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Monogram Pictures Corporation
Distributed: January 26, 1945
Production:
September 1944
Copyright: Monogram Pictures Corporation, November 22, 1944; LP13002
Opened: Strand, Brooklyn, N.Y.,
the week of January 18, 1945
Sound: Western Electric Recording
Running Time: 64 or 69 minutes
Source: Based on
the character created by Earl Derr Biggers
Producer: James S. Burkett
Director: Phil Rosen
Assistant Director: George Callihan
Director of Photography:
Harry Neumann
Editor: John C. Fuller and Dick Currier
Set Decorations: Vin Taylor
Musical Direction: Edward
J. Kay
Musical Score: Dave Torbett
Sound Recording: Tom Lambert
Production Manager: William Strohbach
Technical
Director: Dave Milton
CAST:
Sidney Toler: Charlie Chan
Mantan Moreland: Birmingham Brown
Edwin Luke:
Eddie Chan (also called Edward)
Hardie Albright: Walter Meeker
Frank Reicher: Harper
Janet Warren: Jean Kent
Cyril
DeLevanti: Roth
Alan Bridge: Sheriff Mack
Ralph Lewis: Jim Kimball
Dorothy Granger: Stella Graham
Edith Evanson:
Louise Harper
Joe Whitehead: Dr. Samuel R. Peabody
Henry Hall: Inspector Godfrey
Jack Ingram: Lloyd Archer
Danny
Desmond: Bellboy
Lester Dorr: Michael Strong
Overcoming policeman Jim Kimball who had legitimately entered the grounds surrounding a mansion,
a murderer dresses as the officer and breaks into the home of Harper, a scientist whom he kills and disposes of the body.
Charlie Chan, who continues his wartime work for the government as a secret service agent, is called to the case by Inspector
Godfrey. He tells Chan that the scientist has been working for the government to develop a process whereby wood could be made
as strong as metal.
At Harper's mansion, Chan and Godfrey question, with the help of the local authority, Sheriff
Mack, all those who live at the scientist's residence: Louse Harper, his sister and housekeeper, Jean Kent, his orphaned niece
and housemaid, Roth, his butler, Michael Strong, his mute chauffeur and handyman, and Walter Meeker and Stella Graham, his
assistants. Chan quickly learns that the entire household hated Harper, whose cruelty allowed him to force his relatives to
work for him as servants.
Meanwhile, Charlie Chan's two assistants, number four son Eddie (Edward) and Birmingham
Brown, his chauffeur, arrive at the Harper estate after having been forced to leave the hotel in which they had been staying
as Chan had inadvertently checked the whole party out.
Later, Chan discovers Harper's body, which he reveals to all
in dramatic fashion, noting each person's reaction. Meeker tells him that all of Harper's work will come to nothing unless
the scientist's secret formula can be found. Chan states that when the murderer is found, the formula will be found as well.
The local coroner, Samuel R. Peabody, declares that Harper died of natural causes. Chan disputes his finding, and
when he visits the coroner's office, accompanied by Sheriff Mack, Peabody discovers a small poisonous dart at the back of
the dead scientist's throat.
Chan later discovers that Jim Kimball, the missing local policeman, was having a secret
romance with Jean Kent. Although both Stella Graham and Meeker state that they saw a policeman enter the house at about the
time of Harper's disappearance, Jean contends otherwise.
Roth promises to reveal the identity of the murderer to Chan,
but before he can do so he too is killed. After examining the dead butler's quarters, Chan tells Mack that Roth was killed
in his room, despite the fact that both Edward and Birmingham had seen the butler walking down stairs moments before he had
collapsed dead.
Lloyd Archer, Harper's stepson, arrives at the estate, claiming that Harpers secret gas formula was
stolen from his father.
Later, as he is searching for clues, Chan is nearly killed by a small poison dart.
The
next morning, Chan finds that someone has become trapped inside of Harper's booby-trapped secret vault. The vault can only
be opened by the voice of the deceased scientist speaking a secret word code. Realizing that someone inside is being gassed
and will soon die, Chan uses a recorded message containing the secret code that had been made earlier on a dictaphone by Harper
to unlock the vault. Jean Kent is found unconscious inside the vault. Later, after recovering, she states that she had not
been attempting to steal the secret formula, but had heard someone inside and had gone in to investigate.
Michael
Strong, having let Edward and Birmingham know that he was able to reveal identity of the murderer, is killed in front of Chan
and several others. Soon afterward, Kimball's body is then discovered by Birmingham and Edward inside of a cabinet in Harpers
gas chamber laboratory.
