"The Docks Of New Orleans" (don't expect to see much of New Orleans, by the way; the production values are depressing) presents a potentially intriguing locked-room murder mystery, but the method of the murder turns out to be an almost exact copy of "Mr. Wong, Detective" (the Boris Karloff movie), and the murderer is fairly obvious after a point. The film is a mostly dreary affair, but one long sequence near the end, with Chan held at gunpoint by three villains and trying to stall for time, is well-done. Number Two Son and Birmingham Brown have very small parts this time around. My favorite Chan line: "Only important that you do not underrate me when we part". ** out of 4.

This is one of the Roland Winters episodes. He is really weak as Chan. Of all the non- Asians who played Charlie, he is the least Asian appearing of all. He delivers lines poorly and is, frankly, boring. This is another episode about international terror. Apparently, some guys are trying to kill masses of people by producing a kind of poison gas. Once again, while everyone is in a room, a guy goes into his office and dies mysteriously. There is something to do with radio tubes and high frequency sound. It's a good idea, but the way everything unfolds is so far fetched. Another weakness is how little Mantan and Tommy are utilized. Since Chan is so lame, these guys are normally the fun. Winters seems to have no chemistry with these guys. One can see the series gasping for air as we move to the last episodes.

Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) is asked by one of the owners of a chemical plant to investigate the murders of some of his co-owners. The guy is worried he's next. At least, I think that's what the plot was about as it was convoluted and the movie was so dull I stopped caring early on.Winters is absolutely terrible as Chan. I can't stress this enough. I hate everything about his performance. I especially hate how he delivers lines ("How long you have..uh...been...uh..shaking hands with trouble?"). There is nothing likable or appealing about Roland Winters performance in any of his Chan films. Mantan Moreland is in this as Birmingham Brown. The less said about him the better. Victor Sen Yung is Tommy Chan. Why they messed with the names I don't know but for all of the Toler Chan films he appeared in, Sen Yung played "Number Two Son" Jimmy. Benson Fong played "Number Three Son" Tommy, a totally different son. But when Winters took over the role of Chan, they kept Sen Yung on but changed his name from Jimmy to Tommy, even though he's still referred to as "Number Two Son!" Just another example of the shoddy writing and production at Monogram. This is an exceptionally boring Chan film. Attractive Carol Forman is about the only thing worth recommending about this one.

Fans of the Charlie Chan series may notice right away that Victor Sen Yung (#2 Son) is named 'Tommy' instead of 'Jimmy' as he'd been in many films before. Somehow, he was re-named Tommy late in the life of the franchise and no one seemed to notice or care. In many ways, this is a metaphor for the overall health of the series--no one seemed to particularly notice or care that the series was on cruise control, of sorts.Another thing fans will probably recognize is the overall lack of fun in this film. Since the death of Sidney Toler, the next films all seemed very dry--even with the support of Mantan Moreland. It really just seemed as if the writers didn't mind that the films lost a lot of the 'fun factor'.The plot of the film involves three men who agree to share a company. However, when they start to die off one by one, it is assumed that the surviving partner(s) are at fault. A rather routine story and so I'm not really going to discuss it further but it sure is obvious there's more to the killings. In the end, Charlie talks and talks to explain the convoluted plot, though because this is such a low-energy and adequate film, I think my review should be the same and I'll just stop here. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.