Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely the worst movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

"Charlie Chan in the City of Darkness" was released three months after World War II broke out in Europe. The film takes place in Paris on the brink of war, and there isn't a heck of a lot of mystery here. The movie also seems long.Chan is in Paris for a reunion, as citizens scramble for gas masks and are warned to observe blackouts.Charlie is pulled into an investigation of the murder of a businessman at the behest of Marcel, the godson of the Paris Chief of Police. Eventually they uncover a conspiracy to sell a shipment of arms to the Germans though the manifest reads that it's fruit. Marcel is somewhat of a buffoon, and Roumanian, I assumed.Lynn Bari plays a woman trying to buy her husband's way out of the country after he is framed by one of the criminals; Leo G. Carroll plays a Frenchman who is milking the trouble for all its worth, selling passports and boat tickets for exorbitant prices.At the end, we get the news that there's not going to be a war, as there is to be a meeting with Hitler. Just give him Poland, France, Russia, and a few other places, I guess, and he would be quiet. Charlie isn't fooled. By the time this film was released, no one else was either.

This is without a doubt the worst Charlie Chan movie I have ever seen. Harold Huber as Inspector Spivak was horribly annoying. He had about ten times the amount of lines that Sydney Toler had, which is why I say this is barely a Chan film. It's bad enough the producers felt that this film needed comic relief, but to have that comic relief be so dominant is a travesty. Aside from Huber's grating performance, the rest of the movie kind of plods along, filling time until Huber comes back to dominate. YUCK! It was nice to see that the review from Variety (Nov. 22, 1939) didn't like this movie. The following is a quote from that review: "Direction is inadequate, further hampered by poor story material. Attempts to provide Huber with comedy as a jittery police novice are ineffectual. The audience is never presented with sufficient interest in the murder or culprit, and the mystery just unwinds without much attention." The fact that so many people on IMDb gave this a 9 or a 10 rating sickens me. Watching this movie was a complete disappointment.

This is the only Charlie Chan film I never finished. I usually love his films, whether Sidney Toler or Warner Oland starred in them and/or which of Charlie's kids were in the film.However, in this movie the French police "Inspector Spivak," played by Harold Huber, was hogging all the scenes and was difficult to understand. He made me lose interest. This guy was just plain super annoying and had the top role in the story. I am glad a few other reviewers here had the same reaction as I did.Perhaps with a DVD treatment and English subtitles available, I could give this a second chance and enjoy it, but I doubt it. I watch Chan films to see Charlie, not some idiot in the starring role.

If you were to say at the outset "The butler did it", you'd be right. On the brink of World War II between Nazi Germany and the European Allies, Charlie Chan finds himself in Paris, the "City in Darkness" of the title, deriving the name from the precaution taken for German air raids against the city. The film plays more like an espionage story, though businessman Petroff does wind up a murder victim, amid clandestine arrangements for phony passports and implications of embezzlement.Inspector Chan investigates this one without the aid of offspring, though in conversation with wannabe detective Marcel Spivak (Harold Huber), admits to having five wannabe detective sons of his own. Marcel is the secretary to Prefect of Police Romaine (C. Henry Gordon), but dives headlong into the case wanting to make his mark in police work. His antics are a bit over the top, and his character is quick to jump to errant conclusions about the case.Era veterans in the cast include Leo G. Carroll as Louis Santelle, a locksmith by day and forger by night; Douglas Dumbrille as murder victim Petroff, and Lynn Bari as Marie Dubon, arranging passage for her fiancé Tony Madero (Richard Clarke) to Panama. The observant viewer will also catch Lon Chaney Jr. in a minor role.When Petroff's killer is finally revealed, the sympathetic Chan offers butler Antoine (Pedro de Cordoba) and Prefect Romaine an extenuating circumstance defense, allowing that Antoine acted in self defense, as Petroff was dealing arms to the enemy Nazis. Earlier in the film, the butler was shown escorting his nineteen year old son off to the war effort, en route to the threatened Czech border. Petroff's salient remarks to Antoine and his son at that time were enough to cast him as one villain you wouldn't mind seeing get his due.