CONCLUSION:
Chan announces that all of
the murder victims were killed by an air gun hidden inside a ventriloquist's dummy. He also reveals, with the help of Edward,
that the dead Roth had walked with the aid of strong puppeteer's strings. Knowing that Stella is both a master puppeteer and
very strong, Chan names her as the killer's accomplice. He then states that a life mask, one of many that had been made for
identity purposes by Harper, that was broken during Strong's murder, was that of Meeker. The laboratory assistant tries to
escape, but is overcome by several persons. Chan then pulls a rubber mask from his face to reveal that he is really Archer.
Meeker's body is found later, hidden in the basement.
Telling her that Archer had planned for her to die in Harper's
secret vault, Stella is convinced to tell all, and she states that Archer, a vaudevillian quick-change artist and impersonator,
is actually her husband.
With the case successfully solved, Chan thanks his son for his assistance, though he states
that he is unsure of what the assistance was.
NOTES: The working title of this film was
Mystery Mansion. The title card on the print reads: Charlie Chan in "The Jade Mask". Early
Hollywood Reporter production charts include Russell Simpson in the cast, but it is unlikely that he appeared in the released
film. The Variety review mistakenly identifies Edwin Luke's role as Tommy. Edwin Luke was the younger brother of
actor Keye Luke, who had previously played son Lee Chan in numerous films in this series.
Adapted from: AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE CATALOG - Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American
Feature Films, 1911-1960
CHARLIE CHAN'S APHORISMS:
No barber shave so close but another barber find some work to do.
Things misplaced
sometimes furnish very good clues.
Murder know no law of "relativity."
OTHER WORTHY STATEMENTS:
My personality
always count in "end." (Pun, as he sits on an over-filled suitcase, trying to help close it)
That is new
look on old business.
Will you explain why you butt in here like goat? (to Edward)
Every time you
open your mouth, you put in more feet than centipede. (to Edward)
Just one happy family with murderer at
center. (regarding the family of murder victim Harper)
To get information from him is like putting empty
bucket into empty well. (regarding Roth)
He reach oversize decision with undersize brain. (regarding
Edward)
Please, pajamas "loud" enough without you make extra noise. (pun, regarding the pajamas worn by Edward)
My boy, if silence is golden, you are bankrupt. (to Edward)
At last, pieces of murder puzzle
begin to fit in place.
You use pump for slow leak in tire - please forget "fast leak" from there. (pun - regarding
Edward's excessive talk)
Fog of murder will soon lift and household be happy again.
EDWARD'S "CHANISM":
As Pop says, that proves: "Dead men can walk, only when they have
lots of help."
REVIEW:
Variety, January 24, 1945
Another in the Charlie Chan series, 'Jade Mask' is above par and should do well on the duals.
They pulled out all
the stops in this one. Sidney Toler, as usual, is the Chinese detective who solves the killings and clears the mystery in
his usually quiet fashion.
Touches of comedy are added by Martan [sic] Moreland, as a colored chauffeur, and Edwin
Luke, as the detective's son.
FILM NOTES:
PROBABLE DATE: Fall 1944
(two days)
PROBABLE
LOCATION: New York City and a nearby rural location. (Charlie Chan needs to be back in Washington D.C. "tomorrow.")
THE NAME OF CHARLIE CHAN'S HOTEL: Carlton Hotel
CHARLIE
CHAN'S HOTEL ROOM NUMBER: A 324
THE LOCATION OF HARPER'S HOUSE: "On Cove Road."
THE DISTANCE FROM HARPER'S HOUSE TO THE CITY (NEW YORK?): "Three miles."
THE NATURE OF HARPER'S PROJECT: A "gas process that hardens wood to the toughness and durability of metal."
THE AMOUNT OF TIME THAT ROTH HAD SERVED AS HARPER'S BUTLER: 15 years
HARPER'S
SPOKEN COMBINATION TO OPEN THE DOOR OF HIS SECRET ROOM: "Thirty days hath September, July, and August."
THE DEVICE USED BY HARPER TO MAKE HIS VOICE RECORDINGS: Dictaphone
LLOYD
ARCHER'S DEROGATORY TERM FOR SHERIFF MACK: "Farmer"
GLOSSARY:
Dictaphone - A trademark used for a machine that records and reproduces dictation for transcription.
Charlie Chan: "Recording
Dictaphone."
life masks - Casts
made of the faces of living persons.
Charlie Chan: "Note many life
masks of household about place."
spirit oil - (mineral
spirits) A volatile distillation product of petroleum, used as a thinner for paints and varnishes.
Edward Chan: "Now we're cooking with spirit
oil."
zombie - A
corpse that has been reanimated through a supernatural spell or power.
Sheriff Mack: "...I can't see how it was
done unless Roth was a zombie."
PRESS BOOK:
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