A foggy night on a cruise ship. Charlie Chan huddles at the rail with a man who confides that he is a government agent investigating hot money circulating in the islands. Already two attempts have been made on his life. Chan nods sagely.It's an atmospheric opening that sets the scene nicely, reminiscent of the best Chan mysteries made several years earlier. Various characters slink by or stop to say hello as Chan and the agent talk....all suspects? Moments later, sure enough, the government man is struck down in the ball room, victim of a knife thrown by an unseen hand. Chan takes on both the murder and the counterfeiting investigations.Sidney Toler is fine once again as the famous detective. Sen Yung and Willie Best are along as Mr. Chan's assistants, and while this series entry has less comedy than usual, Yung and Best do manage to get some humor out of a pair of two-way radios they use in their efforts to spy on passengers and gather clues. Overall, the plot is nothing special but manages to hold together for 66 minutes. The cast is solid and includes some familiar faces like ship captain Joseph Crehan. It's not the best Charlie Chan movie but certainly a decent late series entry. Best movie prop ever: One of the suspects is a professor of ichthyology and he spends most of the movie carrying around a big book called simply FISH.

Ocean-going steamships and trains make great settings for 1940s mysteries. Charlie didn't have any adventures in a train, but this is the second on a ship--the third if you count the docked sailing ship in one of his outings. Toler is outstanding as always, in one of the greatest ongoing screen characterizations of an ideal film detective: clever, humane, with a sense of humor and of justice. It's his ability to make Chan so very likeable which really elevates these films, putting them, on the whole, on about the same level as the great Universal Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. And Toler never had the support of a truly first-rate, all-pro actor, as Rathbone had in Bruce. This movie is pure fun. Lots of action. The humor is sometimes very corny, but that's part of the charm. Highly recommended!

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.

I wish someone could tell me why Willie Best played 'Chattanooga Brown' in a couple late Charlie Chan films. After all, Mantan Moreland had played 'Birmingham Brown' in quite a few Chan films--why was he briefly replaced? And, did they really think people would just accept 'Chattanooga'?! He wasn't a good addition to 1945's "The Red Dragon" and now he's back for one final appearance in the Chan series...but why?! As for the plot, it's pretty typical. As was often the case, Charlie Chan is on vacation--during which time someone is murdered (in this a US government agent). This time is occurs aboard a cruise ship--also not the first time for this series. So, it's up to Charlie and two bumbling assistants (#3 son and Chattanooga) to solve this case. Considering he always did, it's probably not too much of a stretch to say that once again he'll be successful. So this make you wonder why the criminals didn't just kill Charlie first! Among the many possible suspects is Mr. Burke--played by the very familiar actor, Dick Elliott. Usually, Elliott played bumbling and rather dim individuals--here he plays a slimy and rather dangerous character. But is he the killer or just a horrid little blackmailer and all-around jerk? Overall, this is an exceptionally familiar sort of Chan story...without Mantan Moreland. The only things that set this one apart are that you see Charlie shoot a couple people (though, not surprisingly for a B-film, he never kills any of them--they're only flesh wounds!) and one of the passengers is a cross-dresser!! It's slightly below average in quality, but considering that Chan films are always worth watching, it's still worth your time.