Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

biorngm Review - The Shanghai Cobra, Released 9-29-45 This Charlie Chan movie would considered one of the better efforts by Monogram, because the story holds the viewer interest throughout its hour plus run. There is intrigue from the start, coupled with crimes committed, mysterious methods involved in the deadly misdeeds, and a cast of characters keeping the observer constantly guessing. The action takes place primarily in and below a bank building, and some of the perpetrators are not obvious. There is little comic banter, more serious moves among the guest cast members, no wasteful scenes, gunfire, explosions, secret passageways, and a very interesting method of taking victims. The premise is the mystery murders from a cobra bite, similar to a crime in Shanghai years before, in which Charlie arrested a man named Van Horn for bank robbery and murder by cobra bite. It was the first day Japanese bombers flew over Shanghai, Van Horn was a prisoner, badly injured in the bombing. Inspector Mainwaring rode with Charlie to the British Police Headquarters to meet Van Horn for the second time. Van Horn had bandages about his head, telling Charlie is being framed. While being transported to Singapore, Van Horn jumped out of the transfer boat, and that was the last time Charlie says he heard of Van Horn. Van Horn returns to Washington D.C. to prove his innocence, employed as a bank guard with his daughter helping his cause employed as a bank President's secretary. Locally, three persons are murdered by the bite of cobra fangs, markings on the bodies indicate the bite. All three victims worked for the Sixth National Bank, the same bank as Van Horn and his daughter. There is an additional plot to steal the radium kept by the government in the bank vault. The bank is the distributing center for hospitals, laboratories and factories in this vicinity, utilizing the peaceful uses for the radioactive material. Chan, with the help from his old cohort in Honolulu, Inspector Davis, search for killers and thieves. The story weaves its way through characters, some obviously suspicious, others secretly active with the bank and others. Charlie Chan works the clues expertly, determining how the cobra bites were inflicted, in two ways, while apprehending the perpetrators.This movie is definitely worth watching for all the characters intertwining. The best is last, as usual, but there is really few wasted minutes in the film. Highly recommended.

Lechuguilla Theft of radium from a bank vault, a jukebox containing a camera, and a switchboard supervisor that understands Morris code figure into this murder mystery featuring Sidney Toler as the inimitable Charlie Chan. The story follows the same whodunit theme as other Charlie Chan mysteries. And I wish I could recommend this film; but I can't.The script is poorly written. I about tore my hair out trying to figure out who's who with these various story characters and how they related to each other, if at all. Suspects are poorly defined. There's very little suspense here. The plot is somewhat mangled with unexplained occurrences. Some unnecessary scenes could have been either shortened or deleted.The B&W lighting also is not high quality. Though the noir atmosphere at the very beginning is atmospheric, the lighting is so dark the viewer can hardly distinguish character faces in outdoor scenes. High contrast lighting is also too severe in underground segments.The "cobra" is actually a person that inflicts a small cigarette lighter device containing poison into the victim. It's an imaginative plot hook, but hardly realistic. Beyond that story hook and a couple of funny Birmingham character scenes, the poor script and outdoor lighting render "The Shanghai Cobra" below average in the Charlie Chan series of whodunits.

museumofdave If you're volunteering to watch a Charlie Chan movie, you already have some idea of what's in store, and as this is one of the late ones done at the Poverty Row Studio, Monogram, you may also know it's not heavy on either production values or a complex script.That said, director Phil Karlson sets up the first five minutes as if this were a dynamic, lurking-in-the-shadows film noir, and immediately slips from dark, shadowy streets into a brightly-lit diner where the juke-box is also a one-way television which connects to a secret room somewhere else in the city; what's not to like? Sounds like the start of a fascinating mystery! Unfortunately, the remainder of the film doesn't develop many more startling innovations or follow up much with the television, getting lost somewhere as the script pages went missing, perhapsThere are, however, character treats along with way, such familiar folks as George Chandler as a cynical soda jerk and familiar-face Addison Richards as a suspicious bank guard; the 64 minutes are well-spent for the average "B" movie fan--but this ain't The Maltese Falcon although almost any hour spent with Charlie Chan can be unadulterated escapism.

Spondonman Charlie's still working for the Federal Govt., and along with no. 3 son Tommy and the rather subdued Birmingham are trying to prevent a gang of crooks stealing some radium from an impenetrable bank vault. Who are also being tailed by a watchful someone who they framed 8 years before in Shanghai.They all seem to spend a lot of time in that old friend, the gas chamber from the Jade Mask, this time masquerading as the sewers under the bank. But the key to this movie's implausible Monogram-plot is the very advanced jukebox in the diner which is manned via television by baddies 2 blocks away in the depths of the Monogram bank. Unsurprisingly Charlie solves everything.All of the above probably makes it sounds utter tripe, but I've always liked this outing from the team, with a nice and dark nitrate atmosphere pervading throughout to compensate for the plot's definite shortcomings. Not so many smart ass one-liners as in other efforts, but none the worse for that! Sure, it's the usual cheap Monogram affair, but if you sat through it knowing that and didn't like it kiss that hour goodbye forever!