Michael O'Keefe Irving Cummings gets the job of directing this murder mystery involving Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan. Fans of the unflappable detective will be disappointed that Chan, played by E.L. Park, is merely an adviser to a veteran Scotland Yard inspector(Gilbert Emery) and only appears in several scenes. The story begins with a murder in London and the only clue is a pair of Chinese slippers. The investigation moves to Persia then India and ends in San Francisco. The prime suspect is an adventurer(Warner Baxter), who is hiding his long-time friend and heiress(Lois Moran)from her gold digger and womanizing husband(Philip Strange). This movie offers nothing out of the ordinary for this time period; but of note is the introduction of Boris Karloff, who has a very small part as a Sudanese manservant.

Michael_Elliott Behind That Curtain (1929) *** (out of 4) Sir George hires a private eye to investigate his niece's boyfriend but soon the P.I. is found dead and the niece and her boyfriend run off. Col. John Beetham (Warner Baxter) is called in to investigate. This is the first Charlie Chan film, although he doesn't appear until the very end. Baxter makes for an interesting character and the mystery plot works very nicely. Boris Karloff has a small role as a servant.Black Camel, The (1931) *** (out of 4) Before accepting a proposal, an actress goes to see a psychic (Bela Lugosi) who sees something in her past. Later that night the actress is murdered and it's up to Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) to find out who committed the crime. Oland is brilliant as Chan and the wonderful dialogue gives him all sorts of brilliant and memorable quotes. Lugosi is quite nice as well and the supporting players all fill their roles very nicely. The murder investigation is quite interesting all the way through. Dwight Frye has a small role as the caretaker.

calvinnme This 1929 film is included on Charlie Chan Volume 3 as part of the complete history of Chan's character at Fox. For that reason it is good to have it. Viewing it, however, is another matter entirely. It is a great example of a bad early talkie in almost every category except cinematography. Fox used sound-on-film versus vitaphone, thus their early talkies don't have that static claustrophobic quality other 1928 and 1929 talkies have.However the dialogue in many ways is held over from the silents as is the acting. At one point Warner Baxter is declaring his love to the leading lady by repeating "I love you! I love you! I love you". In the words of Singin' in the Rain, did someone get paid to write this dialogue? The overacting is unbelievable and the speech is tortuously slow.The point of interest for most of us watching this film, the first appearance of Charlie Chan in a Fox film, doesn't take up much screen time. He appears near the beginning to identify a crucial piece of evidence and for a few minutes during the end. The murderer is identified almost at the beginning of the film and most of the time is taken up by a poorly acted love triangle tale. This is not the first appearance of Warner Oland in the title role, though. That doesn't occur for another two years. This film is only for hardcore Charlie Chan fans the same way that "An Old Spanish Custom" is for Buster Keaton fans.

gerrythree When Fox decided to make "Behind That Curtain," the studio picked as leads Warner Baxter, Lois Moran and Gilbert Emery. Of the three, Emery's role was the most important, since his actions kept the story moving to its eventual outcome in San Francisco. Although the scriptwriters gave Gilbert Emery terrible lines for his part as an upper class Englishman, Emery can take all the credit for his strange pseudo-British accent as he slowly enunciates every word of dialogue, pausing at every chance to lend gravity to the moronic dialogue. At about the 80 minute mark, Emery's character discusses a plan with Charlie Chan of the SFPD. In one exchange, both actors talked in exactly the same way, as if they memorized their dialogue phonetically. Unlike E.L. Park, the actor who played Chan, for Emery English was not a second language, but it sure sounded that way. At 90 minutes, this movie is about 30 minutes too long. Had the producer just cut out Emery's part entirely, this movie would have been much better. The story would still have been a mess, with the characters played by Warner Baxter and Lois Moran traveling in the desert with camels, for no reason I can see, except to save money on sets. Lois Moran has the best scene in the picture, as she runs through San Francisco while passersby look at her. This apparent cinema verite look at 1929 San Francisco is interesting, but not long enough. Maybe if there were more running scenes with Lois Moran, they could have renamed the picture "Run, Lois, Run." It is beyond me how Gilbert Emery could continue to have a career in Hollywood, while John Gilbert was almost laughed off the screen for having a voice with the wrong pitch for the roles John Gilbert first played in talkies.