Absolutely amazing

Blistering performances.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Charlie is on board a cruise ship. While there he is approached by a government agent. He represents the Treasury Department. After confiding to Chan that there have been threats on his life, he is killed. Tommy and Chattanooga are on board as his assistants (I thought he was on vacation, but). There are several plots at work. A young couple is keeping some sort of secret. There is a blowhard who is driving everyone crazy with his invasive behavior. People are being killed with knives that are thrown with amazing accuracy. To complicate things, there is a knife thrower on board. Anyway, it's typical Chan. There is the obligatory scene where the lights are turned off and chaos ensues. The writers really couldn't let go of some obviously tired plot elements.

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) investigates when a treasury agent is murdered aboard an ocean liner. Penultimate Toler Chan film has some pros & cons. The pros: Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) is assisting his father. Jimmy breathes life into the Monogram series which, with the exception of the one movie with Frances Chan as Charlie's daughter, saw Charlie saddled with lifeless sidekick Benson Fong and bug-eyed comedian Mantan Moreland. Another pro is the decent supporting cast that includes Dick Elliott, Richard Vallin, Joseph Crehan, and pretty Gloria Warren. The cons: typically cheap Monogram production, as well as the inclusion of stereotypical comic relief Chattanooga Brown (Willie Best). This is the second and final appearance of Chattanooga in the series. Thankfully, he's overshadowed by the likable personality of Victor Sen Yung. Not a particularly strong Chan film, but helped by the presence of Jimmy.

Most of the Monogram Chan's fall somewhere between mediocre and horrendous, but this one was actually interesting. It had some thought put into it and definitely made the most out of its small budget. One of the previous reviewers said the movie was too claustrophobic. This is one of my biggest complaints about Monogram Chan's, but Dangerous Money does a great job of avoiding that. There are many different sets and scenes on the boat, plus there's the added bonus of all the different scenes on the island, which included some exterior beauty shots. Another aspect of this movie I liked was the absence of Bumbleham Brown. He always seems to take over and dominate the scenes he's in, which usually detracts from the mysterious mood that has been created. In Dangerous Money, Chattanooga and Jimmy Chan are more in the background and less obtrusive. I love the last scene where Charlie strangles his moronic son for almost killing Chattanooga. I wonder if they did that because so many viewers had fantasized about doing it themselves over the years? At certain points, the story is difficult to follow, so make sure you have the remote ready. There are a few things that don't make sense, like why the hell did the criminal gang want Rona Simmonds to come to Samoa? It makes no sense, she could identify the missing objects of art. Did they want her to verify that they were authentic? They obviously didn't do it to lure her to her death because they never tried to kill her. Why did Freddie Kirk contact her father to come to Samoa? Another nice thing about this film is that it is in the public domain. The print that I watched from archive.org was crisp and sharp, with good contrast - black and white at it's best. Also, keep your eyes on Miss Simmonds breasts. I swear that they inflate or deflate as the situation calls for. It's mind boggling.

"Dangerous Money" is an aptly named Charlie Chan film in which Sidney Toler's character investigates a pair of murders relating to illegal trading in "hot money" and stolen art. The action takes place aboard the S.S. Newcastle heading to Australia via Samoa. Along for the ride are Number #2 Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and assistant Chattanooga Brown (Willie Best). Charlie doesn't have much time to solve the case as he's committed to another investigation on arrival in Sydney. Be prepared for more uncomfortable racial insinuations, as Jimmy converses with Chattanooga via walkie talkie using the code names "Chop Suey 108" and "Pork Chop 711". Once again Chan/Toler demonstrates his dancing skill in a film; in "Red Dragon", he cut a mean rumba, here he slows it down a bit, but still quite smoothly with a shipboard waltz. Passenger Rona Simmonds (Gloria Warren) and ship's pursar George Brace (Joseph Allen) are hiding a secret for which she is being blackmailed. She is traveling with false papers, smuggled on board in an attempt to identify art stolen from her banker father. International businessman P.T. Burke (Dick Elliott) uses his position to extort a valuable necklace from Simmonds, but as we've seen before, there is another villain masterminding the action from a loftier height. He is flushed out by Charlie in a convenient "lights out" scene intended to add to the confusion. I have to admit, it's difficult to follow most Charlie Chan films without keeping a personal scorecard, and even so, the revelation of the killer almost always comes as a surprise. Chan himself best expresses this in a line from the film - "Kangaroo reaches destination also by leaps and bounds".