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.

I was always a big Charlie Chan fan. I saw most of them as I was growing up and I liked Sidney Toler over Warner Oland. I had never see this one before, and it must be one of the few clinkers in the Charlie Chan canon. It is a stagebound film with no exterior shots and suffers from a very weak screenplay and spotty direction. And none of the Warner Oland's were this low in quality.Now, I understand Monogram's predicament as a Poverty Row studio and the financial problems involved, but they should have been able to find a better script writer than the one who wrote this misfire. Cast was good, and they substituted Willie Best for Mantan Moreland in the Pop-Eyed comic relief role. But the film bites off more than can be chewed and the result is a slap-dash product which tries to squeeze in too much, and results in my rating above.

On board the S.S. Newcastle bound from Honolulu to Samoa, Charlie Chan is approached by a fellow passenger who reveals himself as Scott Pearson of the Treasure Department; he's on a strictly secret mission concerning 'hot' money on the islands, but there have already been two attempts made on his life and so he asks Charlie for help. Charlie suggests that the best place to observe all the other passengers is the lounge, where a party is being held for the crossing of the Equator - but the danger comes from OUTSIDE: through the blinds of a window, a knife shoots right into Pearson's back...Together with Captain Black, Charlie goes through Pearson's secret papers, where a mysterious 'Lane' is mentioned - but who is he?? More or less EVERYBODY on board seems suspicious in some way: loud-mouthed 'cotton trader' Burke, a Swedish trader called Erickson and his Samoan wife, Rona Simonds who poses as a tourist, but there seems to be something wrong with her papers, and the ship's purser George Brace obviously covers up for her, strange ichthyologist Prof. Martin, Reverend Whipple and his ugly wife...When they land in Samoa, things become even more complicated: we find out that Burke blackmails Rona, then that he himself also knows things he hasn't admitted - and then more knives come flying through the air... And finally, Charlie's favorite 'number two son' Jimmy and Chattanooga make a GREAT discovery! A real treat for all fans of complicated crime movies - and a big joy for the fans of the 'Charlie Chan' series: Sen Yung (who'd been serving in the US Airforce Intelligence during the War!) is back again as Jimmy! Not that Benson Fong as 'Tommy', or the other 'members' of Charlie's large family who'd played his assistants in between, hadn't added a great lot of entertainment to the movies they'd played in; but Jimmy is - well, just Jimmy... Fresh and rash and self-confident as always, he and ever-frightened 'Chattanooga' Willie Best make an EXCELLENT duo here to lighten up the murderous plot!

The best quality of "Dangerous Money" is Charlie Chan's habit for metaphors and aphorisms, like the one mentioned above, or "Kangaroos also reach destination by leaps and bounds". The script is often muddled, the multiple suspects, with few exceptions, are not distinct enough as characters (maybe because they are played by an almost completely unknown cast), Sidney Toler is a bit stodgy as Chan (he does well with the funny lines, though), and Willie Best's comic relief is a matter of taste, however I would advise you to watch this film if only for one truly memorable and outrageous surprise at the end. You may well forget the rest of the picture a day or two later, but I doubt you'll forget that surprise anytime soon. Production values are decent for a Monogram film. ** out of 4.