Such a frustrating disappointment

Best movie of this year hands down!

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Another good Charlie Chan mystery with the detective being involved with murder, espionage and sabotage in Panama. Going undercover as a seller of Panama hats he has to discover who is the spy Ryner who is pulling the strings. Panama City is paranoid about spies but Charlie in his measured and intelligent way untangles the real from the false. Helping and hindering him is number two son Jimmy. The ending is suspenseful and surprising. Norman Foster directs with a steady hand.Sidney Toler is very good as usual as Chan and Sen Yung is lively as his son Jimmy. They are supported flawlessly by Lionel Atwill, Mary Nash, Chris-Pin Martin and Jack La Rue to name just a few of the fine cast. Chan utters several great Chan-isms as usual. Sixty-seven minutes of absorbing entertainment.

****SPOILERS*** Charlie Chan, Sidney Toler, working for the US Government as undercover hat store owner Fu Yean works against time in finding out and preventing a sinister plot to sink the entire US Atlantic Fleet while docked at the Panama Canal. This is being planned by a number of German saboteurs in what seems like Nazi Germany's efforts, in early 1940, to get the US involved in WWII! This making FDR's, in running for re-election that year, job a lot easier. That by him getting the American people who were as much as 95% against it,at the time, to go along with him in getting the US into WWII.It's Charlie's bumbling #1 Son Jimmy, Victor Sen Yung, who after messing things up for Charlie ends up saving his life in preventing, by hitting him with a tobacco can, one of the saboteurs from assassination his pop. It's when Charlie along with #1 Son Jimmy and a number of the cast, including the head Nazi saboteur, are trapped in a cave that he realized were the explosives, a two gallon bottle of nitroglycerin, was hidden: at the Panama Canal power station.***SPOILERS*** Breaking out of the cave and heading for the power station to prevent a catastrophe from happening It's the saboteur him or herself who ended up exposing himself in knowing just what kind of explosive was to be used. Something that only Charlie the police and the saboteur himself could have known. As usual as in most pre-WWII movie before the US got involved in the saboteur's identities or nationalities were kept from the public. But it didn't take a genius to figure who they were working for with the pretty Jean Rogers playing a refugee from fascism with the Slavic sounding name Kathi Lenesch being from a Nazi occupied, Poland or Czechoslovakia, at that time country.

World War II is in progress and the honorable Charlie Chan(Sidney Toler)is incognito hired by the American government following up a reliable tip that there is a plot to blow up the Panama Canal. A small plane lands in Panama City carrying more than enough suspects that just could be an elusive master saboteur known only as Rymer. Charlie's Number Two son Jimmy(Victor Sen Yung)shows up as usual wanting to help in the case. Who is the most suspicious...Emil Manolo(Jack La Rue), Dr. Grosser(Lionel Royce), Cliveden Compton(Lionel Atwill)or are they just red herrings. Time is not on Chan's side as American ships are ready to enter the canal. This film has everything you would want in a mystery. Others in the cast: Jean Rogers, Kane Richmond, Chris-Pin Martin and Mary Nash.

This is an extremely timely Charlie Chan movie as although the US was not yet at war, storm clouds were on the horizon and this film anticipated the importance of the Panama Canal to the future. Although the film never said that the Germans were planning on blowing up the canal, that's exactly what was very strongly implied--with a vicious foreign agent named 'Ryner'. The problem is that Chan and the military authorities have no idea what this agent looks like as well as exactly what this enemy agent's intentions are as well as how they'll go about doing it. So it's up to Chan and #2 Son to investigate.This film is better than average for the Fox version of Charlie Chan. Mostly this is due to the timeliness, the use of non-grainy and relevant stock footage as well as a dandy plot and mystery. It keeps you guessing up until the end--and I liked this very much.