Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

bkoganbing Not that Monogram invested too much of anything in their product under the tight fisted and Philistine like regime of Sam Katzman, but they do out do themselves with Docks Of New Orleans. Roland Winters, the third and last big screen Charlie Chan had taken over and this is the second of two Mr. Wong plots that I've discovered recycled for the Chan series.Docks Of New Orleans is remade from Mr. Wong Detective and when I wrote my review of that film I remarked that it was a truly unique and clever way that the culprit had of murdering the victims. Here the gimmick is told from the outset Taking the most important element of the previous film away.One of the partners of a chemical firm says that he feels betrayed by his two other partners and later on winds up dead in a proverbial locked room. Having consulted Roland Winters, Charlie Chan is brought in as a consultant to the New Orleans PD in the person here of John Gallaudet.There's both a smuggling racket and a murder plot and Winters has to solve both in order to solve either. If you saw the Mr. Wong film than you know how this ends and who was doing what.

Michael O'Keefe A ship is being loaded at the Port of New Orleans, where the LaFontanne Chemical Company is shipping out a load of chemicals. Mr. LaFontanne(Boyd Irwin)is visited by two of his partners that for some reason want a death waiver on each other put in place; this demand seems suspicious just as Mr. LaFontanne discovering that he is being followed. There is the chance that the ship is being loaded with something other than chemicals and it is becoming apparent that someone doesn't want the ship ever leaving the dock. LaFontanne hires Charlie Chan(Roland Winters)to find out who and why he is being shadowed. In the mean time a former partner thinks the Chemical Company swindled him out of his invention of a poison gas...now he wants more than he was originally paid. This is a reason to threaten Mr. Fontanne, who drops dead in his office before a meeting with Chan. This script is too contrived and poorly acted. Winters just doesn't have the charisma to be a decent Charlie Chan. Other players: Birmingham Brown, Victor Sen Young, Virginia Dale, Howard Negley, Douglas Fowley and John Gallaudet.

tedg This could be considered yet another manufactured episode in a tired series.But the Chan things had some pretty clever writers, so far as plot devices.One thing that made them dull was that you were introduced to the crooks early in the game; the battle of wits was boring. Here, the crooks you are introduced to are not the only ones and are being manipulated themselves. Sure, there is the pretty woman who is part of the gang and who gets cheated...But I would like to point out a rather remarkable plot point. The plot requires that a glass container of poison gas be released. This container can be planted ahead of time and triggered remotely. As it happens, the trigger involves a radio.Now common sense in the real world would have this glass vial be secreted in some convenient place, easy to place and remain hidden. But the story here has this vial in the form of a radio tube placed in the radio. The reason is that viewers would make the radio- gas connection better. In other words, it is a concession to cinematic storytelling even though it makes no sense, no sense at all if you think about it. But it makes absolute sense when presented. Smart writing.Those Chinese!Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

MartinHafer Fans of the Charlie Chan series may notice right away that Victor Sen Yung (#2 Son) is named 'Tommy' instead of 'Jimmy' as he'd been in many films before. Somehow, he was re-named Tommy late in the life of the franchise and no one seemed to notice or care. In many ways, this is a metaphor for the overall health of the series--no one seemed to particularly notice or care that the series was on cruise control, of sorts.Another thing fans will probably recognize is the overall lack of fun in this film. Since the death of Sidney Toler, the next films all seemed very dry--even with the support of Mantan Moreland. It really just seemed as if the writers didn't mind that the films lost a lot of the 'fun factor'.The plot of the film involves three men who agree to share a company. However, when they start to die off one by one, it is assumed that the surviving partner(s) are at fault. A rather routine story and so I'm not really going to discuss it further but it sure is obvious there's more to the killings. In the end, Charlie talks and talks to explain the convoluted plot, though because this is such a low-energy and adequate film, I think my review should be the same and I'll just stop here. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.