Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

biorngm The movie was definitely a mystery throughout the production, as people died but did not actually pass, but one person was brutally stabbed well into the film. Red-herrings abounded when Chan arrives to greet the cast of guilty parties, some innocents and some eccentric, and there was Jimmy, caught up in the plot as usual. Greed, once again, was a factor, coupled with prejudice, racism, and references to a Shakespearean work. This was a well written story, played out professionally by the entire cast, and it kept the viewer guessing until the end. First there was the plan to discredit the host and hostess which was a hinderance to the actual killer, the really greedy individual, having to extinguish the original perpetrator in order to gain the ultimate goal of taking over a vast estate. The plot is definitely complicated by the remote castle without a phone or electricity, and soon there was to be no method of transportation. There is a murderer in a castle without communication, transportation of electricity, all with loads of red-herrings. Charlie does an excellent job solving multiple crimes, i.e. fraud and felony going hand-in-hand. Charlie has no additional police assistance while he is conquering the many obstacles in the pursuit of a happy ending. You have to watch for characters appearing, counted as deceased, then reappearing in disguise to actually aid in capturing the killer. For Twentieth Century Fox to close out the eleventh of eleven films as WW II was underway, this was one above par for the Saturday afternoon crowd. Kudos to Toler and cast for bringing the film along at a well-paced effort and keeping everyone in suspense. Recommend a watch for the intrigue set namely in a familiar interior setting.

Hitchcoc Some supposedly bad folks live in a castle in the desert. We are privy to a murder, when a man who has had some friction with the principle characters, dies from a poison drink. Meanwhile, Charlie and Jimmy receive a cryptic message to come to the castle. The family, which are supposedly descendants of the Borgias, are shunned by their neighbors. Charlie gets someone to take him there against the wishes of others in the town and not long after that the number two son shows up like a bad penny. It turns out that this is one weird family. A private detective shows up shortly after and he is poisoned. I rather enjoyed the bleakness of this as well as the skeletons in the closet of these persons. It was quite entertaining.

bkoganbing Citizen Kane might have indirectly inspired this Charlie Chan classic oddly enough. The setting is a Castle In The Desert whose look might have been taken from the real life San Simeon or the film Xanadu. But it has that look of a sinister place where all kinds of crime does occur. And in this case murder does visit the Castle In The Desert.There are two criminal conspiracies going on at the same time and the instigator of one has the hubris to ask Charlie Chan in to help with one. Silly perpetrator, did the individual not realize what forces they were turning loose, the mind of one shrewd detective?Sidney Toler arrives with Victor Sen Yung as number 2 son and they're both among others trapped in the place. Their hosts are eccentric millionaire Douglass Dumbrille and wife Lenita Lane with such interesting and varied guests as Ethel Griffies, Henry Daniell, Steven Geray, Arleen Whelan, Richard Derr, Edmund MacDonald, and Milton Parsons, all of whom have dabbled in screen villainy. In fact that's the best thing going about Castle In The Desert, a ton of red herrings to choose from.Castle In The Desert is not one of the strongest Charlie Chan features and 20th Century Fox would drop the series after this film and it would reemerge at Monogram in two years. But the cast makes this one a lot of fun.

Lechuguilla After a muddled, convoluted first half, the plot really picks up in the second half. A big house full of suspects, candles in lieu of electric lights, an ever-so-subtle echo from the large rooms, and at least one murder combine to create mystery and suspense. At one point in the second half, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) advises all: "Return to rooms, lock doors; no one is safe now." Good plot misdirection leads us astray, as some "facts" aren't what they seem to be.The overall premise is vaguely believable. But a runtime of only 62 minutes suggests an underdeveloped plot. We don't really get to know the suspects very well. The film hardly gets started; then it's over.One character is strictly ornamental. I could also have done without number 2 son (Victor Sen Yung), added apparently as comic relief, who comes across as merely annoying, mostly because Sen Yung overacts.Stark B&W lighting creates a creepy look and feel, with Chan's very white suit against a dark background and eerie shadows. Some overhead camera shots add visual interest. The castle itself creates an atmosphere of isolation."Castle In The Desert" ends better than it starts. A script re-write, both to make the first half clearer and to expand the back-stories of the characters, would have helped. Even so, it's not a bad Chan film, owing mostly to some good plot misdirection and effective cinematography.