"The Sky Dragon", the final film in the Charlie Chan series, is described as the "nadir" of the series by Leonard Maltin and given a BOMB rating in his book. Now, I haven't seen many Chan films (yet), but this cannot be the worst when it is in fact better than another one which I saw only yesterday, "Golden Eye". It opens with a rather unusual setup (a murder, plus the robbery of a quarter of a million dollars, aboard a plane), and if it had stayed on the air it might have been a much-needed change-of-pace. It soon (crash)lands on earth, and becomes deadening at times, but at least it returns to the scene of the crime in the last 10 minutes for a traditional gathering of the suspects and unveiling of the culprit(s), and there is some cleverness in way the robbery is carried out (though the main killer is obvious). It's a movie only for the most dedicated buffs of the mystery genre, and they may get some fun out of it. My favorite Chan line: "Tired man's idea like children's nightmare: easily dispelled by light of day" ** out of 4.

The Charlie Chan series at Monogram comes to an end with this picture. The plot sees Charlie (Roland Winters) and "Number One Son" Lee (Keye Luke) on an airplane where all the passengers are drugged. While they're out, a man is murdered and a quarter-million dollars stolen. Also appearing in this one is bug-eyed comic sidekick Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). The rest of the cast includes Milburn Stone (Doc from Gunsmoke), Noel Neill (Lois Lane from Adventures of Superman), and Lyle Talbot (movie star extraordinaire). Winters is weak as usual but the plot is surprisingly fresh for Monogram. Keye Luke is fun and the supporting cast is decent. It's ironic that the Winters series ended after its two strongest films. But it was a case of too little too late, I think.

"The Sky Dragon" would be the last of the Charlie Chan mystery films, this one starring Roland Winters who appeared in a total of six films as the Oriental Detective. Keye Luke, who first appeared as Number #1 Son Lee in 1935's "Charlie Chan in Paris" opposite Warner Oland, appears here in a much more mature characterization. So much so, that this is the only film in which Charlie is called "Dad" instead of "Pop" by any of his offspring.The movie involves an insurance scam aboard a San Francisco bound airline flight, on which all the passengers are drugged, with the perpetrator making off with a two hundred fifty thousand dollar bundle. Chan must make his way through a host of suspects among the passengers, before ferreting out the guilty party with Lee's help impersonating an injured (actually dead) pilot.Notable among the cast are Tim Ryan in his third Chan appearance as Lieutenant Mike Ruark of the San Francisco Police Department; and future Daily Planet Reporter Noel Neill as an airline hostess. For trivia fans, her TV Superman counterpart George Reeves also appeared in a Charlie Chan film, 1941's "Dead Men Tell", as of all things, a newspaper reporter! For his last appearance in a Chan film, Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown doesn't have much to do, although he does get physical at one point, helping Lee wrestle down a gunman confronting Charlie.Like many Charlie Chan films, it helps to keep a scorecard to track the characters and their relationships. "The Sky Dragon" has enough going on to keep you guessing, although in the end it's a rather average entry in the Chan series.

As an avid collector of all Charlie Chan films except for the Fox Four, I have avoided getting Roland Winters 6 films but finally purchased the Sky Dragon. It will end there. There is no magic at all it is a stilted film with no imagination and a story line to match