The Scarlet Clue
- May 11, 1945 (1945-05-11)
The Scarlet Clue is a 1945 American mystery film directed by Phil Rosen and starring Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter.[1]
The film is also known as Charlie Chan in the Scarlet Clue (American informal title) and Charlie Chan: The Scarlet Clue in Australia. The film is in the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.
Plot
Charlie Chan is working for the United States Government tracking down the theft of radar secrets. When the man they are tailing is murdered, the only clue is a footprint in blood. Chan. His "Number Three Son" Tommy and their chauffeur Birmingham Brown's investigation leads to a radio station. Birmingham runs into his old friend Ben Carter at the station with other suspects including the radio station staff, stars and cleaning woman. The closer Chan gets to solving the mystery, the more mysterious murders happen.
The science lab where the radar secrets are developed shares the same skyscraper floor with a radio soap opera studio, the program apparently under the thumb of its tyrannical sponsor, Mrs. Marsh. The lab also has a weather chamber that can create below zero blizzards or extreme heat. Tommy Chan and Birmingham spend a great deal of time comically trapped in it.
It is quickly established that the station manager, Ralph Brett, is part of the spy ring. But he only communicates with the Master Spy by a clever series of telephone relays. The leader has invented a clever poison that causes death in conjunction with lighting a cigarette. Blackmailing actress Gloria Bayne and genial ham actor Willie Rand meet death by this device.
When the Leader judges Brett to be a liability, he is lured to a freight elevator with a trap-door floor that drops him seven stories to his death.
Unnerved by the murders, another member of the ring offers to lure the Leader into the open with a false distress message.
During an in-and-out corridor chase on the 7th floor, the Leader is revealed to be Mrs. Marsh...who dies when she panics and accidentally steps into her own elevator trap.
Cast
- Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan
- Benson Fong as Tommy Chan
- Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown, Chauffeur
- Virginia Brissac as Mrs. Marsh
- Ben Carter as Ben Carter
- Robert Homans as Capt. Flynn
- Jack Norton as Willie Rand
- Janet Shaw as Gloria Bayne
- Helen Deverell as Diane Hall
- Victoria Faust as Hulda Swenson / Janet Carter
- Leonard Mudie as Horace Karlos
- I. Stanford Jolley as Ralph Brett
- Emmett Vogan as Hamilton of the Hamilton Laboratory
References
- ^ Scarlet Clue, The Monthly Film Bulletin; London Vol. 12, Iss. 133, (Jan 1, 1945): 155.
External links
- The Scarlet Clue at IMDb
- The Scarlet Clue at AllMovie
- The Scarlet Clue at the TCM Movie Database
- The Scarlet Clue at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- The Scarlet Clue is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
- The Scarlet Clue film details at The Charlie Chan Family Home
- v
- t
- e
- Are All Men Alike? (1920)
- The Path She Chose (1920)
- The Road to Divorce (1920)
- The Lure of Youth (1921)
- The Little Fool (1921)
- Extravagance (1921)
- The World's Champion (1922)
- The Young Rajah (1922)
- Handle With Care (1922)
- The Bonded Woman (1922)
- Across the Continent (1922)
- Being Respectable (1924)
- Abraham Lincoln (1924)
- Lovers' Lane (1924)
- This Woman (1924)
- The Bridge of Sighs (1925)
- The Heart of a Siren (1925)
- The White Monkey (1925)
- Wandering Footsteps (1925)
- Rose of the Tenements (1926)
- The Adorable Deceiver (1926)
- The Exquisite Sinner (1926)
- A Woman's Heart (1926)
- California or Bust (1927)
- The Cancelled Debt (1927)
- Closed Gates (1927)
- The Woman Who Did Not Care (1927)
- The Cruel Truth (1927)
- Stolen Pleasures (1927)
- Heaven on Earth (1927)
- In the First Degree (1927)
- Pretty Clothes (1927)
- Salvation Jane (1927)
- Stranded (1927)
- Thumbs Down (1927)
- Burning Up Broadway (1928)
- Undressed (1928)
- Modern Mothers (1928)
- The Branded Man (1928)
- Marry the Girl (1928)
- The Apache (1928)
- The Peacock Fan (1929)
- The Faker (1929)
- Extravagance (1930)
- Lotus Lady (1930)
- The Rampant Age (1930)
- Second Honeymoon (1930)
- Worldly Goods (1930)
- El Codigo Penal (1930)
- Alias – the Bad Man (1931)
- Arizona Terror (1931)
- Branded Men (1931)
- The Pocatello Kid (1931)
- Two Gun Man (1931)
- Range Law (1931)
- Young Blood (1932)
- Whistlin' Dan (1932)
- The Gay Buckaroo (1932)
- The Vanishing Frontier (1932)
- A Man's Land (1932)
- Texas Gun Fighter (1932)
- Klondike (1932)
- Lena Rivers (1932)
- Self Defense (1932)
- Shadows of Sing Sing (1933)
- Black Beauty (1933)
- Devil's Mate (1933)
- Kiss of Araby (1933)
- The Sphinx (1933)
- The Phantom Broadcast (1933)
- Picture Brides (1933)
- Hold the Press (1933)
- Dangerous Corner (1934)
- Take the Stand (1934)
- Cheaters (1934)
- Little Men (1934)
- Woman in the Dark (1934)
- Beggars in Ermine (1934)
- West of the Pecos (1934)
- Born to Gamble (1935)
- The Unwelcome Stranger (1935)
- Death Flies East (1935)
- The Calling of Dan Matthews (1935)
- Ellis Island (1936)
- Easy Money (1936)
- The Bridge of Sighs (1936)
- The President's Mystery (1936)
- It Couldn't Have Happened – But It Did (1936)
- Brilliant Marriage (1936)
- Tango (1936)
- Missing Girls (1936)
- Three of a Kind (1936)
- It Could Happen to You (1937)
- Jim Hanvey, Detective (1937)
- Roaring Timber (1937)
- Two Wise Maids (1937)
- Youth on Parole (1937)
- The Marines Are Here (1938)
- Missing Evidence (1939)
- Ex-Champ (1939)
- Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
- Queen of the Yukon (1940)
- Forgotten Girls (1940)
- Double Alibi (1940)
- The Crooked Road (1940)
- The Deadly Game (1941)
- I Killed That Man (1941)
- Murder by Invitation (1941)
- Paper Bullets (1941)
- Roar of the Press (1941)
- Spooks Run Wild (1941)
- Road to Happiness (1941)
- The Man with Two Lives (1942)
- The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)
- A Gentle Gangster (1943)
- You Can't Beat the Law (1943)
- Wings Over the Pacific (1943)
- Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
- The Chinese Cat (1944)
- Call of the Jungle (1944)
- Return of the Ape Man (1944)
- Army Wives (1944)
- Black Magic (1944)
- Captain Tugboat Annie (1945)
- In Old New Mexico (1945)
- The Jade Mask (1945)
- The Scarlet Clue (1945)
- The Red Dragon (1946)
- The Shadow Returns (1946)
- Step By Step (1946)
- The Strange Mr. Gregory (1946)
- The Secret of St. Ives (1949)
This article about a mystery film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e