, as there were really fun y moments, that made me laugh out When the killer attacks we never we only see , when there is death we only get to see the after math Soon fingers are pointed at each other but who the really killer I was disappointing who the killer was in the end but its not all want it seemed I give this 5 out of 0

It is obvious that as the Charlie Chan series moved from 20th Century Fox over to Monogram that quality diminished a great deal both in the technical and in the actual storyline content. It is obvious that the screenwriters were putting in many twists and turns into the short running times of these programmers because it is not always easy to remember who is involved in what scheme and who was there or not around when the murder took place. The actual murder here is quite chilling, almost like an old-dark house theme as it is set up, but the list of suspects are entirely all too stereotypical, with the acting not up to par as previous entries in the series. Chan has gone onto #4 son (Edwin Luke) as his sidekick here, more intellectual here and less of a "Gee pop" All American guy who happens to be of Chinese descent. Mantan Moreland gets his usual number of malapropisms and cowardly desires to flee from danger, some funny, some not. It appears here that Monogram simply left one of its Z-grade horror movie sets up so they could rush through another Chan film to collect some easy profits. Such a shame they didn't spend more time on the script.

"The Jade Mask" has intriguing aspects in its mystery and a fairly unexpected solution, but it suffers from snail-like pacing and static direction. Charlie Chan has a few very funny lines, the one in my summary above or "Every time you open your mouth, you put in more feet than centipede. Remain here and produce nothing but silence!" made me laugh out loud. One of the supporting characters is described as "a strongwoman in vaudeville", but we never really see her perform any amazing feats of strength, we just hear about them. Mantan Moreland provides typical - for the time - easily-scared-black-guy comedy relief; his funniest scene is at the very end of the picture. ** out of 4.

"The Jade Mask" was made in 1945 and, as was often the case during the war years Charlie Chan movies, there's a McGuffin, some formula or process that will help the war effort. Here, the nutty inventor is paranoid about security so no one in his household knows anything. When he's killed, Chan is brought in, his number four son (Edwin Luke) dragging along behind him.This film moves slowly, but is brightened by some good dialogue from Sidney Toler and Mantan Moreland, who was always a riot. I know his is a stereotyped character in a way, but in another way, it isn't, as he is treated as an equal by Chan. Frankly without Moreland, a good many of these films would be very boring.