Basically, this is just another Charlie Chan film. It moves relatively well and has some good lines for Chan, but not much of it stays in your mind afterwards, except for the climax involving a plane and a clever trap devised by Chan to expose a saboteur. This sequence is pretty exciting, but it would have been even more exciting if Mr. Chan wasn't so utterly calm throughout, signaling to the viewer that it is all, indeed, merely a trap. The last-minute revelation of the real-real villain has become so customary, at least in the films of the series I have watched so far, that it has lost some of its shock impact. And despite the fact that "New York" appears in the title, it plays practically no part in the film, the action could have been set almost anywhere. My favorite Chan line (the last in the film): "Confidence of favorite son like courage of small boy at dentist: only evident after tooth extracted!" **1/2 out of 4.

An old friend of Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is murdered. Charlie's investigation puts him on the trail of a mysterious man known as Paul Narvo. If he can figure out the identity of Narvo, he can solve the murder. With unwanted help from "Number Two Son" Jimmy, of course.Fairly routine Charlie Chan mystery. Toler is solid as Charlie and Victor Sen Yung is good fun as Jimmy. Donald MacBride plays the police inspector who would be lost without Charlie's help. The suspects are made up of Ricardo Cortez, Robert Lowery, Melville Cooper, John Sutton, and pretty Joan Valerie. Marjorie Weaver is over-the-top in her performance as a woman who used to be married to Narvo. Also an amusing appearance from Shemp Howard. Not bad but not one of the series' best.

There are many Charlie Chan movies out there. They are generally pretty good. Either of the two actors that played Charlie Chan did a good job even though neither was of Asian heritage by any stretch of the imagination. These movies used logic and some humor, usually provided by the number two or three son and some from Chan himself (watch his face at times during the films). As usual for these movies Chan solves the case using unorthodox means and by miss direction including asking questions that direct the suspects attention where he wants them to go. Charlie is in New York for a convention. His Scotland Yard friend is killed and the hunt is on for the killer. After the usual search the guilty party is apprehended and every thing is fine.

Chan is in New York and he gets involved with an attempt to sabotage a new aircraft design.The war was over a year away from reaching America but the second world war was already raging everywhere else in the world and so it colored everything since most people probably realized that war was coming. Here the War isn't mentioned but the fact that the film deals with the production of planes at the very least alludes to it. The mystery itself is pretty good, it the notion of plane sabotage lends itself nicely to a couple of rather tense moments. To be certain we are talking about Charlie Chan so we can be certain that he would live to fight another day, but there was no guarantee what condition he would be in, not whether anyone around him would survive.I really like this film a great deal. Its not one of the nest, and far from the worst. It is one of the truly rare things, a truly enjoyable one. Definitely worth a look or six.