Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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.

bsmith5552 "Castle in the Desert" is noteworthy because it was the last of the Charlie Chan movies produced and released by 20th Century Fox. This one has the look of a Universal "B" horror film in that it set within the walls of a remote castle in the middle of the Mojave desert complete with a dungeon, a mysterious owner, shadowy halls, things that go bump in the night et al.Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is summoned to the castle by a note apparently sent by Lucy Manderly (Lenita Lane) the wife the wife of the owner (Douglas Dumbrille) a mysterious partly masked eccentric. On his arrival Charlie and later No. 2 son (Victor Sen Yung) find that a guest has apparently been poisoned. Lucy Manderly it seems is a descendant of the notorious Borgia family so suspicion immediately falls onto her. Manderly we learn, is a student of Cesar Borgia and is living as a recluse in an isolated castle to replicate Borgia's life and to write a book about him.Also at the castle are suspects Carl Dethridge (Richard Derr) who is there researching a project, sculptor Watson Key (Henry Daniell), Madame Saturnia (Ethel Griffies) a seer who predicts tragedy, Dr. Retling (Steven Geray) the Manderlay's personal physician and their lawyer Walter Hartford (Edmund MacDonals and his comely young wife Brenda (Arleen Whelan).Attempts are made on the lives of some of the guests including Charlie. Charlie discovers a sinister plot to discredit Manderly and take over his $20 million dollar fortune. And then a key figure is murdered. As part of Charlie's investigation son Jimmy dons a suit of armor with hilarious results. Needless to say Charlie unravels the mystery, identifies the culprits and moves on.Although this was the last of the Fox Chans that had begun in 1931, the series would be resurrected 1944 by poverty row studio Monogram where it would run first with Toler until his death in 1947 and later with Roland Winters until 1949.

dbborroughs Considered by many as the best of the Chan's this is possibly the one I like the least. The plot has Chan answering a call from someone needing his services and going alone to the title location. When he arrives he finds that a poisoner is on the loose. For me the film is all about the location, the huge sets of the castle are spectacular, however the plot gets lost in the empty halls. Its not that the plot is bad, its just there isn't enough to sustain the running time of about an hour. Even Jimmy Chan's appearance fails to add any sort of life to the proceedings. As much as I watch and rewatch the other films this is one I watch the least, doing so when ever it happens to come up on its no infrequent TV airings.

ccthemovieman-1 This is the only Charlie Chan I threw in the waste basket, but that's because I was disgusted with all the pro-astrology message in this film. For those who could care less about that, this will be another entertaining Chan mystery. For the rest of us, this was disappointing.Normally, Chan debunks these "stargazer" figures in his films but, for some reason, in this movie the astrologer is given total validity. Everything she predicts comes true so Chan gives her respect. It was amazing how many times the occult was presented in classic-era movies. Since the Code restricted profanity, nudity, anti-clergy bias, etc., one of the ways these could still get anti-Biblical messages across was through all the occult nonsense. This is just one more example.This was Sidney Toler's last Charlie Chan before switching studios, adding Mantan Moreland to the cast and making the last of the films a lot more humorous (or stupid, depending on what you prefer). Moreland was funny as "Birmingham Brown" but he also was demeaning to the black race with his role. Regardless of the stories or the cast, Charlie Chan always remained smart, funny and a good family man, and his films (including this one) are always entertaining.